Immune Boosting Movement

Join me for this quick 10-minute immune-boosting movement class. Yes, in as little as ten minutes, you can support your immune system. Grab a mat and let's play! This class can be done anytime, anywhere when you feel you need an immunity boost!

Transcript

Hello, I'm Jennifer Ellis and welcome to this immune boosting movement practice. This is a short practice that you can do every day if you want to boost your immune system. I personally use this practice. I love it. I'm very happy that you've decided to join me for it. So we're going to get started seated cross-legged and we're going to tap on the thymus. The thymus is a lymph organ that's right underneath your chest and you can activate it by tapping on it. Okay, So there's two ways you could do this. You can do it just with your fingertips, Especially if you're kind of sensitive or if you're like a little wanting to get in there, You might do it with your fist. Don't go like, You know, Really hard hard. It doesn't need that much pressure, But you want to tap enough so that you're activating the thymus. Okay. So let's start with that. We're going to sit up tall. We're going to tap on our thymus. I'm going to show both ways so you could decide which one works best for you. So you kind of make a little, I'm going to say it looks like a duck beak with your fingers and you can tap right on the chest. I like to go right and left. You might do them both at the same time, Whatever works for you. It's just the tapping that activates it so it doesn't have to be exactly a certain way. So long as you're tapping there and activating it. Now I'll show you the fist as well. So you'll just make little light fists and then you'll tap. And this is if you want a little bit more pressure. I personally like the fingers, But I do have students that like to do it with the fist. So you choose and we're going to do this for a little while longer. And like I said, You can do both at the same time, You could do back and forth. I'm showing you variations so you can play and see which one feels best to you. So like I said, This could be a really sensitive area. So you want to do what feels good. And let's do a few more. I mean, You could do plenty more later if you want, But I want to, You know, Keep it short so that this is something you could do every day if you needed to. All right. So let's let that go. We're going to get into different parts of our body that have lymph and that cleans us out, Drains us out, Boosts the immune system. So we're going to start with the neck. So let's have the palms facing up and let's actually change across the legs. We'll do that several times actually in this practice. So we're going to have the palms facing up and we're going to bring our right ear to our right shoulder. And I want you to hold there and take your left hand and very gently, Just kind of like you're cupping it, Go up and down on your neck. You'll go from about your ear area down to your shoulder and do that a few times. And the palm of my hand is like right in the front of my neck and it's very gentle. I mean, You're not, Like I said, Going too hard. And what I like about this practice is, You know, You go as deep or not as deep as feels good in your body because we're all different. All right, Let's let that go and shake out the hand and then come up to center. We'll do the other side. You might already feel like a little invigorated perhaps. So left or left shoulder. We're going to take now the right hand and you'll go again from the ear down to the shoulder. Just like a little gentle cupping massage. And make sure to breathe through everything we do today. The breath is super important. Doing breath work actually boosts your immune system as well. And we'll be closing with some breath work very shortly. All right, Let's let that go. Shake out the hand. Don't want to forget that part. So the next thing is underneath our arms. So what we're going to do is we're going to take our arms out into a big T shape and we're going to cross right under left and hold right here. And I want you to give yourself some pressure there. So it's like you're giving yourself a big hug, But you're creating some pressure in those limbs. Let's hold for another couple of moments and then let's open that up. And now we're going to do the left arm on the bottom and we're going to again press. So you're pressing right into the limb underneath the arms with the heels of your hands and you're giving yourself a nice little hug too, Which is always good. And then just let that go. Let's pause, Notice. And now I want to come into a lizard lunge, Which gets into the limbs that are down in the thigh area. So let's come on to our hands and knees. We're going to take our right foot forward. Our left foot is behind us, Scoot you back a little bit. And I want you to take the right toes out to about, I'm going to say one, Two o'clock on a clock. And then come on to the pinky toe side of the foot, Take your right hand and press above the knee and open up to the right. So this is a really wonderful lizard lunge twitch, Which gets into, Like I said, All the limbs that are around the thigh area. And that actually has the most limbs, This area. So it's one you definitely want to hold for a little while and concentrate on. Deep breaths, Keep breathing. Maybe look over your right shoulder if you're feeling a little looser and wanting to go a little deeper. Another variation to go deeper is to come on to your left forearm and then you can press out a little bit more. And then let's bring ourselves back to center. So take this right foot flat, Right foot parallel, Bring it back. And now we're going to take the left foot forward. Your left foot is toward the edge of your mat and you're going to scooch the right back. You're going to bring that left foot so it's about now around 10, 11 o'clock on a clock. Come on to the pinky toe side of the foot. Take your left hand above the left knee and you're twisting to the left and pressing open. Nice deep breaths. Maybe look over your left shoulder. And now if this is feeling good and you want to go deeper, Let's come on to your right forearm. And you're still pressing open to the left, Just stretching into all those wonderful limbs, Taking deep inhales and exhales. And bringing ourselves back to center. So ground both hands, Bring that left foot parallel and then bring it back. And now let's come back to a seated position. And sitting up nice and tall, We're going to rest our palms right above our knees. And we're going to do a little bit of breath work to close. Like I said, The breath is super important for immune boosting. So let's do six rounds of a six count Ujjayi victorious breath from yoga. So all the inhales and exhales through the nose, We're going to do six counts. And you're making a little bit of a, People call it an ocean sound. It's really constricting of the back of the throat and that's where the sound comes from. I'm going to demo one round and then we'll do the six together. So here's how it goes. All right, Let's do six together. All right, We're going to inhale and we're going to exhale through the nose. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Inhale. Exhale. Two more rounds, Inhale. Exhale. And one more inhale. And pause, Bringing your breath back to its natural rhythm, Its natural pace. So that was a little immune boosting movement. And I kept it short so that you could do it every day if you need, Want to. This can also be something where you take one or two of these and do them during your day and maybe even hold the lizard a little longer. You could do the thymus tapping whenever. I mean, You're waiting in line at the grocery store, You know, A little thymus tapping. All right, So I hope this was very, Very useful to you. Once again, I'm Jennifer Ellis. Thank you for joining me. It is always an honor to lead you in these wonderful practices. Have a fabulous rest of your day because you know what? Also, Joy boosts your immune system. Take care. Namaste.