10/21/2023
Have you ever wondered why your body aches when sick? What is making you have that achy feeling?
It's common to experience body aches with illness. And we're told either to take pain killers or just wait it out. These aches are actually due to lymphatic stagnation.
When ill, you obviously spend most of your time resting (and you should). Your lymphatic system has a bunch of lymph nodes and fluid that moves through your body to collect cellular waste...but, it doesn't move on its own. It doesn't have a pump, like the circulatory system does. It requires you to get up and move around in order to flow. Since you don't do that while sick, it builds up.
Further, your immune system is working quickly. It's killing germs and fighting back, and that's creating a lot of extra cellular waste.
This leads to a backlog of "junk" that needs to get out, through your lymphatic system...but can't.
Body aches typically occur along the low back, neck, legs...in places where lymph nodes are concentrated. (Not just there, but look at a chart of lymph nodes, you'll see.)
Since exercise isn't exactly a great idea when sick, what can you do?
1. Sip herbal teas made of lymph-moving herbs. Calendula, cleavers, ginger, burdock root. These are also anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-bacterial...super beneficial if you're sick.
2. Take a hot bath with lymph-moving herbs. We like to make a strong "tea" of calendula + ginger + sage and add it to a bath, along with bath salts. Soak for 15 - 20 minutes.
3. Dry brushing. If you feel well enough to sit/stand for 10 minutes before your bath, brush the sore spots with a dry brush. Brush up or in towards your heart.
You will likely find that the body aches are eased by doing this regularly during illness. Not totally gone -- your immune system is still working hard! -- but better. You may even recover faster, because you are helping your immune system do its job effectively. 🙂
