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Heating and cooling Foods
Traditionally foods are considered heating and cooling, which has a
connection to lymphatic circulation and immunity. This is similar to the
police department in which one group is constantly patrolling around to
catch violators of laws. Another group of police will not do the running
around job but will do investigation of suspected candidates. Both
groups of police are important in a balanced way.
Same way both heating (pitta) and cooling foods (kapha) are important for a
perfect balance of immunity. Heating foods increase
lymphatic circulation and allow the lymph flow through the nodes and
when they find bacteria and viruses will cause inflammatory immunity
reactions to get rid of them. This is why increased consumption of
heating foods like ginger, turmeric causes appearance of boils in skin.
Vegetables and culinary herbs most helpful to move lymph: steamed
mustard greens, bok choi, Spanish black radish, radishes, arugula,
horseradish.
While cooling foods decrease indirectly decrease lymphatic circulation
so that instead of just killing the bacteria and viruses , they help the
helper "T" cells to do produce more antibody production to keep them off
from the body. This is why too much of cooling foods produce mucus (kapha)
to trap the micro-organisms.
It is good to eat a balance of heating and cooling foods based on
exercise and climatic conditions.
As we saw earlier, exercise increases lymph flow ten to thirty fold.
Liver circulation is aided by exercise, particularly by movement of the
abdominal muscles and diaphragm. As the diaphragm expands the chest, it
compresses the abdominal cavity. The gentle compression of the liver
with each breath aids circulation of the blood and lymph through the
liver. Exercise such as walking, jumping on a rebounder 5 to 20 minutes
per day, gentle running or other aerobic exercise and yogic or special
breathing exercises help the liver and will also assist the lymph
circulation. Swimming is an excellent exercise because it uses all the
muscles and combines rhythmic breathing and movement.
If you are bedridden, experiment with what body movements you can make
in bed. Wiggle your toes, move your wrists, arms, feet, legs, torso.
The best way to increase lymphatic circulation is YOGA.
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