Body Brushing

Body brushing (dry) has a lot of benefits besides helping to shed dead skin cells which encourage new cell growth, which results in a smoother and healthier skin. It also stimulates the body’s circulation and gets the lymphatic system moving.

The lymphatic system has no pump of its own and relies on body movement that increases blood circulatuion to function. This helps to shed excess water, improve digestion, kidney function, stimulates the connective tissue near the skin which opens ups the capillaries. All this increase in blood flow and lymph system drainage helps to remove toxins from metabolic waste from the body. Its an invigorating practice.

Just as the name implies your body is dry and also the brush. You are unclothed so you can brush all of the skin on your body using long gentle strokes that are in one direction not back and forth. Some say you brush towards the heart. I like to brush towards the major lymph nodes which would be the neck line under the jaw, armpits and groin.

So whole face down to neck including neck, finger tips to arm pits brushing whole arm, each side of chest and back towards respective arm pit,  Mid torso including back down towards groin and from the toes to groin. Long gentle stocks.

I perform my brushing as one of the first things I do in my morning practices. The dry brushing helps to wake the body up slowly before moving on to other ways to slowly wake the body up which i will discuss in future post.