Massage is a holistic, hands-on therapy that’s been easing tension, relieving pain, improving circulation, easing stress, and inducing deep relaxation around the globe for 5,000 years. Also known as manual therapy, it manipulates your skin, muscles, tendons, and ligaments through controlled rubbing, kneading, or pressing movements.
There are hundreds of different types of massage and bodywork techniques, ranging from those that involve vigorous, kneading pressure, such as deep tissue massage, to those that use light, gentle strokes, like drainage massage.
At Smooth Body Contours, drainage massage sessions are a standard aftercare component of our noninvasive laser liposuction treatment. But this gentle massage technique isn’t only useful for facilitating the rapid removal of damaged fat cells — it can also be used to promote healing, support optimal wellness, and improve a variety of common health concerns.
Read on to find out how drainage massage works, and what it can do for you.
As a key component of both your immune and circulatory systems, your lymphatic system is a network of tissues, vessels, and organs that work in concert to transport a colorless, watery fluid called lymph from your body tissues back into your bloodstream.
Over 5 gallons of plasma flow through your large arteries, smaller arteriole blood vessels, and capillaries each day, delivering nutrients to cells and receiving their waste products. Most of this plasma returns to your bloodstream through your veins, but about 15% of it seeps from your capillaries directly into your body tissues.
This is where your lymphatic system springs into action, collecting fluid drainage (lymph) from body tissues and moving it along until it’s back in your bloodstream. This process helps your body maintain balanced fluid levels and remove waste and toxins, among other things.
Lymphatic drainage massage, also called manual lymphatic drainage or simply drainage massage, uses light, gentle pressure to stimulate your lymphatic system. It may be done to boost a sluggish system for improved lymph clearing, or to assist a healthy system when extra-efficient lymph clearing would be ideal.
Drainage massage usually starts with the central part of your body before moving on to the extremities. It uses light, gentle strokes to address the regional lymph nodes first, effectively “emptying” them so they’re ready to take on more fluid.
Next, the technique moves on to the body area that drains toward the prepared lymph nodes, releasing lymph from those tissues in a process called clearing. Light, gentle strokes move the released lymph to the emptied lymph nodes (a process called reabsorption), which filter out toxins and damaged cells. The cleansed lymph heads back to your circulatory system.
Drainage massage is commonly used to reduce swelling caused by lymphedema, a condition that causes excess lymphatic fluids to collect in the body, usually in the arms and legs. It’s also used in post-surgery breast cancer treatment when both breast tissue and lymph nodes have been removed.
Enhanced lymphatic drainage and circulation has sports injury, pain management, digestive, and cosmetic applications, too. At Smooth Body Contours, we can use the technique to foster faster removal of damaged fat cells following laser liposuction, fat freezing, and fat dissolving injections. We can also use it to minimize scarring and fibrosis following tummy tuck surgery.
Drainage massage can also be used to improve chronic skin conditions like acne and reduce the appearance of cellulite and spider veins. No matter your reason for having a drainage massage, it can deliver a plethora of major benefits over the course of 8-10 sessions. It can:
If you’d like to schedule a drainage massage, call or click online to make an appointment at your nearest Smooth Body Contours location in Orlando, Florida, or Sandy Springs, Georgia today.
