Leg swelling is every woman's worst nightmare. It may cause you to feel sluggish and tired. More importantly, it makes your legs look fat. It's not because you have sore leg muscles but instead the reason why this happens is not because your legs are fat. Instead, it may be caused by leg edema, or leg swelling due to water retention.
Here is a leg massage to slim your legs after taking a bath.
How to know if water retention is going to cause leg swelling
Built up water retention in your legs can cause you to feel tired and groggy at times. However, there are cases when you have no symptoms, making it harder to diagnose whether or not you should do something about the swelling in your legs due to water retention.
Here's how to check for leg swelling.
Check for edema leg swelling
- Press using your fingers down on your shin.
- Release your fingers from your shin and watch what happens afterward. If it takes a while for the pressed area to return to normal, you may want to start massaging your legs after taking a bath.
If you didn't see anything out of the ordinary, you passed. That means you may not have leg swelling problems caused by water retention.
However, as a preventative measure, doing the next leg massage wouldn't hurt.
Daily after bath leg massage! 1 minute lymphatic drain
- Grab hold of the back of your leg right above your ankles and work your way up to the back of your knees massing your leg. Do 5-6 times on both sides.
- Massage the back of your knees.
- With your fingers in the back of your knee, massage your outer thigh starting from the back of your knees and work toward you upper section of your thigh. This will help drain the lymphatic system in your legs between your knees and hips.
Checkpoint: Tips to treat swelling in legs from water retention
When lymph circulation is bad, your legs start retaining more water. This can cause noticeably swelling in your legs.
Massaging your legs helps improve lymph circulation.
Located in back of your knee is a major lymph node in your leg. Simply massaging this area helps improve the circulation of lymphatic fluid in your legs.
Best in the tub: Massage your legs while taking a bath
Performing the leg massage introduced in this column is best done when your blood circulation is at its best. That is when you are taking a bath.
For people taking showers, making time to take a bath is recommended.
The benefits of massaging your legs is not limited to treating leg swelling but is also go for treating cold sensitivity.
For people too busy to take bathes daily jumping in the shower, setting aside bath time is not a bad idea.
Caution
If the reason you have leg swelling is related to an illness, getting rid of water retention caused by edema may be difficult. At this point, you may want to see a doctor.
