Let’s talk about armpits. Or, if you’re Scottish and sentimentally attached to the dialect of Presbyterian disapproval, they’re called ‘oxters‘.
In anatomical terms, it’s the axilla, a word that sounds like a mid-range hatchback. But in truth, the armpit is not simply a place to host BO and awkwardness. They’re a lymphatic toll booth. A sweaty little diplomatic pouch where your body quietly gets on with detoxifying itself, fighting off God knows what you picked up from the shared handles of public life.
And what do we do with this noble bit of immunological wizardry? We poison it.
Every morning, millions of people wake up, stretch, and promptly vandalise their own armpits with roll-ons and sprays that are essentially scented plug cement.
Antiperspirants don’t just mask smell, they block a vital function. They are the customs officials of perspiration, turning toxin-carrying sweat back at the border.
We smear aluminium into our skin, where it stealthily absconds into our bloodstream, past the blood-brain barrier and takes up residence in the mental attic like a heavy metal squatter. This would be madness even if aluminium weren’t already a documented neurotoxin.
Peer-reviewed science has made a strong case that these aluminium salts are not just neurotoxic, but may be accomplices in the slow slide into the mental fog of dementia.
And for what? To smell vaguely like a spring meadow.
Deodorants are marginally better than aerosol sprays, though that’s like saying being punched in the ribs is preferable to being hit by a bus. They kill bacteria. Or try to. The problem is, the stink isn’t sweat itself, but the bacteria dining out on your glandular offerings.
We feed them, they burp. Nature at its most aromatic.
But the armpit is more than just a hygiene hazard. It’s a sensitive anatomical junction: held together by the pectoralis major in the front, the latissimus dorsi around the back, and the teres major below, all working together like a muscular committee to keep your arm obediently tethered to your torso.
Nestled in this armpit alley is a bustling lymphatic network, nerve bundles, a few TCM-certified qi pumps and a direct somatic expressway that links shoulder to spine, wrist to plantar fascia, neck to hip. Everything is connected and not just spiritually, but through tissue, tension and trauma.
Ignore your armpits at your peril.
People recovering from motor accidents or repetitive strain injuries often find that their healing hinges not on their elbow or neck, but on that silent, shadowy intersection beneath the arm. It’s where blocked lymph lingers and energetic dissonance festers.
And yet, liberation is blissfully simple. Stop. Just stop. Don’t plug it. Don’t spritz it. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Let your body remember what it was built to do.
I haven’t used any deodorant since 1997.. Phylipa even before then. No one recoils when we approach. We smell of human.
And if you must scent your pits, let it be essential oils. Lavender, tea tree, vetiver, at least they come from something that once grew under sun and rain, rather than in vats the size of football fields.
You don’t need to be pure. But you do need to be porous. Sweat is your body eliminating junk. Don’t silence it with aluminium and other toxins, that cannot leave the body and end up in soft tissue such as the breast.
Let your oxters breathe.
Mary Burmeister 1922-2015, left something rare and infinitely useful: advice on having an open armpit.
Mary was the woman who carried Jin Shin Jyutsu across the Pacific to the deodorised, cross-armed West. Where others brought sushi, she brought stillness. Where others imported kimonos and origami, Mary gave us lymphatic flow and permission to raise our arms.
And here’s the rub: she believed, quite fiercely, that keeping your armpits open could keep you alive. Not in the woo-woo, granola-encrusted sense of spiritual vibrance, but in the more rubber-glove-and-clipboard language of cancer prevention.
To be “open,” she said, meant to live un-crossed, unguarded. Don’t sit hugging yourself like a nervous schoolgirl. Open your arms. Swim. Cycle. Do Yoga or Pilates. Wave. Play tennis. Get them up and out like flags in a stiff breeze. Let the underarm breathe. Let the lymph flow like liberated traffic on the motorway during a petrol strike.
This wasn’t just Eastern esoterica. This was smart biology. Armpits aren’t awkward anatomical punchlines. They’re major lymphatic roundabouts. Block them, and the traffic builds. Toxins back up. Your body becomes a sort of biological Birmingham.
Yes, deodorant smells nice. For a bit. But you’ve traded the sweet stink of your humanity for a whiff of corporate deception.
And it gets worse. These antiperspirants are classed, legally, as drugs. Over-the-counter biochemistry that alters your body’s natural functions. They come with warnings about kidney damage. Read the back of the label if you can. You’ll need a magnifying glass and a minor in toxicology to decipher it.
Mary’s answer was simple: Don’t. Just don’t.
Instead of dousing yourself in industrial scent, listen to your sweat. It speaks. It tells tales of mineral deficiency, of stress, of diet and heartbreak and ambient air quality. Zinc, copper, iron, chloride, it’s all there, leaking quietly from your glands like a whispered confession.
Sweat is valuable, so don’t block it.
Armpit tickling
I couldn’t leave the obvious alone.
We’re highly susceptible to armpit tickling because:
- It’s a sensitive area loaded with nerves.
- It’s a protective reflex. Our body treats it like a potentially dangerous zone.
- The brain adds surprise and emotional layers to the sensation.
This Fruit Removes Body Odor Better Than Cancer-Causing Deodorants: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10155195401961512
Graeme Dinnen
ResourcesForLife.net
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