MLD for Breast Health: Simple Techniques for Lymphatic Drainage and Well-Being

Manual Lymphatic Drainage (MLD) is a powerful yet simple technique that can greatly benefit breast health by promoting proper lymphatic flow and reducing stagnation.

Hi, I’m Jessica Johnson, a lymphatic therapist passionate about helping women achieve optimal breast health. In this blog, I’ll share how you can use MLD techniques at home to keep lymphatic fluid moving smoothly through your breast tissue, supporting healthy, happy breasts. Let’s dive into why this is important and how to incorporate these techniques into your routine!

Understanding Lymphatic Stagnation in Breast Tissue

I want to start out by talking about stagnation. There are only a few ways that lymphatic fluid is pushed through our bodies. One is through deep breathing, and the other main way is through muscular contraction. As we move around, our muscles constrict and squeeze on our lymphatic vessels, pushing the fluid in those vessels towards your heart.

Now, because we don’t really have muscles that constrict on our breast tissue, and we are constantly wearing tight-fitting bras, it makes it so that the fluid in the area just sits there and becomes stagnant. Fresh fluid is not moving in and out of the area, which makes it a common area for people to build up congestion. This buildup can cause us to have achy, sore boobies that are tender, sore, and fibrotic.

While this might be common, it is definitely not normal or healthy to be walking around with sore boobs all the time.

The Impact of Deodorants on Lymphatic Health

Now to make matters worse, most of us are walking around wearing deodorant all day. These products are often filled with chemicals and toxins that clog and overwhelm the lymph nodes in our armpits, which is where the fluid in our breast is trying to drain.

So we start by putting on deodorant, causing a major blockage in our armpits. Then we wear this tight bra around our boobies all day, constricting lymphatic vessels. Then we sit at a computer all day and don’t move our muscles, all while forgetting to breathe!! No wonder our breast tissue becomes so stagnant and is such a common issue.

Steps to Improve Lymphatic Drainage for Breast Health

The good news is that it’s super simple to do lymphatic massage at home on your breast tissue to get things moving appropriately. So let’s do something about this!

Let’s do the simple stuff first.

1. Stop Using Toxic Deodorants
   To start, stop wearing deodorant. Most deodorants on the market have toxins such as ‘aluminum chlorohydrate’ that congest your lymphatic system. Your body is working overtime to eliminate these toxins, which is what’s making you smell bad in the first place. I know that for many of us, it’s unreasonable to walk around without wearing any form of protection, so I recommend the Thai stick to help you wean off.

You can buy this on Amazon, many grocery stores, and most natural health food stores. It’s just a little piece of salt that you get wet and put it on your underarms, and the salt kills the bacteria which is what makes you smell while still allowing you to sweat. So if we can eliminate this blockage that most of us are walking around with, it’s like opening the floodgates for the fluid in your breast tissue to drain.

You may notice you smell for the first few weeks when switching over. The cool thing about the Thai stick is that you get it wet to reapply, so it’s like you can just go take a little mini shower. You can reapply throughout the day if needed. Over time, you’ll notice you smell less and less as your body is able to catch up, and then you’ll find you don’t need it at all!

2. Avoid Restrictive Clothing
   Next, we need to do away with restrictive clothing as best we can. Bras with underwires that dig into the skin restrict blood flow and lymphatic circulation. Luckily, they’ve come out with so many cute and comfy alternatives lately. A good rule of thumb is to pick a bra that doesn’t leave any marks on your skin. If it’s leaving marks, it is definitely restricting flow.

Breathwork: A Simple Technique to Boost Lymphatic Health

Okay, so we talked about the things that you need to do away with; let’s talk about things that you can actively do to help decongest your breast tissue. Let’s start with breathwork. I can’t emphasize how important this is. We really want to be engaging our diaphragm here.

To help train our body to do that, let’s start by placing your hands just above your belly button. As you inhale deeply through your nose, put a little pressure on your abdomen and put the air into your belly. This forces you to inhale deeply, activating that diaphragm.

As you exhale, gently release this pressure and repeat 10 to 15 times at least once a day. This technique will also engage your core and expand your chest wall, adding pressure to your breast lymphatics, which is exactly what we want in this situation.

So that’s a quick and easy thing we can do to get your lymph system stoked, and it has so many health benefits!

Self-Massage Techniques for Breast Health

But perhaps the most significant thing we can do to clean out the stagnant tissue is self-massage, and I want to go over this technique with you. Please remember, if you’ve ever had any lymph nodes removed, had radiation therapy, or if you have a history of lymphedema in your family, this technique needs to be augmented for your specific needs and is not appropriate.

You need to be sure to consult a Certified Lymph Therapist (CLT).

For example, if you’ve ever had lymph nodes removed from this armpit, you don’t want to go push more fluid toward that area. This is really important—talk to your doctor or lymphedema therapist first.

Step-by-Step Guide to Breast Lymphatic Massage

Okay, so after we’ve done our deep breathing, we want to come in and massage our lymph nodes under our armpits. To do this, use your whole hand, and we want to cover the entire surface area of the armpit and gently massage up and inward towards the heart.

Repeat this around 10 times and then repeat using just your fingertips. You’ll get more detailed parts of your anatomy this way. I like to do both sides at the same time because it’s efficient and I feel like Mary Catherine Gallagher from Saturday Night Live… Do y’all remember that one?? Molly Shannon… seriously go look it up on YouTube if you don’t know that one.

Now you want to move your whole hand to the side of your breast—right where your bra would wrap around. Directly to the side of the breast. We are going to gently massage upward towards your armpit.

AGAIN, THIS IS NOT APPROPRIATE IF YOU HAVE HAD ANY LYMPH NODES REMOVED OR RADIATION TREATMENT ON THIS SIDE. Okay, now that we’ve cleared a lot of that fluid, we want to re-clear those lymph nodes under the armpit, so let’s just give that a few more strokes.

Addressing Fluid Buildup
Most of us have a little build-up here where our underwire would sit, and it traps fluid from being able to drain through. To help release this, simply place your fingertips under your breast tissue and massage back and forth. If you do this a little every day, it will slowly get looser and looser.

Draining the Breast Tissue
To drain the actual breast tissue, you want to start by cupping your breast, beginning at the center of your body and moving toward your armpit. We are trying to drain this fluid towards your axillary nodes buried deep in your armpit. So we start by making a “C” with our hand and cupping the lower center part of the breast, and start to massage with on & off pressure toward your armpit.

Repeat this several times and follow up by massaging your chest in little circles and your bra line again towards your armpit—kind of like putting our hand on our heart and making tiny semi-circles. And then finally, you always want to finish by going back and re-clearing those lymph nodes in your armpit. This is such a simple technique, but it can do wonders for your breast health. Let’s normalize talking about this stuff!! It’s so important!

Okay, that’s it for today. Thank you so much for reading about this stuff. I hope this was helpful and that you start doing self-massage and do away with those sore boobies for good! THANK YOU!!!!