The Lymphatic Connection: An Overlooked Driver of Menopause Symptoms

Imagine waking up at 3:00 AM, hot and sweaty, brain fog, feeling heavy, and it blankets your entire morning. And despite having a calorie deficit, despite walking until your feet just run off, you can't seem to get rid of that belly fat. And you've been told it's hormones, it's estrogen, it's menopause, and maybe you're told it's just getting older. But in women's health, we often just focus on the hormone signals. But today, we're gonna talk about something that's rarely ever looked at, and it's the highway system that evacuates metabolic waste, clears cellular debris, and it actually allows those hormones to communicate, and it actually brings the raw material to your cells to communicate because your issue may not be just about your hormones, and it may not be just about the fatigue and everything else. It might be a little bit—

A little bit of both.

A little bit, it might be a little bit of a plumbing problem. So today I'm joined by Dr. John Douillard, who is an Ayurvedic and research expert bringing the science of Ayurveda together with real science and bringing those things together. Basically taking what we know to be true through thousands of years of use of Ayurvedic medicine to help people get and stay well, but actually bringing it together with the, the data that's actually in the medical journals. So we had a great conversation today about a lot of the things that you don't know that may be contributing to your gut problems, your digestive issues, your heartburn, your visceral fat that won't go away, your brain fog, all kinds of skin issues, rashes, acne. So this is one you don't want to miss. So, Dr. DuJardin, I, I'm excited about this conversation because obviously I've been talking for years, if not decades at this point, about perimenopause and menopause, but we're gonna have a conversation today that I think really gets missed because we think of the hormone signals and we talk about the action of the hormones. But, you know, especially from Ayurvedic standpoint, there's a whole lot more going on with the body and specifically around the lymphatic system and how important that is to— to our health in general, but obviously in that perimenopause and menopause transition. Yeah. So, so, so tell— I want you to tell my listeners a little bit about how Ayurveda looks at the body as a whole, because it may be something brand new, brand new to my listeners. And then especially looking at how we can look at the lymphatics when we're talking specifically about women's health.

You know, what's interesting about the lymphatic system is there's volumes of research in the medical journals, really very little of it, if any, really is in medical practice. We only think of the lymph when we have cancer or something like that. So there's a lot of information that we really need to talk about. Now, from the Ayurvedic perspective, the study of the lymphatic system was the study of longevity. So they had a whole branch, this, this thousand-year-old system of medicine from kind of ancient India, still in practice today. Matter of fact, the All Indian Ayurvedic Congress is the largest medical organization in the world. So, I mean, it's been around for thousands of years. It's still here today in a ma— in a major way, probably something to it. And what I do is I kind of try to find the science to back up this ancient wisdom. So if you have ancient wisdom and modern science, that's a great place for folks to start. 'Cause science alone really can prove whatever it wants. As we know, coffee can be good, weed can be good, weed can be bad. I mean, it's so confusing. No one really knows. You can't believe a study anymore. It's just really sad. Yeah. But if you have a time-tested wisdom and the science, I feel like it's a great place to start. So the lymphatic system is such an important system. We talk so little about it, and it does 3 major things, and they're major, and a lot of little minor things. The major one is it carries your entire immune system.

Yeah.

The second one is it takes out all the trash from every cell of your body. And the third, which is important for hormones, it delivers fatty acids to deliver basically the fatty acids, which are the precursors to the hormones to every cell of your body. It's for baseline energy, it's for the phospholipid layer of your skin, and it's also for hormone production. Plus it clears the hormones. So the hormones that are fat soluble in your body are gonna be like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and cortisol. Those are the fat soluble ones. So those are the ones that are somewhat dependent on lymphatic flow, right? So, Here are some of the things that be an indicator that your lymph system ain't working so great. That would be holding onto water, rings getting tight on your fingers, ankles swelling, being tired or lethargic 'cause you're not delivering the fatty acids for baseline energy. Food intolerances, because if you don't break the food down properly in your stomach and liver and gallbladder and pancreatic enzymes, they will end up The undigested proteins and fats will end up in your lymphatic system, altering what's called the gut-associated lymph, which is also, as we know, the gut immunity, which is 70 to 80% of your immune response. So poor digestion causes lymphatic congestion, which is extra weight around your belly, is where it first starts. It can come out through the skin-associated lymph and create rashes or skin issues. It can go into the— Bloodstream. Brain, lymph, and glymphatic system, which are linked to a host of health concerns, including autoimmunity and anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, inflammation, infection. Because the brain can't get rid of its trash, it doesn't know how many fire trucks to send to an immune event somewhere in your body. So it sends too many or too little. So it can be, you know, not getting the trash out of your joints. So your joints start to ache. Yeah. You can wake up tired and lethargic. You have to get moving to feel better. These are all drain clogging issues, and that's what the lymphatic system is doing, taking the trash out, carrying immunity, and delivering fatty acids for energy and hormones and things like that. So there's a whole list of things. We have a lymph quiz you can take to take the whole quiz and find out, okay, I got check, check, check, check. My lymph's congested, so now we gotta fix that. Mm-hmm. And then, we gotta fix the upstream cause of that, which is some breakdown of your digestion. And we gotta troubleshoot that, which isn't rocket science.

Yeah, you know, it's, you know, like all those things that you just described, I think women are probably sitting here going, "Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check." You know, 'cause there's also the understanding that we've got changes to vascular system, lymph transport, and everything else because of the changes in estrogen, right? And all the sex hormones during perimenopause and menopause. So, you know, we also think of that. So, I want to back up now that we sort of identified those pieces. When we talk about the digestive tract, you know, a lot of people focus, and I mean, I've been in the functional medicine community for 22 years and they focus kind of on food sensitivities, food allergies, food intolerances. And, for women in perimenopause and menopause, we see this sort of accel— for a lot of women, acceleration of these symptoms. They're like, "I don't understand." And I can tell you after these 22 years of being in the science trenches of this world, I very much have the mindset not to say that food sensitivities aren't real and celiac's not real and all those other things, but I think the appreciation of the function of the digestive tract and how it works completely gets missed because it's always the chicken or the egg. Is it the digestive tract that's not working? Is it the microbiome or is it the food itself or is it the actual function of digestion that then drives those other drivers? I'm a firm believer I'm a believer that it is a lot of functional issues of digestion, you know.

I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, I wrote a book called "Eat Wheat," which was not necessarily that we should all be eating wheat. It was just the fact that wheat has become a public enemy because we've been told that it causes Alzheimer's and all these concerns. And it clearly, the science really shows it absolutely doesn't. However, It is a hard-to-digest protein, gluten. And so are a lot of the lectins and the goitrogens and the oxalates and the nightshades and the phytic acids. And we're being told, "Don't eat, don't eat, don't eat, don't eat." And we end up bubble wrapping the diet, not giving the body any challenge. And when you challenge the digestion, it's, or hormesis effect, you know, it makes you stronger when you, our ancestors ate everything, right? And they got stronger as a result of, they didn't have, food intolerances because they were barely, you know, they ate whatever they could get their hands on. So when we actually take the hardest to digest foods out of the diet, we don't end up with the irritation, slight irritation of the intestinal mucosa that triggers gut immunity. Our immune response is because we need something to be created an immune system for. And those harder to digest lectins and nightshades, they provide that little bit of irritation, that little hormetic effect that causes gut immunity. So when you bubble wrap your diet and take all the food outta your diet, and I get it, if you don't feel good eating wheat, of course don't eat it. You don't feel good eating anything, don't eat it. But don't just think you fixed it by just taking the food outta the diet. You just took the stressor away. You didn't fix the reason why you can't digest it. You could do it when you're 18, but now when you're 45 or 50, you can't. Like, what happened?

Yeah.

Well, the digestive system broke down. And like you said, there's many reasons for that. There is the food, there is the environment, the pesticides, there's a whole bunch of things. But what ends up happening is our digestion breaks down. And this is a study I'll quote for you. Said the study showed that if you don't break down the proteins, the gluten and all that, and the fats, the 70 million tons of environmental pollutants we dump in our atmosphere, which filter out on everything, they're fat soluble for the most part. If you don't break down those fats and those proteins well, they will go incompletely digested into your intestinal tract. And because they're not broken down, they're too big to get into your blood and nourish you, they get uptaken into the lymphatic collecting ducts, which makes you, creates issues with gut immunity, which is a big deal, and it also creates extra weight around your belly and hips, and then it goes into your lymphatic system systemically, makes your skin-associated lymph break down, you start getting, your skin doesn't look the way you'd like it to be, you get rashes, it can go into the brain lymph, And that can create brain fog and cognitive issues. As I mentioned, it can go into the general lymph where your joints begin to ache, you feel tired, you just start feeling old. These are all drain clogging issues which start from the upstream issue. So what we really wanna do is troubleshoot, is it the stomach, is it bile, the pancreatic, the water enzyme, the environment of the intestinal lining, is it the intestinal lining, is it the lymph around the gut? We just troubleshoot those with a simple questionnaire and then you kind of figure out, oh, this is my problem, then I fix that and you're—

Yeah.

You can start eating wheat again or whatever it is that you're intolerant to.

Well, and I think especially the bile flow gets completely missed in this arena. Very, very sensitive to estrogen levels through the liver and the gallbladder. I mean, if you look at just how many people get gallbladder removed, it's like 10 to 1 female to male. And so, you know, women continue to narrow down their diet and then they, you know, have all these ensuing sort of digestive problems and other problems with it. And, I agree, I think we narrow the diet. And, of course, in today's social media world, that's very popular. The people that get the most hits and the more virality are the ones that have the most extreme sort of stance. But, I think it makes people very frightened of food and then it obviously gets narrower and narrower and then they can't tolerate anything. Yeah. And then, they feel worse and worse and worse, and the nutrient situation gets worse. So, if you were to look at somebody having all those problems, a woman having all those problems, and they recognize, "Oh, I can't get my rings off. My feet are swollen by the end of the day. I have all this going on." How would you sort of help them? And I know you have a questionnaire, and we're going to send everybody that website so you can find the questionnaire. How do you help your clients understand sort of how to layer this approach? Because there's an order to things, 'cause that's getting missed all the time too. It's like, "I have to do everything." It's like, "No, there's an order in which to address these problems." Yeah, so there's two sides to that.

One, we have to kind of, and we can do this real quick today a little bit, troubleshoot what part of the digestion is broken. But the other piece of the puzzle, which is never really talked about, tons of science to back it up, is that the diaphragm is the number one pump for your lymphatic system. So we don't think about the diaphragm as a lymphatic pump, but that's exactly what it is. And studies show with elite athletes, 91% of them did not have a diaphragm relaxing and fully contracting fully, which means, you know, none of us really do. 'Cause every time we get a little stressed out, we change how we breathe. That little bit of shallow breathing becomes normal. And then another one comes along and next thing you know, your rib cage, which has one job, squeeze air out, becomes rigid and the diaphragm becomes weaker. And that means you lose your lymphatic pump. And there's 15 studies, easy, that's in the medical journals that show that if you strengthen your diaphragm, fully contract, fully relax it, something called maximum inspiratory breathing, You'll reverse the heartburn, the GERD, the reflux, the indigestion. Other studies show it'll lower your blood pressure as fast as a Western medication. It's the pump of the cerebral spinal fluid to wash the 3 pounds of trash and plaque outta your brain every year while you're sleeping at night. So if you don't have good diaphragmatic function, you're not pumping the trash out, you get brain fog, things start happening here. The brain doesn't know how many fire trucks to send for an immune event, problems happen. And then of course the diaphragm is the pump of particularly pumping the lymph out of your abdomen, which is why we get all the extra weight around our belly first, is the lymphatic congestion. So strengthening the diaphragm is super easy, and I can show you like a 5-minute-a-day technique to make sure that diaphragm stays turned on for you for the rest of your life, 'cause that's critically important.

I would love for you to do that because I think, you know, I was having this conversation actually with one of the founders of,— one of the little devices, kind of like an Oura Ring. We were talking about heart rate variability. And what he found when he was going through kind of all this additional testing is his heart rate variability wasn't that great. And it literally had narrowed down completely on a VO2 max test and some other additional tests that he did that he was literally never diaphragmatic breathing. You know, it's like, so if your heart rate variability is terrible, this may actually be a sign that you actually are not extending your abdominal wall completely out and fully diaphragmatic breathing. And I was, you know, I was like, you know, a great signal because most people have no idea that they're not breathing properly.

It's true. And the research on this, which I thought was really fascinating, suggested that it had to be what's called maximum inspiratory breathing, which unfortunately, and I'm an Ayurvedic practitioner and I study and research and write about pranayama techniques, incredible research there. But very few of any of the pranayama techniques actually give you maximum inspiratory breathing.

I didn't know that.

And that's the trick, right? Now, the trick is when you think maximum inspiratory breathing, you're thinking as big a breath as you possibly can. And if you take that kind of upper chest breath, it sort of triggers the fight or flight emergency bear in the woods feeling, which we don't want. So we have to trick the body to take a maximum breath without activating the fight or flight stress response. And that's what we do. So what you do is, is you would, you would, I'm not sure if this is gonna be a video or just audio or not, but— We'll do both.

We always do both.

Oh, okay, cool. So what you would do is you would, you would learn to just, it's always gonna breathe through your nose. You have to breathe long, slow, deep, and maximal. And you would do a first, a 3-part breath. Breathe in through your nose, fill your belly only like a Buddha, stick it out.

Mm-hmm.

And then go to your chest, and then the upper chest. And then to take it to Maximo, you take little sips of air. When you go all the way to the top, you'll feel a little pull under the rib cage. That's your diaphragm going down and your rib cage sort of going up, right? So then you breathe out all the way. The key is also you have to breathe out all the way, squeeze that abdomen to get every last bit of air out. You do get used to doing that 3-part breath, and then you start using your arms as levers. Reach for the sky, Do the exact same breath, fill your belly through your nose, fill your chest through your nose, reach for the sky as you go into the upper chest, and then take little sips of air through the nose. As you reach, sip, reach, sip, your arms are like levers bringing that rib cage up and you feel a bigger pull under the rib cage and you do 10 like that. And then you do 10 to the side to get the lateral rib cage. So you breathe in belly, Chest, upper chest, sip, sip, sip to max as you laterally bend all the way. And as you sip, sip, sip, sip, you feel a big pull right in here. Do you feel that?

Yeah.

Dr. Betty Murray. So then when you breathe out, you go all the way to the other side. So you do 10 straight up, 10 left, 10 right. Takes you about 5 minutes. You can do it in front of your computer. And that just frees up that rib cage from your, and your diaphragm from being literally stuck and adhered together. And that's what happens to most of us over time. Is the rib cage gets tight, the diaphragm gets weaker, they kind of get glued together. The stomach and all the digestive organs depend on a functional diaphragm, 'cause if you're not breathing into the diaphragm, your fight or flight upper chest, which tells you, "Don't, don't, don't be ordering pizza when a bear is chasing me. This is not the time to eat." So if you don't have access to a full functioning diaphragm, you don't really get the full neurological activation of a digestive system. And— you know, and the stomach gets stuck up against the diaphragm. All kinds of burping, heartburn, indigestion. These are all diaphragmatic issues. And when was the last time you went to the doctor for heartburn and they said, oh, you can do these breathing techniques. There's great research on if all you gotta do is this breathing technique, it'll reverse your heartburn. That never happens.

Never.

And I feel like some of this is like, so is like malpractice because no one tells you that you can do so many of these things yourself just by Literally breathe away your heartburn, breathe away your blood pressure just by getting your diaphragm. The extra belly fat, the brain fog, the cognitive decline, those are pumping issues. And the major pump is your diaphragm. And as we get stressed out and get rigid and we sit in the couch and the rib cage gets pushed down in the diaphragm, pushing it in a downward position, we literally are just making it more and more difficult for us to have full respiratory capacity and efficiency. Yeah.

You know, and I'm glad you brought up kind of the fight or flight because it's the parasympathetic drive that really allows all those things, even just the migrating motor complex. So, even if people are like, "Oh, I don't have heartburn. I don't have indigestion." Constipation, diarrhea, all those things require appropriate sort of migrating motor complex and parasympathetic drive to work right, you know, and function completely.

Yeah. And I think that's, you know, that's the first step is get your diaphragm turned back on and get that pump going. I mean, you know, studies show women with breast cancer have more congestion of the anterior diaphragmatic lymph nodes, which is the— that diaphragm is a pump for lymph, which is taking all the trash away from your breast tissue, obviously is more lymphatic based. And if you don't have that pump, you know, we can't take the trash out the way we could, and that can create real problems. So it's so logical and so valuable. And I went into a restaurant a few years back and there was a couple of elderly folks in their 90s coming out of this like doors that were swinging. And they were really struggling to get out of this restaurant. Their mouths were open, they were really frail. And I looked at them, I said, man, if someone would've told 'em they could just breathe away the heartburn, the GERD, the reflux, the indigestion, they could breathe away the brain fog and the age-related cognitive decline, they could actually lower their blood pressure by actually breathing. They can help get their digestion turned back so they digest the food deliver it the way they were dying when they were— where they could when they were younger. This is like all hard science. And again, we just don't talk about it. And then the second part is how do we kind of turn the digestion back on and kind of give some basic info on troubleshooting it, which is not also rocket science, pretty straightforward.

Yeah. You know, so the other thing that I think about too is, you know, if we were to look at just one thing someone can do, so obviously every day they— somebody could do that exercise, but even if you're sitting down to eat, if you just did 5, 5 of those breaths, you would actually probably improve your entire eating experience and your likelihood for symptoms, right? So, it doesn't require a lot of hard work to just improve that. So, let's now kind of move— so, we talked a little bit about breathing and moving the lymph. I want to talk about kind of the physicality of the body because, you know, the reality is in the Western world, we don't move very much. You know, exercise is people's greatest form of punishment for whatever they did the day before, if they do it at all, right? We spend hours— I mean, I spend hours sitting at the desk and I have to get up and do, you know, do things to move around. But our lymphatic doesn't have a pump like the heart. And, you know, Ayurvedic medicine, Ayurvedic principles, there's an important part of the overall system to respect and understand that the body is a moving organism and that we need to support support it. So what are some things that people can do that helps move the lymph and even the fascia, which I wanna get into a little bit too, because that gets missed in the conversation.

Yeah. So if I were to give folks one thing to do, would be clearly the most important thing is what Ayurveda calls shata pavali, which means take a walk after your meal. The impact of the food going through your arteries, particularly in your heart, the most damage and irritation happens after a meal. So if we go eat a meal and then go plop on the couch and sit in that slouched position, oh my God, that is so devastating to the cardiovascular system. But if you get up and eat them, ate the meal in a relaxed way, you could even rest for a while or talk for a while. You could do the dishes. And then before you go plop on the couch, just take the clicker if you can't go outside and just march. for 15 minutes with the clicker in your hand. You could like find the Netflix thing you're looking at, whatever. But I'm just saying, just move for 15 minutes. And what that will do is if you're breathing through your nose properly as well, like I was doing, like we're saying, you'll, you'll empty, you'll increase how quickly the food leaves your stomach. So it doesn't go up against your diaphragm. It'll lower your blood sugar spikes, which are dramatically inflammatory for your gut. It'll lower— your blood pressure. It'll take all the stress off your cardiovascular system, which is huge, which is why so many people get heart attacks after a really big late dinner. They go to sleep and they wake up with a heart attack middle of the night and game over. It's really, really a game changer to just before you sit down on the couch, just move for 15 minutes. It's such a powerful tool. And that of course will get your lymphatic system moving, which is also taking a lot of the trash out after digestion. helping your circulatory system really function. It's one thing folks can do, which is a dramatic key.

You know, and the other thing, we have solid research showing that that same action will lower postprandial or post-eating blood sugar almost by half, right? Because you're using it as you're moving. So even if somebody's blood sugar's running a little bit high, their A1C might be getting a little bit higher, like that also has a huge metabolic effect. As well. You know, so, so obviously lymphatic only pumps when we move. So, the more sedentary we are, the worse the lymphatic system is, is at functioning. Let's talk a little bit about fascia too because our lymphatics run through fascia and, and we don't probably treat our body nice enough and do things to also support our fascia.

Yeah. So, there's Your fascia is like that Saran Wrap that wraps every organ, every muscle, every tissue in your body. And that actually, that has a drainage system called interstitial fluid, which are little tubulars which drain into the lymphatic system. So the fascia has a direct lymphatic drainage system, which is supported by movement. However, if you have poor digestion and you keep dumping undigested proteins and fats into the lymphatic system, Well then you're gonna begin to start having some of that lymphatic congestion. And of course that's why yoga was created thousands of years ago to actually use breathing. You know, in that, in, there's an article that I wrote based on these exercises I gave you, the harm stuff I just taught you, and it's called The Best Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises. And the third video in that article was actually to do some very simple yoga postures, like go into a twist and then do belly, chest, upper chest, sip, sip, sip to max, flip it the other way.

Mm-hmm.

Belly, like you're wringing out the rib cage, the diaphragm, the stomach, the upper digestive organs. And it's— there's so much science to show that this actually works. And you don't have to do anything really major, or like, I'm not a yogi by any stretch. I'm not super flexible, but doing like child's pose and doing the slow maximal breathing, and then a sphinx or a cobra, and then flip over to a bridge, and then And then do a, throw one leg over and do a twist in the other direction. And all of a sudden you start to create some elasticity that you didn't have. And that's so critical for the fascia, you know, and the lymphatic system. And of course the delivery of fats as hormonal precursors. 'Cause if you don't have the delivery of the lymph system delivering fats, you're not gonna actually have the hormones, the fatty acids to make the hormones with. But we go to the doctor and they say, "Oh, your hormones are low." We just give you hormones. And I think that's fine, but don't you think the first step should be like, why is your body not making its hormones? You were going into menopause, your ovaries are retiring, we're opening up a new manufacturing center in Mexico. They don't really know what they're doing down there, so we're gonna have to help them. And that's your skin and your liver are now trying to make hormones. So they need two things. They need delivery of fatty acids, which are the precursors for the fat-soluble hormones. And they also sometimes need all the ingredients in the pantry to make the goods, right? You need to have, you know, certain hormonal precursors. And that's what Ayurveda also delivers with some very simple whole herbs or foods to make sure that's there. And then more often than not, and if the other piece of the puzzle is the lymph, there's a lymphatic drainage from the reproductive system. And if that's compromised, again, you're simply not gonna make those hormones. So they're gonna go to the doctor and say, oh, you're low, which is the gas tank says low, let's fill it up. We never ask the question why, and we just go right to the hormones and maybe they're good and maybe they're bad. I don't think anyone really knows. There's science on both sides of that aisle.

Mm-hmm.

But whenever you take a hormone, by definition, it means you're gonna, it's gonna block your production. So that's not necessarily what folks really want. I mean, they want the longevity benefit of the hormone, but we also kind of want to be able to not become dependent on a pill or a powder, which is unfortunately the way we do it in Western medicine today. So that's what makes so much logical sense. Let's give that a go first. And if that doesn't work and you can't, then yeah, of course do the bioidentical hormones. But do we have to start by just doing the job for the body? Why don't we just try to get the body to do the job. Makes more sense.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting that you kind of bring that up, 'cause the average age in Western world is about 51 for menopause. Some people go earlier, like I was about 48. You know, I have a woman that's 58, and it's like, when is this gonna end? But, you know, the app Flo did a study, and I can't remember if it was Johns Hopkins, but they did a joint study survey of their users, and their users are predominantly women, who are not in that kind of perimenopausal-menopausal state but are more of your fertility and just period tracking. And what they found that a good third of the one that answered that study, now granted, probably because they were having issues, were already having symptoms that are associated with perimenopause and menopause. So, we're talking 35 years old. And, you know, some of that could be yes, but it— again, you look at it and you go, "Well, why?" Yeah. Stress response, all of the things that we're talking about here, I think that's why we're seeing toxins in our environment, all kinds of things. We're seeing younger and younger women going through kind of early ovarian failure or early ovarian sort of shutdown that may or may not need to be there. And so, I agree because we get contacted a lot by very young women. I'm like, "Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Hold on a minute. Let's figure out what's going on first." Right? Yeah.

You're so right. You know, I experienced that in my own practice where many, many years ago, probably 20 years ago or so, I started noticing that women with, you know, PMS symptoms, which are, you know, breast swelling or tenderness or holding onto water, you know, skin breaking out or, you know, anxiety and, you know, stress-related, you know, issues. And all those symptoms that I was seeing they looked exactly like lymphatic congestive issues, right? So I went into the medical journals and I found out that there's actually a premenstrual lymphatic drainage pump that pumps, not pump, but drainage lymphatic system that drains from ovulation to the beginning of your flow. The lymphatic system is taking some of the trash, waste away from the reproductive system, like a premenstrual detox process. So the onus of menstruation doesn't only flow during those 4 days, the body helps kind of pre-detoxify the system through the lymph. And if you're dumping that lymph into an already congested lymphatic system, it's gonna create pressure. Breasts will swell, become tender, you'll break out, you get more anxiety and worry. And so I started giving women a, an herb called Manjishtha, which is the classic Ayurvedic herb for lymph. And in like 50 to 70% of the time, they all got better. So I wrote an article on my website called, "It May Not Be Hormonal, It Might Be Lymph, and We Should Evaluate That First," before we just go give you hormones. And it was, that was a long time ago. Now I wrote an article recently about all the volumes of research linking hormone-related issues to congestion of the lymph. And now it's like, again, buried in the medical journal, not in medical practice, but it's really there. And that's what I wrote about. Say, hey, you know what? We really should take a better look at this because there's good science to back it up. They've been doing it for thousands of years, understanding it that way. Why don't we— you know, take a look at that.

Yeah. And so I want to talk a little bit about manual therapies because I think this also gets missed is a lot of people go, oh, well, I go get massage or I get this or I get that. But people are often doing deeper tissue things that actually can damage the lymph that actually do not help it. Talk a little bit about that. And then also a little bit about kind of the different other therapies people can use, whether it's dry brushing and other things to sort of stimulate their natural function.

So you're right. You know, there's deep tissue massage, which of course, well, any massage is gonna help your lymphatic system, but the skin-associated lymph, which is right under your skin, and that's underneath there, it's carrying your immune system. So if you get bit by a mosquito, then that little red dot on your skin, there's an immune army, which is your skin-associated lymph right under there. And that keeps you from basically dying from that mosquito. 'Cause you're, who knows what's on that little needle that they bite you with, right?

Mm-hmm.

So that's the skin-associated lymph taking out that trash. And that's, that's actually moved by very gentle lymphatic movement. So they do that with a very special technique. Now in Ayurveda, they actually use a skin brushing technique with, with raw silk gloves, and they would do a vigorous massage going back to the heart. And that would actually create two things, static electricity where you actually get zapped sometimes when you touch somebody. And also ozone according to the science. And when back in the 1920s when all the health spas started coming up, they had static electricity clinics in America where you go get zapped and that was designed to create alkalinity and move your lymphatic system. Well, here we had thousands of years ago, they actually created a technique to actually create, to support that skin-associated lymph by actually creating static electricity with a raw silk glove. Mm-hmm. And also studies show it also increases ozone, which is also a natural lymphatic mover. So in Ayurveda, it's called Garshana gloves, and you take these gloves and you just give yourself a dry brush massage, or, or dry brushing would actually work. That's gonna be more aggressive, not to create the static electricity maybe as much. But it's just interesting how this ancient wisdom really understood that aspect of it.

Mm-hmm.

And then of course, any type of movement like The sun salutation, you've probably all heard of that, you know, where you're doing flexion extension with coordinated breathing. That's powerful, you know, 'cause that's when your diaphragm is engaged, which is your lymph pump as you're extending and as you're flexing, you know, critically important that we actually do that somewhat on a regular basis. Even if you're older and you can't do it, we have a chair version of that, which is really easy. So it's like, it's something that everybody should coordinate breathing and moving. Because that's the lymphatic pump, you know, in action.

I'm glad. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So, tell me— so, let's talk one last thing about kind of visceral fat accumulation. So, we've sort of danced around that conversation. And so, the abdominal fat and other things. And let's sort of circle back to that and the relationship with the lymphatics also because what we often see is you can get almost kind of toxic fat. You get fat that's basically holding the toxins and you've got the fascia around it and the lymphatic that can't move it. And so, I think a lot of women experience these sort of symptoms but they don't realize that the lymphatics are probably one of the primary players here.

Yeah. You know, I think There's two sides to that equation. If you have lymphatic congestion, which would be cellulite, extra belly fat, belly weight around your hips, that's clearly lymphatic congestion. So you have to decongest your lymphatic system. Things like, you know, herbs and berries are really cool for that 'cause they don't get digested in the small intestine. They go all the way, 95% of 'em go all the way to your gut. And they actually support the integrity of the gut-associated lymph, which is where it all starts. That's— that lymph around your belly is the lion's share of the lymph in your body. So those, those berries are so critical for the lymph, even though they're water soluble and they absorb into your blood, they don't even go into your lymph. They actually create a powerful support for the first part of the lymphatic system, which is around your gut, which is critically important. So again, we wanna decongest the lymph with yoga and breathing and alkaline foods and, you know, anything that would, you know, dye your skin red, black, or blue, like a berry or a cherry or a beet or a pomegranate or, or anything, cranberries that would make a white shirt red. That's going to be a lymphatic mover for you. Green foods will be a lymphatic for you. Hydration is a lymphatic mover. Breathing through your nose as you exercise activates the lymphatic. That was my first book. Body Mind Sport, which we did research on nose versus mouth breathing. And that's a powerful lymphatic move. When you go for a walk, just breathe through your nose. And really simple technique, um, is to count how many steps you take for your inhalation through your nose and how many steps you take for the exhalation through your nose. And your goal— Just going for a regular walk, walking your dog— Is 10 steps on your inhalation. And 15 to 20 steps for your exhalation. You do that, you're gonna start activating parasympathetic dominance. You're gonna start moving your lymphatic system in a bigger, deeper way because you're forcing your diaphragm to fully contract and fully relax. So those are some really simple ways to make sure that that happens.

Yeah, so basically the, the rundown here, ladies, is if you're frustrated with your abdominal belly fat, Yes, diet, exercise, fiber, all of those things play into it, but the other side of it is the trash collection and excretion has to be working in order for your body to actually get rid of some of that fat as well, right? So, you have to do the lymphatic support as well.

Yeah. And then, troubleshoot the digestion. If you have indigestion or heartburn or, you know, bloating or gas, that's your digestion, then obviously, you're not delivering the food in a in a properly prepared way. So that is all the trash that's not properly digested goes to your lymph, and that's gonna create extra weight around your belly and hips. It's really not complicated. It's really that simple. There's hard science to back up what I just said, which is like stupidly simple, but we just never hear that. We say, oh, take digestive enzyme, do the digestion for you. Sure, if you need them, but why don't we try to get, 'cause whenever you take the enzymes, the body stops again, goes on welfare, says, why bother making my own? Now, I'm dependent on a new pill or a powder. These are not long-term strategies. They're short-term strategies for symptoms, not to get you back on track. And that's really the— that was the goal of traditional systems of medicine, to help people get well and be well and not do it for them with a pill or a powder that they— that certain people make a lot of money on selling all the time for the rest of your life. You get— now you go on a medication, you don't ever get off of it. That's the new—

New.

That's the new rule, right? When I was a kid, You go to the doctor, you get sick, you get something for the medicine, you get on, get better, get off. Now, that's all not the way it goes. Now, you get on a medicine for the rest of your life. It's not the right way to do it. We can do way better than that.

Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. And like you said, you know, when we look at particularly perimenopausal and menopausal women, there's, you know, hormone receptors in the gut. That was a big part of my PhD research. So, we get all of these things that sort of compound on top of each other. But again, it's always the— what I call the unsexy sort of cornerstones that we have to sort of address before we start just pulling out every stop. Because a lot of people do go on hormone replacement and other things, and they're not feeling better, or it's not working the way they want to. And it's because those cornerstones probably haven't been addressed along with it. So I agree. So you've got some quizzes and obviously an incredible amount of, of blogs and articles and other things that we can point my listeners to because I'd love to do that. Tell me, tell my listeners how we can find out more.

Yeah. So to get some of those quizzes that everybody should take first off, my website is lifespa.com, L-I-F-E-S-P-A.com. And there on the banner and the homepage, it says, new here, start here. If you click on that,— it'll take you to a page where it has all those quizzes. It has the lymphatic quiz, the digestive health quiz to troubleshoot what part of your digestion's broken, your body type quiz, and all the kind of get started information that you need is literally right there. And that's at lifespot.com. And you can also just like search up your health concern. We have literally over 1,500 articles with all ancient wisdom and the modern science to back it up. We really done the research to kind of put those two together. And all those articles are for free. So just, you know, kind of just geek out in there and find out what might be underlying, the underlying cause of what concerns you. And then of course we have an Ayurvedic store. I've been formulating Ayurvedic herbs for almost 40 years now. So that's also available for you guys. And we've got a newsletter you can sign up and get the newest, latest research, all of which I'm constantly digging in. There's still, so much more research in the medical journals that explains these ancient practices that I haven't written about. It's sort of mind-boggling to me that I'm still writing about these things. You think— but there's just so much research that nobody knows about, none of it's in practice, and that's kind of what I try to bring.

Yeah, you know, it's because nobody goes to a doctor's office with a journal and sits down and says, can I educate you on what just came out? It's the only time that happens is a drug rep bringing lunch. I'm just being honest.

Yeah. And they're bringing med— they're bringing not research. I mean, they're bringing research on their drugs, not research on how you can do it. I mean, that's the part that makes me really sad is that the med— the pharmaceutical companies are really running the show now. And doctors don't have time to read medical journals. They don't really know. And they just, you know, I mean, melatonin, like, for example, you can buy in the grocery store. If you ever have— if anybody ever has cancer, you should type in PubMed, which is the research method, and then type in melatonin, and then type in the type of cancer that you have. Just that simple. And watch what happens. Volumes and volumes of research on melatonin for cancer, and none of it's in medical practice. I've never had an— I treat a lot of cancer patients. I've never had an oncologist ever tell their patients that they can supplement their chemotherapy with melatonin because it just never happens. And again, it's because the research you're going to read is mind-boggling. I did a podcast interview with—

Yeah.

—met with a melatonin researcher and the research is off the charts. But here again, you know, never, never in medical practice. I feel like it's just malpractice. We're just, you know, there's just, they're blinded to what— how we can get the body to help itself.

Now, I— yeah, no, I agree. It's, it's actually— I had an entire podcast on what informed consent really means, and a big part of it is, is every drug— every drug insert says, when diet and lifestyle no longer works. I'm like, so informed consent means that you must have a conversation with your provider that talks through the 100 other ways that you could take care of whatever it is you've got going on that is not the drug, is not the procedure, is not the medical device. You know, and in some cases maybe there is less stuff, but most of the time there's other avenues to treat, but that's getting skipped over. So most people are never getting informed consent.

Yeah, and of course we're not saying that drugs are all bad by any stretch. They save lives, they're really valuable. It's just that there's a time and a place where we have the luxury and the room to rope, to actually try something ourselves before we have to go on a medication, just like it says in the, in the, in the, You know, in the drug inserts, it says, you know, do the, the, the lifestyle and get through all that first and then take the medication. But we seem to jump that gun a little bit too quickly sometimes.

No, I agree. I agree. But Dr. Gillard, this has been a great conversation. I, we were talking earlier. I actually, we met, but it's been like 25 years ago. And actually you transformed my, uh, running and cycling. Because we were talking about nasal breathing. And I was lamenting that I was having a hard time improving my VO2 max and my speed and you were like, "Breathe through your nose exclusively." And I was like, "Okay." So, I slowed down to then speed up. So—

Yeah. That's a whole nother discussion. We didn't even get there about the value of that, what that actually does. We published some studies on that. It's pretty amazing.

Yeah, yeah. It was really, really amazing. So, thank you so much for being on. And everybody, definitely go to Dr. Douillard's website, Give it again. It's LifeSpa?

LifeSpa.com. Yeah.

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