Andrew Huberman

And in talking about all of this, you'll be able to make sense of why it is that things like lymphatic massage or the various tools and treatments that are out there may actually work and why some of them perhaps should be avoided.

And as a final point,

You're also going to realize by the end of today's episode that the lymphatic system is one of the major reasons why exercise supports longevity and heart health and brain health and all the other things that we've heard that exercise can provide.

The point here is that your lymphatic system sits central to everything we care about in terms of immediate and long-term health

And as you'll soon see, it's also just a really cool system.

Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public.

In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors.

Okay, let's get into the lymphatic system.

But in order to get into the lymphatic system, we need to talk briefly about the circulatory system for blood.

Now, everybody knows what the heart is.

The heart is this organ that pumps blood.

Many of you are probably familiar with the fact that the heart has different chambers, different compartments.

But the heart also has two major jobs that are quite different from one another and two major anatomical distinctions that allow those functions to occur.

And those functions, broadly speaking, are to deliver oxygenated blood to all the tissues of your body, including your brain, your spleen, every organ and tissue in the body needs oxygenated blood.

And also to return the non-oxygenated blood back to the heart

and back to the lungs so that it can get reoxygenated.

So I'm just going to briefly describe the blood circulatory system in very broad terms.

We probably should do an entire episode about heart health and heart function, and we will.

But for those of you not familiar with how the heart works, basically the heart is going to pump blood out through what are called arteries, you've all heard of arteries, which are fairly large diameter tubes