Move your lymph and strengthen your ankles to support your immunity
Your immune system is complex and multilayered. It includes seemingly unrelated parts of your body, like skin, mucus, and tears; a range of organs and tissues, like bone marrow, thymus, spleen, and lymph nodes; and a whole lot of cells and chemicals, like antibodies, lymphocytes, cytokines, B cells, T cells, and many, many others. Despite all this complexity, all parts of your immune system are concerned with one single task: to identify what belongs in your body and what doesn’t, and then destroy what doesn’t belong if it’s deemed harmful.
We all want our immune systems to work properly, to protect our bodies from dangerous invaders, and not to mistake our own healthy cells for threats. It is understandable that we would want to use our yoga practice to support our immune function, but we cannot be cavalier and assume that by stretching here and squeezing there, we would have a significant impact on how the immune system does its job. In yoga, when we work with incredibly complex aspects of our physiology, we focus more on the movement of energy throughout the body and the placement of attention. With that approach, our yoga poses become “energetic pumps” that move energy and nourishment to different parts of the system and support their function. According to the yoga tradition, energy also follows attention, so by bringing our attention to specific organs and body parts, we invigorate them.
Your lymphatic system defends your body against pathogens in your environment, as well as internal threats like cancer cells. It is made up of millions of little vessels that branch out to almost every organ and tissue. Lymph travels along those vessels from your toes and fingertips up toward your neck against gravity. The movement of your skeletal muscles (particularly the muscles of the legs) and rhythmic respiration facilitate the steady flow of lymph throughout the body.
In this practice, we use different adaptations of the Chair pose with ankle movement to facilitate a steady lymph flow throughout the system to support our immune function. The practice includes other yoga poses that serve the same purpose, as well as breath awareness and guided relaxation at the end. This practice also helps to warm up and strengthen your ankles, knees, thighs, and hips, while awakening your upper back and neck, so it is very useful if you sit a lot during the day. Please give it a try and see how it feels!
Get three additional yoga practices for immunity and many other yoga videos for skeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, nervous, and digestive systems in the Zoom In Within yoga series.
Dear Olga,
As a faithful yoga teacher and your follower I am most grateful for today’s practice which nourished my whole body, mind and spirit.
Congratulations,
Sincerely,
Bea?
Hello! Thank you for talking about this and showing examples. I have been thinking for a long time about considering yoga as the beginning of a physical activity. It always seemed to me that this is more spiritual than a physical practice. But now, having read several sources, I can confidently say that despite the slowness of the exercises, it also has the property of getting you in shape. At first, I considered this practice for weight loss and now I understand that it is more like a life path.
Brilliant as always. Thank you so much. Xxxx
Bea’s comments echo mine exactly. Thank you, Olga, for all that you offer and bring, with love, to our practice of yoga. Namaste. Diane