The Fine Art of Body Scrubbing
The body scrub is a very understated ancient oriental health and beauty secret that should be practiced on a daily basis. Why you might ask. The skin is the largest organ of our body. It is related to the lung and large intestine in oriental medicine. It is a cleansing and detoxifying organ. It breathes. And in doing so, exchanges nutrients and waste. It is very necessary to keep it clean, on a deep cellular level. This type of cleansing cannot be accomplished through ordinary bathing. It is best accomplished via the technique of body scrubbing. Saturated fats combine with dirt to clog the skins intricate network of pores, as do chemically based unnatural soaps, perfumes, and body creams. The more clogged the pores become, the less ability the skin, and the organs beneath the skin have, to breathe, cleanse, and receive and exchange nutrients. We loose a major and natural defense mechanism if we do not keep the skin on our entire body clean, healthy, and vibrant.
Body scrubbing stimulates the circulation, the lymphatic flow, the meridians, and also massages the deep internal organs that ordinarily do not receive enough attention. It just plain feels good!
But it also has to be realistically doable. In that, it has to be something that is easy enough for us to fit into our super busy daily schedules on a regular basis. Not something that we groan about because it is just too much, and create a pattern of skipping.
Wholly Macro has developed a quick, easy, simple, and effective method of body scrubbing.
You will need to purchase a natural vegetable bristle body brush. Try to find one with a long handle, that is one piece. Do not buy a natural BOAR bristle brush. It might be natural, but it is from a pig / boar, and not something you want to scrub your body with on a daily basis. The boar bristles have a distinctive wet animal odor. And a two piece brush, one in which the brush and the handle can be detached, will always fall apart when in use, and when the brush lands on your foot a few times, you will understand why we recommend a one piece brush.
Next: take a warm shower as you normally do, thoroughly cleaning your body. We hope you use filtered water and an all natural soap in your shower. When you have completed your shower, you can turn the water off, or turn it down, but keep the shower door or curtain closed, so as to keep the warmth of the shower, in the shower enclosure. You do not want your skin exposed to cool air because you want the pores of your skin to remain open.
Take the dry body brush (store it somewhere in the shower where it doesn't get wet), and begin the scrubbing. Gently. Applying more pressure will not increase the effectiveness of the body scrub. Too much pressure will cause your skin to contract, closing the pores, and not allowing the accumulated to debris to be freed from the skin. So begin scrubbing gently. It is better to scrub each area longer and more gently than quickly and with more pressure. Scrub each area until the skin turns a nice pink color. NOT red!
You want to scrub TOWARDS the heart. We like to start with our face. You can go in circular or up and down motions, gently scrubbing all area of your face. Remember as you scrub, that the cheeks correspond with the lungs, the forehead corresponds with the intestines, the eyebrows and temple area relate to the gall bladder, and the ears correspond to the kidneys and overall adrenal vitality, so be sure to run the brush over your ears!
Continue down your face to the chin and neck, and then reach behind your shoulders with the brush your upper back, and brush up and over each shoulder, and along the collar bone from outside to inside, on each side. When you get the center, scrub between your breasts, (or men, on your breasts), following the sternum down to your abdomen while scrubbing in an upward motion. There are numerous lymph nodes along the sternum, several chakras, and important meridians such as the kidney meridian, so be sure to give that area the attention it deserves.
You are now at your abdomen. Scrub your abdomen in a circular motion following the natural direction in which the intestines flow. Start at the lower right, go up to the upper right, then go across to the upper left, down to the lower left, and repeat several times in larger and smaller circles until you have covered all areas of the abdomen. If you are like me, your abdomen may not get much sun, so it is easy to see it turn a nice rosy pink color as you gently scrub it, increasing blood circulation to the area, and giving the numerous organs contained within the abdominal area a much needed massage. While you are in this area, go ahead and reach to the sides of your abdomen scrubbing the rib cage as well.
Now, start at the fingers of each hand. Scrub the front and back of the fingers, paying special attention to the palm and the wrists, and then continue scrubbing up the inside and then up the outside of each arm. Make sure to go behind the shoulder (a hard to reach area, so often ignored, that also contains numerous meridian pathways), and under the arms, where many lymph nodes live and accumulate various forms of debris such as stress related sweat for one. When you reach the top of the shoulders, and meet the place on the upper body where the scrub began, you can give each shoulder one final sweep, inwards along the collar bone, just to flush any leftover debris along the lymphatic pathway, towards the heart, and out of the body.
Now: place one leg on a ledge, (or sit on something), and begin scrubbing the top of the toes and feet, scrubbing upward along the front and inside of each foot, ankle, and leg. Each toe marks the beginning or ending point of various meridians. As you scrub the big toe for instance, you are stimulating the spleen / pancreas and liver meridians. Send healing energy to these hard working organs as you scrub! When you reach the top of the leg, scrub upwards along the groin several times, another area where lymph tends to stagnate, so stimulate it gently, but well, always in an upward direction towards the heart. Now return to the outside and back of each leg, scrubbing the outer ankle, the sides of the legs, and the back of the legs. Scrub each hip and buttock well. The sciatic nerve is located in the gluteus musculature. And continue up your back, scrubbing the sacral area well (it contains numerous nerve endings, so stimulating that area is really important). Be sure to scrub themid back, where the kidneys are located. They will really appreciate the increased blood flow the body scrub will bring to them. You have already done the upper part of your back, at the beginning, remember?? But, no harm in reaching up as far as you can with the brush and giving that area one last scrub.
Now: one last thing. Raise each foot (separately!!), and scrub the bottom of your feet. There are thousands of nerve endings on the bottom of each foot. And heavy foods, fats, and chemical toxins tend to gravitate downwards in the body, often accumulating (and clogging), the bottom of the feet and these many nerve endings. When I was receiving chemotherapy for example, the heavy toxins from the chemo must have been discharging through the bottom of my feet, because my feet melted the insides of several pairs of shoes, a phenomenon I have never experienced since.
Finally: step back under the warm shower water and rinse off any loosened debris. There is no need to soap up again. But please clean your brush with soap and water, and place it in a dry place, so that it is ready for your next shower / spa session / healing and beautifying body scrub treatment.
This may seem like a long involved process, but in reality, it only takes a few minutes to do the entire body scrub, and you don't even have to leave the confines of your shower to do it.
You may want to follow the more traditional method of body scrubbing in which you use a folded washcloth and basin of hot water, while seated outside of the shower. This never worked for me, which is why I developed this alternative yet equally as effective method. I could not keep warm enough outside of the shower. In the summer the air conditioning felt too cool, and in the winter the delightfully cool air felt too cool. And if you live in a cold northern climate, even with the heat on, it still seems way too cool. Remember, your body must be warm enough that your pores remain open while you scrub. Also, with the washcloth, the process seems to take a little longer, and it is hard to reach some areas of the body. I love the long handled brush for the ease of reach! And being the multi-tasker that I am, I like being able to get the whole thing done without having to step out of the shower and possibly get distracted. I found it hard to keep the basin of water warm as well. I also prefer to rinse off once I complete the scrub. I like being sure that I remove any loosened dirt and debris from my body rather than leaving it to dry on my body. But, having said all of that, if you prefer using a washcloth, out of the shower, in the traditional method, please do whatever works for you. You can still follow my exact scrubbing routine. It remains the same whether with a body brush or a washcloth.
I look forward to doing the body scrub every single day. I have been doing so since 1996. I never miss one day. It is "me" time. And no matter what each day brings, I do not feel complete until I have rewarded myself, and my body, with my quick, simple, practical, and realistic daily body scrub.
As an added bonus: here in South Florida, you can body scrub in the ocean. You can bring a brush to the beach and use it in the water, or you can use the sand. Be sure to take sand from out a few feet where it is soft, smooth, silky, and clean. When you scrub with the sand, you can dunk down into the water and run your hand over your skin, and feel the oil and debris. I repeat the scrubbing process until the water runs off of my skin like silk and I cannot detect any oil or debris. It is a salt glow spa treatment like no other you will ever experience. And it is free!!
During the body scrub, you can also take the opportunity to check out your body for any markings, bruises, sore areas, broken veins, or other changes, giving special healing attention to those areas as you scrub, revitalizing the corresponding meridians, and the organs they relate to. And always, always, breathe deeply, cleaning your lungs as you clean your skin, while envisioning all impurities leaving your body.
We hope that you will make the body scrub (whichever version you choose), a part of your own daily health and beauty routine.
As always.
Gayle and Jaime