Do you feel that your legs and ankles have suddenly swollen, that your whole body has become heavier and that you no longer feel comfortable in your own skin? Don't panic before your time!
For people who are not experiencing serious health problems, fluid retention is more of an aesthetic problem that can go away on its own or you can even speed up the process yourself.
However, if swelling becomes a regular phenomenon or occurs against the background of already existing diseases – such as cardiovascular ones, you should definitely get rid of excess fluid so as not to put an additional burden on your heart, kidneys, veins and thus worsen your health. How to do this?
To begin with, you should analyze your lifestyle. Improper diet, lack of physical activity and frequent stress contribute to fluid retention in the body.
Below I will outline several natural methods of flushing excess fluid out of the body, but if you suffer from any chronic diseases, be sure to consult your doctor before trying them.
Dietary Adjustments
The rules of nutrition for edema and excess fluid play an important role and are a prerequisite for a comprehensive recovery of the body at home.
First of all, in home conditions it is necessary:
- Normalize the drinking regime. Drink 1.5-2 liters of water a day – and in return you get an accelerated metabolism, a minimum of chemical compounds that negatively affect the organs and accumulate fluid. Water does not cause liquid retention, rather the opposite, dehydration causes edema.
- Reduce your salt intake. Salt retains fluid in the body. Add less salt to your dishes, replace it with spicy herbs, and remember that many store-bought foods already contain salt.
- Eliminate fast foods from your diet. Instead, be sure to include foods high in K, Mg, as well as fruits and vegetables that have a diuretic effect (lemon, celery, beets, zucchini, parsley, oats, tomatoes, ginger, cucumber, watermelon, carrots).
- Give up alcohol.
- Drink less caffeine. Excessive consumption of beverages with caffeine leads to fluid retention and bloating.
Physical Activity
By adopting an upright position, you have already started the process of fluid outflow from your face. Now you need to stimulate the lymphatic system to get the excess fluid out of your body.
Remember this easiest and most effective exercise for stimulating lymph flow throughout the body: stand up straight, cross your arms over your chest, stand on your toes about five centimeters above the floor, then lower yourself sharply, hitting your heels lightly on the floor. Do two sets of 30 such "jumps" each. Note that the heel strikes should not be painful, do them sharply but gently.
More intense morning workouts are also useful in the fight against edema. Physical exercise opens the pores of the skin and increases blood flow. As a consequence, water and salt are eliminated from the body in the form of sweat. This maintains the correct water-salt balance in the body and reduces swelling. Therefore, it is important to lead an active lifestyle if you notice you are prone to edema.
The choice of exercise should take into account the state of health, age criteria and individual abilities of the body.
Relaxing Baths
An effective method of eliminating excess water is a hot bath, which provides relief and improves quality of life.
One popular procedure is the use of baking soda in combination with sea salt. For this procedure, you need to fill the bath up to half, then dilute in it 250 grams of baking soda and 500 grams of salt.
Water temperature should be within the range of +37-39 C. Stay in the therapeutic bath should not exceed a quarter of an hour.
If desired, you can enhance the therapeutic result of this procedure by adding about 20 drops of essential oil, such as grapefruit, orange or geranium.
Improvement of blood circulation
Do not wear overly tight clothing and avoid standing for long periods of time. Also, a very useful and easy recommendation for each of you is to sleep with your legs slightly elevated on a comfortable pillow. This facilitates venous circulation in the legs, with blood flowing from the ankles to the heart according to the force of gravity. In this way the pressure on the vessel walls decreases and the fluid in the tissues of the lower limbs returns to the bloodstream.
Natural Diuretic Remedies
An excellent remedy is to brew dried apple peels and drink this infusion as a tea – half a glass 5-6 times a day. It is necessary to boil a glass of water with 1 tbsp. of dried peels and infuse for 5-10 minutes.
A well-known plant is bearberry, which has a good but mild diuretic effect. Pour 2 tbsp. dried leaves of bearberry with a glass of water, boil for 15 minutes and infuse for half an hour. Drink 1 tbsp. 5-6 times daily, before a meal.
Birch leaves, like its juice, also have diuretic effects. Prepare an infusion of leaves: brew 2 tsp. leaves with a glass of boiling water, infuse for 30 minutes, strain and add a pinch of baking soda. Depending on the degree of edema, the tincture should be drunk 1 tsp. or 1 tbsp. every 3-4 hours.
Infusion of flowers of Arnica can be taken 1 tbsp. 4 times a day after a meal. To prepare it, pour a glass of boiling water 1 tsp. raw materials, insist for 2 hours and strain.
You can also brew a diuretic tea with lingonberries, cumin, rose hips, drink mate tea or just green tea.
In addition, the following plants are effective for eliminating fluid from the body: artichoke seeds; parsley seed extract; black currant, fennel and grapefruit extract; flax seed extract and sage.
To summarize, I can say that removing excess fluid from the body without pills is a fairly easy task to solve. To do this, you need to consume a sufficient amount of protein, drink water, eat juicy fruits and vegetables, give up bad habits, reduce the amount of salt in your diet, and load your body with whatever exercise is available. Natural diuretic remedies also make up the list of methods to eliminate excess fluids, proving their effectiveness time and time again.