I did lymphatic drainage every day for a month.
Hot Girl Protocol 001
Welcome to the first installment of Hot Girl Protocol. In this series, I’ll be trying products, habits, rituals, diets, and exercises for at least 21 days before reporting back with my honest, uncensored review. If you have a drawer full of beauty products you don’t use, a piece of exercise equipment that’s now become a place to hang your laundry, or a stack of half-read books, then you’ll like it here.
This piece and the ones that follow will be free to read. However, if you upgrade to a paid subscription, you’ll get any bonus material and freebies included at the end. So don’t let the paywall freak you out. You can keep reading, and even if you don’t upgrade, I think you’ll walk away with a lot.
Writing and experimenting for this piece taught me more about rituals and habits than I thought it would. In the last 15-ish months, I’ve eased myself into a life of healthy discipline. I’ve naturally lost 30 pounds. I’m training for a 5K. I’m meticulous with my Google Calendar. Hell, I even started flossing more regularly.
But as I dove headfirst into my first month of Hot Girl Protocol, I realized how easy it is to stick with habits and rituals when there’s a very obvious and instant result. If you reduce your calories, you’ll probably see the number on the scale drop. When you floss regularly, your teeth feel squeaky clean. But not all habits have such obvious results, or at least not right away.
I think we all glamorize being “that girl,” thanks to TikTok brain rot. We see skinny East Village 25-year-olds wearing neutral Alo Yoga sets, drinking matcha at 5 AM before heading to Pilates at 6 AM, and they make discipline look so sexy. I think it might always look sexy from the outside looking in?
If it wasn’t for the fact that I announced to Substack that I’d be starting this series, I’m not so sure I would’ve gone through with it. Seriously, I almost gave up two weeks in because I thought it “wasn’t working.” Boy, was I wrong.
Lymphatic drainage was my gateway drug into wellness. Sometime around 2018, I was introduced to Lauryn Bosstick, a.k.a. The Skinny Confidential. I heard her on a podcast talking about lymphatic drainage, which she credited for her gorgeous skin. I literally pulled my car over mid-podcast to order a gua sha stone and face oil on Amazon.
I stuck with it for a while, but never daily. Something about having to lather my face with oil and massage for 5–10 minutes on top of everything else I do on my skin felt daunting af. So my gua sha routine became more and more sporadic until it was non-existent. I didn’t stop there, though. I wanted to look snatched, de-puffed, and all the things. So I tried dry brushing, promising I’d do it before every shower. I kept forgetting, even though I had the brush hanging with my towel. Then I bought a giant gua sha stone for my body, which I used approximately 1.5 times. Did I think it would somehow be less daunting to gua sha my entire effing body? I even tried rebounding a few times after a generous friend gifted me a mini trampoline. And in case you haven’t guessed by now, that was also short-lived. I almost bought a vibration plate when they were trending on TikTok Shop, but then I thought “who are you kidding?!”
On all my socials, I have various saved collections of lymphatic drainage tutorials, none of which I’ve actually done, because why are they all over 10 minutes long? Who has the time?
I had all the information and products I could ever need, and yet I couldn’t stay committed. If buying all of these products and watching a gazillion TikToks hasn’t translated into action, what would?
This series is about commitment and habit-forming, but I quickly learned that you can’t always force yourself into a habit. Sometimes you need to adjust, pivot, or simplify to find what sticks.
Enter Brit…
Even though I knew lymphatic drainage would make its way into this series, I wasn’t sure when. But when I saw Brit Adams, friend and licensed massage therapist, comment on my announcement post, I decided to start here.
Brit is one of my many online friends. If you have a remote business or are a freelancer, then you may also have online friends whom you’ve never met IRL. I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing some of Brit’s magic during a group coaching program we were in, so I knew she had to be involved in this piece.
And since my Googling and TikToking only ended up confusing me more, I decided to interview her and get some expert tips before diving into my personal experiment.
In preparation for our call, I gathered all my lymph-things: my gua sha stone(s), two dry brushes — one for the body and another for the face — an ice roller, and my NuFACE device (I don’t think the NuFACE is for lymphatic drainage, and I’ve only used it four times, lol). I was ready to show off and be the student who had so much potential, “but only if she applied herself!” — pretty much what I heard from all my teachers in school.
I figured Brit would tell me I’m doing everything right and that I’d just have to suck it up and stick with it. But I didn’t even have a chance to show off everything I own because, get this, I didn’t need any of it.
Brit doesn’t just specialize in lymphatic drainage. She’s trained in Manual Lymphatic Drainage. So all you need to do is use your hands.
So that’s where the manual part of Manual Lymphatic Drainage comes in. It’s supposed to be done with your hands, duh! No tools necessary. Over-consumption strikes again. It’s not bad or wrong to use tools, but using your hands and touching yourself (get your mind out of the gutter!) releases oxytocin. Incorporating an MLD practice can help lower cortisol, get your body into a parasympathetic state, and encourage the lymphatic system, since it doesn’t have a pump. So while MLD can make you look snatched, it’s really about helping the body do what it already wants to do.
According to Brit, this is foundational self-care — just like putting on a face mask or writing in your journal. And it’s not just about how it makes you feel. Brit, along with many of her clients, has experienced insane results after incorporating a daily lymph practice. She personally attributes an 80-pound weight loss and the resolution of her PCOS symptoms to it. Her clients have had miraculous results ranging from relieving symptoms of Lyme disease to reducing symptoms during detox from alcohol or drugs.
And the best part? This doesn’t need to be a long, ritualistic practice to work. Doing it in small increments throughout the day is even more effective than one long 30-minute session.
So here’s the gist of the practice: it relies on movement, breath, and gentle stimulation in the “big six” lymphatic areas — the collarbone, sides of the neck, armpits, abdomen, groin, and behind the knees.
While taking deep breaths, you do gentle rubs, circular motions, and tapping in each area, starting with the collarbone up to the sides of the neck, then moving down to the armpits, abdomen, groin, and ending with the back of the knees.
Brit walks us through a full tutorial in the video reserved for paid subscribers, and it’s way less daunting than using devices and rubbing your face or body with oils every day. According to Brit, doing an MLD practice daily for two minutes is more beneficial than paying a practitioner for occasional, expensive sessions.
So I decided to approach my own experiment with one rule… just show up. It didn’t need to be perfect. I didn’t put pressure on myself to do it at the same time every day. It just had to get done. I made sure to put it in my daily planner every single day because obviously checking something off a to-do list is an instant boost of serotonin. By the way, I’m totally obsessed with being a digital planning iPad girly.
I wanted it to naturally fit into my day. There were times I did the routine on the couch while watching TV. There were days when I stood up from my desk and did it in the middle of my workday. But my favorite has been in the few minutes before a yoga class starts. I’m always one of the first ones in the room because God forbid I don’t get an ideal spot to do a headstand against the wall. So while the room is quiet and I’m already in a peaceful headspace, it’s nice to take the time and do my lymph routine then.
I had high expectations going in. After seeing girls snatching their waists overnight and hearing Brit’s weight loss story, I thought I’d see results instantly. But the reality was that at first, not much happened. Like I said, I almost gave up after the first two weeks. I thought about how awkward it would be to tell Brit that I wasn’t seeing results and even considered pivoting to a new topic so I wouldn’t have to bash a practice that so many people love.
But then I remembered that I’m not immune to wanting instant gratification and how quickly I’ve been to abandon practices that don’t deliver immediately. Social media only feeds that expectation, and I don’t want to be part of these toxic cycles anymore. So I asked myself how many things have I quit right before they started working?
And I gave it the time to let it work.
The first noticeable shift was in my digestion. Once every few weeks for the past year, I’d have a random spell of constipation. Not to be gross, but it felt like I never fully emptied, if you know what I mean. But ever since starting this practice, I’ve been going regularly and haven’t had an issue since — despite having a few nights of drinking alcohol and eating less-than-optimal foods for digestion.
There were also a few stressful situations that would’ve normally sent me into an absolute mental spiral, yet I felt weirdly regulated. I even think my husband was freaked out by how calm I was. I’m not proud to say that I lean on him for a lot of emotional support when I’m stressed, and I think we were both shocked by how steady I felt despite a few really stressful moments over the last month.
As many of you know, I’ve been on a weight loss journey, and I lost four pounds in January. But I swear I look like I lost twelve. The thing that surprised me the most, though, was when I got my period. It pretty much snuck up on me. No mood swings. No bloating. No usual chin pimple.
The days before I get my period are usually brutal. It’s all doom and gloom with a tiny mountain growing on my chin. But this time, it literally came out of nowhere with virtually no bloating, glowing skin, a reduction in cramps, and a shorter cycle. It lasted four days instead of the usual six to seven.
So even though my initial experiment was 30 days, at the time of writing this, I’m seven weeks in and still going strong.
What this has taught me is that discipline, keeping promises to myself, and choosing a practice that seamlessly fits into my life create something that eventually feels like second nature. I prioritize my lymph practice in the same way that I do brushing my teeth. I don’t intend to give it up.
And I think the biggest takeaway for me is that there are things we can do every single day that are 100% free. Any person, regardless of privilege or socioeconomic status, could do this practice.
Thank you to Brit Adams for being a part of the first installment of Hot Girl Protocol! If you want to connect with her and learn more about her offers, you can visit her site or email her at wildrootllc@gmail.com.
Paid subscribers will have access to a Notion dashboard generously provided by Brit, as well as the ability to watch our full interview, including a tutorial of the exact sequence I’ve been doing every day. Paid subscribers also get access to the comment section and group chat so we can hold each other accountable.