Lymphatic Drainage: Where Does It Go?

Dr. Caitlin Czezowski (functional medicine specialist) explains where it drains to and why it’s important to know:

Keep it flowing

Many superficial instructions for lymphatic drainage (massage, brushing, gua sha etc) suggest moving fluid toward the heart without specifying the actual drainage point. And yes, it does indeed need to go to the heart eventually (once it has entered the bloodstream), but the lymphatic drainage point into the bloodstream (or rather, points, for there are two of them) can be found behind the collarbones.

What this means: all lymphatic fluid ultimately drains from above the collarbones into the supraclavicular fossa (the “terminus”), not directly to the heart.

The sides have different roles too, or rather, the left does much more work than the right:

• The right terminus drains: right side of face/head/neck, right arm/hand, right breast and rib cage, draining about 0.5 liters per day
• The left terminus drains: left side of face/head/neck, left arm, left breast/chest, entire abdomen and both legs, draining about 2.5 liters per day

So of course, you don’t want those drainage points to get congested. You can check for congestion yourself; examine the area above your collarbones using a mirror, and look for symmetry, puffiness, or loss of visible bone structure.

If there is congestion, you can decongest it as follows:

• use ring and middle fingers to probe the indent above the collarbones (aligned with your earlobes, if you imagine a plumbline directly down from them)
• apply gentle pressure, moving in light circles
• do 10–50 gentle pumps or circles, about 1 per second, up to 5x daily if needed

The more congested you are, the more consistently and frequently you should perform this gentle stimulation to restore proper drainage.

And if you’re not congested? That’s great, and this information is still useful because it means you’ll rememberer to always begin and finish lymphatic drainage sessions by decongesting the terminus, ensuring open flow back into circulation.

For more on all of this, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

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Take care!