Are You Fat, Or Is It Just Your Fascia?

Hello. Hello. Welcome to Mastering The Meno(Pause) Transition 3.0. I am still your host, Dr. Sharon Stills, and I am still always excited to be here with you, bringing you all new information that you need to help you master your hormonal transition and then live the sacred second act of your life with ease and grace and health beyond your comprehension.

So today we are going to talk about I'm like a broken record. I'm always like, we're going to talk about my favorite topic. But this I have so many favorite topics because, you know, health is multifactorial.

And so everything I'm bringing you, all the experts I'm bringing, you are really my creation of what it means to be healthy and what you need to be including.

And today I have the fabulous Deanna Hansen with me, who is the the Fascia Queen. And we're going to learn all about the fascia, because the fascia to me is where health begins or disease sets in.

And so if you don't know what your fascia is and you don't know why it's important, by the end of the next 30 minutes, you two are going to be like, oh my God, fascia is the most important thing and I need to be paying attention to mind.

So welcome, Deanna. It is amazing to have you here and I'm so excited for you for this conversation. thank you so much, Dr. Stills. It's an absolute joy to be here.

And what a beautiful introduction. I mean, you just have set the stage for everybody to move into this phase of life in such a graceful, loving way. So, so appreciate.

Thank you, thank you. Well, I'm so passionate about changing the conversation and changing the experience. And like we are, women hear us roar and no one has to suffer and we really can be productive, created, creative, having sex, doing all the things, traveling, moving our bodies.

You know, I believe well past our hundreds. So and I know you are a are part of that equation. So let's just dive in. and I love your story. This is not the first time is not our first rodeo.

We have we have interacted before. so maybe you could just quickly tell your story about, you know, why are you the Fascia Queen? And then, of course, explain what is for fascia for those listening who don't know.

Absolutely. So I'm 54 years old now, and back in my 20s, I was studying to be an athletic therapist, working with professional athletes. So trained in all of what was necessary to be fit.

So I was doing the work and I wasn't. I was 50 pounds overweight, struggling with anxiety, depression. The harder I worked, the more compressed, the more congested, the bigger my body got.

I became more constipated, struggling with anxiety, depression, just everything was not where it should be yet. I was working really hard so that was part of it.

I was in this moment of like, I'm in the gym doing what everyone else is doing, what I'm trained to do, and yet I'm getting continually worse and worse and worse.

So by the age of 30, I made some changes in my life which were necessary. And the result of these changes was I was having severe anxiety attacks. This one anxiety attack in particular, the was the seed of everything to come in that moment I actually thought I was going to die.

I was so frozen in fear with my breath, I couldn't. I couldn't get my breath. For some reason, I intuitively drove my hand into my abdomen. Now, up to this point, as a body where I was always focused on deep tissue work, so very aware of what scar tissue felt like in bodies, but typically would work on people's backs and necks and legs like we were trained.

Never did I ever touched anybody else's abdomen and not my own, because this is where I carried so much of my weight. That extra 50 pounds just felt like it was right in front of me.

And I was so ashamed of it that I never touched this space. So now I've got my hand diving into this tissue, but the first thing that happened was I connected to pain.

But the pain was really grounding. It took me out of my crazy thinking. It. It allowed me to recognize, okay, here's your breath. Your breathing. You're going to live another day.

But then I just continued to intuitively explore through the tissue with my fingertips, and I recognized that it felt marbled with scar tissue, even though I hadn't had any injury or surgery in that area.

And then suddenly I was having these moments like, no wonder when I'm coming home from a five mile run trip with sweat, my belly would still feel cold.

So I started to really recognize that there's something going on here. There's no energy getting to this space, even when I'm working out and working like feed or dieting, nothing's changing.

In fact, I was getting bigger. I also at that time had started the practice of yoga and every 30s the teacher would be prompting us to breathe, and every time she would prompt us, I would be aware I was holding my breath.

So this all kind of came into my awareness all at the same time. So for the first evening of me just intuitively exploring in my belly, what was really notable was how calm I felt.

And that was not my normal. So I'm like, well, I'm feeling really peaceful. And so next day I woke up. I still had that peaceful feeling as I'm going to work on my patience and my belly was a little sore from the work, but it kept me present and I was really excited to go back that next night and dive back in.

And after the second night of working in the tissue the way I was, I stood up and I felt taller and I went. I looked at myself in the mirror and I literally began to cry because my belly was flatter than it had looked in years.

Now I was doing at the time 400 sit ups a day, Tai bo aerobics, running, weight training, stair climbing like all of that. And in two days, literally things started to change for the better.

So this became my new approach. Every every night I would come home from work. Now I'm doing this work. Within two weeks, my chronic low back pain was going away, and then I started flipping my patients onto their backs and I started doing similar thing that I was doing in my own body, intuitively, in their own tissue.

And then I started having these amazing results. So that was almost 25 years ago now. Wow, wow. Well, I'm sure a lot of women listening, I'm sure you've got their attention because that can be such a frustrating experience where you're doing all the right things and you're doing the 3000 sit ups and you're like, nothing is working.

So stay tuned. Keep listening, because we're going to get deeper into it. So, okay, what the heck is fascia, right. What does that have to do with this? Yeah.

And so I recognize it was probably a couple of years into this process that I recognized. Well, like I'm actually working in the fascia system. So the fascia is in my view, literally the cell membrane of every single cell connected to every other cell.

It is the communication system between all cells in the body and we have trillions. It also because of the components, largely collagen and elastin creates both mobility and support.

So we're not a concrete block, but we're also not a puddle because of the balance of these two proteins. So with the goal that if every single cell in our body is incorrect alignment, then we have optimal space, and space allows for ease of flow.

And that's really the key when it comes to health. As long as there's oxygen, nutrients, getting to the cells, easy absorption, and then the ease of pulling away toxins and byproducts, carbon dioxide, then there's an open flowing system and there's no stress because as long as cells are properly fed and clean, they're happy and they're doing their job for us, which is to allow us to thrive.

But the challenges that we have, these forces constantly are impacting the body most significantly. Gravity is constantly pulling us down toward the Earth.

Most people, I'm sure, note that we get shorter and wider as we age, but we don't just compress in a linear fascia. We're dominant on one side, so we overuse one side of the body more than the other, and as a result, we end up spiraling down as we age one direction or the other.

And what the fascia does, the collagen component, that structural support of the fascia, it starts to migrate. So for example, I'm right handed. 70% of the population are saw right handed.

So that right handed person is going to shift likely. This is generalizations by the way. shift their weight to that left side to keep that right side free for action.

So there's always an active side and then an anchoring side. And as I'm sitting here because I'm actually a lefty, okay. And I'm like, I think I feel that I'm like I could feel the shift to the right side, like as you're saying, that I became aware of it.

So that's interesting. Okay. Go on. Yeah. And what what the collagen does. So if I'm always sitting in this left collapsed alignment, the collagen starts to migrate to create building blocks.

So I don't basically land on my face. So it's like scar tissue blocks blood and oxygen flow and it becomes riddled throughout the entire body. So over time, we're getting cells not properly fed and clean because the body is working to keep us upright and not fall on our face.

So whether adhesions are created through time and it's a slow, continual accumulation in the body as we're constantly getting pulled down toward the earth, or if scar tissue is created from injury or surgery in a moment.

Basically, we have this accumulation of collagen that acts like a beaver dam to flow. And it's dense and gravity loves dense tissue. So the more adhesions or scar tissue we have riddled throughout the body, the heavier and the denser we become.

So gravity is actually manipulating our body faster. And as soon as we have these roadways or these blockages to the roadways, now your cells aren't getting properly fed and clean.

So they're starving and they're dirty and they're not happy. So the first thing they do is they give you a pain shot saying, hey, mom or dad, you're asking me to do my job so that you can thrive, but I'm hungry, I'm dehydrated, I'm exhausted, I'm dirty so I can't function as well.

But we don't tend to appreciate the pain, so we mask it. We partially avoid. It gets a little bit louder because it's still working and you're ignoring it.

So now it's screaming a little louder, but eventually it gets to a point where that voice is so far away that you don't even hear it anymore. And in my view, that's when we can really see the body starting to create dis ease, because it's no longer just a simple signal of, you know, there's a pain shot because you're asking me to work, but you're squishing me.

So ultimately that's fascia compression and pain, aging and disease. Ultimately, death really come down to our bodies compressing and squishing the life out of us.

Literally. yeah. I always say symptoms are sacred messengers. And we we have to we have to be curious and kind, just like we would be to a screaming, crying baby, right?

We wouldn't. We wouldn't squish the baby away and say, stop crying. Stop crying. You know, and we we inquire, we get curious, hungry, cold, lonely, what's going on.

And we need to give ourselves that own beauty of inquiring what the pain is about. And and as you're talking, I just want to remind everyone listening like we don't have a fast allergist, right?

We have a cardiologist. We have a pulmonologist. And so I just think in modern medicine and even in holistic medicine, we're always so focused on the cell, you know, oh, I'm going to take some CoQ10 to make energy in the cell.

I'm going to take this to make my, my mitochondrion, my cells function better. But the the fascia is where the mitochondria are getting information from the the cells are healthy.

This extracellular space, which is the fashion, the lymphatics. This is where we really need to be focusing. So this is really really important stuff I just want.

And I can just add because I'm so happy that you said that because I live in Winnipeg and in the winter it can be -30 Celsius, it's freezing and it doesn't matter what I've got going inside, whether it's a healthy environment or an unhealthy environment, if my window breaks and I do not have an ability to seal it up or heat my space, everything inside dies.

So the container is the key. It's like the egg, you know, if that eggshell breaks, then you got a puddle. And and so that's where we really do need to look at the integrity of the cell walls as the most important component in my view of how to stay healthy for that reason.

But that's a great analogy. I'm glad I live in Arizona where we don't have to where I where I wouldn't think to give an analogy of a below 30 degree temperature.

So I'm gonna I'm going to move us along here because you often say that feet are the seat of hell. And so and then you connect it to our, our face. And so what does that mean?

And how do our feet connect to our face, and why is that important to the the women listening. So there's three pillars that make up facial decompression.

The first one is creating the space that we lose through time. So basically melting those adhesions. The second one is inflating that space through teaching proper diaphragmatic breathing.

And this is where it gets really fun with the breath in the feet, in the whole temperature thing. Because I'm just going to bring my camera down. So your diaphragm is a plate of muscle that is the foundation of the rib cage.

When we inhale it moves down. When we exhale it lifts. When it's working properly, it's this pump creating heat, creating energy. It's the body's furnace.

Now the problem is pain. Fear and stress causes us to reactively hold the breath. So if we're not conscious breathers, we end up breathing through the muscles of the upper chest because those stressful moments put us into this freeze.

So now, if I don't release that tension, that trauma that came in that caused me to freeze like a deer who survives an attack, they shake. Then I end up aging from this perspective, this frozen perspective.

So I'm still I'm built to survive. So I'm still going to breathe. But the breath is going to come from the muscles of the upper chest. They are like your body's space heater compared to the body's furnace.

So your calves in your feet, they are the furthest from the the body's furnace. So they become the most frozen. And Sasha will grip and adhere to bone with a force up to 2,000 pounds per square inch.

Like this a crazy amount of force. So if you have a frozen shoulder or you see that your face is going through aging, or you have a ballooning belly as you're getting older, largely all of these issues and problems are coming from the alignment of the fascia in your feet, because again, they're the most frozen.

So I can go for a treatment. And then I start walking and I get pulled into that negative fascia pattern that's created the issue in the first place, or at least being a major contributor, because when you look at the body, we're like a building.

So we have postural foundations to support our cellular structure. However, if we don't pay attention to those and work the body in a balanced, symmetrical way, and most don't because we're dominant on one side, we start having one foot that acts like the driver pulling the body away from balance, which is often not always, but often the dominant side.

And then we have the other side of the body that goes into an anchoring mode. So if these are your feet here and these are your hips, you know, your hip joints are positioned in the pelvis based on what your feet are doing.

So now if my feet start to migrate out of alignment now my hip joints, they're also being affected by this alignment. So now the contents inside the pelvis they're getting squished because of this alignment causing the lower belly to balloon outward, causing adhesion and blockage affecting flow down to the feet as well.

And then that alignment is going to pull my upper body forward, impacting even further my ribcage. How I'm breathing. It's going to cause all this compression in ballooning in the abdominal area, creating more inflammation and so on and so on.

And then that's going to be holding your head in this negative forward alignment. So if we have proper postural foundations, each one of these trillions of cells are stacked where they're supposed to be.

So we have very little influence from gravity when we're properly aligned. But when we start to fall out of balance and we're sitting in this compressed, contorted position over time, now there's all these areas that gravity is manipulating.

If I have a jowl, for example, on this one side of my face, I'm going to be standing or like I'm going to be positioned this way and so you can go for face work, but then if you don't correct what's happening in the feet, that alignment is going to pull you right back into that posture that's going to be pulling your cellular structure from balance, and then gravity's going to be manipulating you.

And because part of the role of the fascia is to create stability and support for the cells as we start falling away, it's not just, again, a linear migration of this collagen to areas of need or weakness.

Energy flows and waves and spirals. So it starts to spiral and grip. So on the head you get all these grips, grips, grips. You can see them like Catholics for example.

Catholic would be how how energy travels. The scalp should be fluid against the skull for a lot of people it's really sticky. You know, we should be able to pull her ear with ease away and see it moving for lots of people.

The ear is so glued on to the scalp that you can't, with ease, create this fluid movement. So these are all indicators that there's adhesions. And again adhesions block flow, create pain, fear or pain aging and disease.

So our goal is that we understand how to address those adhesions with the melting. Now insulate that area with proper diaphragmatic breathing and then maintain that proper space through understanding proper postural alignment.

And when it comes to the feet, it's the toes, because the toes are literally the furthest from the engine. And you'll see on people they're twisted. Some have them that overlap, some might have a hammer or a claw toe.

And this is an indicator of what's going on up the chain. And then every time you take a step that's going to impact you up the chain. So all the work that you can do in any area of the body, if we don't address those feet every step we take, we're going to constantly be pulled back into that battle and gravity's going to win.

So by release those adhesions in the feet, between the toes and then supporting how to strengthen them, we should have springy feet. But so many people, they're just a pancake, like we've allowed the weight of our body to take the 26 bones in this incredible mechanism.

And we've basically just flattened it and that's that happens to most people. But we don't have to allow it. And we can also reverse it through releasing the feet.

And then one simple thing to do is when you're standing, just have your knees slightly bent and grip the toes. Grip the toes for like ten full slow breaths, making the exhale longer than the inhale.

And you're going to start to rebuild that spring in your step. And then you're going to be directing your body where it's going, as opposed to letting gravity and unconscious posture directing you into these, into into the space that's been created, those grooves that have been created in your fascia system that continue to pull you down and pull you out of alignment.

And you also share at home what they can be doing between their toes. Yes. Yeah. So whether it's you can use a pencil and if you have a would one better couple of wooden chopsticks or fingers and basically pressure pressure between the toe to the point where you feel the pain and when it comes to melting adhesion, we can't rush it.

So we want to stay between each toe for a minimum of three minutes. And we can do it for the hands too, because the hands and the forearms are also the furthest from the engine.

Your limbs really depict your overall alignment. So for the hands really simply, you can just put the fingers like this. And again, if you just push, you'll feel that pain.

And if you do it between all fingers, this is my most painful one. Between my third and fourth finger. But you can really feel that and that though, like for people that have rheumatoid arthritis or arthritis in their joints or any kind of twisting in their fingers, the trans contracture, this is the work that's really needed to correct the patterning of the fingers, so that each time we use them, we bring them back into alignment as well.

So simple stuff to do. It's just a matter of doing it. Three minutes between. So you can kind of cheat because you can do two at a time on the hands, right?

But on the feet you get. But it's a great thing to do while you're if you're watching a show or listening to a podcast so that it really can be powerful.

And so I really highly encourage you all to, to, to attempt to make that part of your new routine. And what was amazing was, I remember sharing this on a podcast I had done, and then one woman had reached out to our company sharing that she was doing the toe work.

The hand work, and just doing the diaphragmatic breathing. Her hair started falling or stopped falling out, and her chronically cold hands and feet were no longer.

And it's incredible the responses that we're getting from our community who are doing this work every single day. One of our, community members, we did a sparkling hill retreat in Canada in November.

So she was at the retreat and she's in her 70s. And so she's sitting there and when she's sitting cross-legged, her knees were like, up like this. And she's like, I just want my knees to sit flat.

So I said to her, work the toes every day and let's see how long it takes you. And about a month ago, she came on to my community group and she's like, Deanna, look.

And she was sitting there with her legs flat. And they were like, literally like this angle, back in November. So a 70 year old. So we're not talking.

We're playing the toes. It's working the toes. And suddenly gained this mobility in the hip joints because the feet depict the alignment of the hips. And then think of all the struggles that men and women have with the reproductive organs or organs of elimination or anything like that.

If there's less space in the pelvis now, those organs are going to be compressed. Adhesions will result in problems or results will have more pains, more problems, more challenges.

And as you said in the beginning, like we want to we want to move into, you know, our later years with the force that we should be able to to have in life, enjoying all of the pleasures of life.

Yet so many are struggling because of those adhesions. And that's the stuff that this work is really, really amazing at working through. I feel like I'm sitting here thinking, like, I feel like we have like meditation groups, like I'm always trying to think of what can I do for my community and, you know, can I show up?

And now I'm like, we should just have like finger and toe groups. We just show up and we chat and we learn and we just because it's, you know, there's so many things to do and it's so easy to forget.

But just think about it as part of your nightly routine, right? If you're like. We can do it here. And no one even has to know. Yeah, I yeah, I could have been doing my fingers this whole time.

So you also share. I just want to before I ask you another question, I just want to also point out that I love that you said the woman worked her, her toes and her hair stopped falling out because often as a physician, someone's hair's falling out.

You know, some of the first things I think about what's going on with our thyroid, what's going on with her hormones, what's going on? Is she anemic? Is there an autoimmune condition?

You know, but we have to expand our in in medicine, we call it a DXY. Our differential diagnosis. And we have to include, you know, is it a partial constriction.

Is there something else going on that maybe we don't really directly relate but is related. So that that's a great, that just a good learning experience there for everyone?

Can I speak to that just a little bit more as well? Like just because the thyroid, I mean, as you mentioned, it's it's such a common thought for the hair loss and the, the way that the fascia will grip and manipulate the calves, ankles and feet, pulling that body forward is now responsible for creating adhesions in the thyroid.

Because look at the posturing of the head. Most people, first of all, don't have a straight head. So here's this butterfly gland. And so we're this way or this way.

So now we're getting other compression and ballooning this side or this side. And then combine that with that head getting pulled forward. And so Doctor Oz had mentioned in a show I watched 15 years ago, the head weighs about 10 pounds, but can put up to 100 pounds of force on the muscles of the neck, the upper back, the jaw.

So imagine with this force now and here's your thyroid. And here we are sitting like this for years and decades. I mean, no wonder we we have issues with our thyroid not working properly.

But again, we have to track back and understand why is that happening. And there's a lot of reasons, but most definitely, alignment. Your your posture is a big key piece for it because it all comes down to space.

And if we don't maintain our own space and we start falling in, the fat is going to do its job and it's going to create false walls and false floors. But those aren't what we want, because those blocks the flow and create the the aging and the stagnancy.

and just on a, on an existential emotional when you're talking about like, we need to create the space in our bodies. And we also I think sometimes society subliminally or maybe not so subliminally know tells us we we shouldn't take up space anymore.

We're over the hill. We're not important anymore. We're not young and beautiful. And so, you know, when we take up space in our body, then we it expands to like, yes, we deserve to take up space.

We may not be young, but we are beautiful in our own way of maturing and wisdom. And so I think it like, you know, the body, mind connection we have to really think about how are we taking up space in our lives, in our in our jobs, in our families, in our communities, and then in our in our bodies?

So I and I, I just love that too. I was reading a book, I can't think of the title of it, but it was a couple of years ago and it was a book on aging.

And in the last chapter he talks about how the frontal lobe, which of course is a lobe for learning new things, your personality, how as we age it shrinks.

So he was saying from the evolutionary standpoint, it's because as we get older we aren't useful. And I'm like, well, no, excuse me, but I mean, the wise old person has the wisdom to dispense to those newer on this planet.

And why does it shrink again? It shrinks because of what's going on in your facial system, starting at your feet as our head gets pulled forward. Now we've got this container with this brain inside that's now, you know, getting pushed and resting against the frontal bone.

So if it doesn't have that space now, it's going to start to shrink, which is what they see. But they think it's just because there's no evolutionary reason for old people to, you know, keep their personality and learn new things.

I mean, sorry, I don't agree. Disagree. Strongly disagree here. Yes. So it's like, so give yourselves some love. Make sure you remind yourselves why, why you matter and why you're wise and why you're important.

And if you have someone who's older in your life, you know, take some time out and and express that to them and make sure you include them and extract their wisdom because it's in there and we just need to start valuing it.

And if we all start doing that, it ripples out. There's the ripple effect and we truly can change, which is my mission to change how we age and how we view aging.

So you heard it here. That's so collagen. A big, hot topic. Of course. I was just drinking my college and before we came live. But you say that collagen doesn't really disappear.

We're kind of taught as we age, we lose collagen. You say it just shifts. So what do you mean by that? So in this matrix. This fashion matrix, the elastin again, it creates that lovely ability for us to move the college and creates the structure.

So if we're looking at my face for example, and I'm I'm tilted this way because again, eventually if I'm tilted this way long enough, my, my jowl is going to start to sag.

So as, as I'm tilting this way, the fascists constantly depositing collagen onto the bone to create these hooks, these little spiral hooks. There's this continual migration of it so that we don't tip off balance.

So you can feel under your cheekbones how the collagen builds up under there, under the jaw, you can see how people's jawline, over time starts to get starts to lose.

The structure starts to get rounded. We start to lose the actual shape of our correct, alignment of our face and head. Compared to when we're younger, most people's faces are becoming a lot more drawn out.

And in the book by James Nestor, he goes into a really great conversation about the alignment of the tongue, which we share is one of the foundations that we need to support that supports proper nose breathing, that also supports, the weight of the head and all of these things.

But we don't think to hold our tongue or be aware of the alignment of our tongue. And so if we're not supporting proper alignment, again, we're going to have that migration of the collagen to areas to create grips on to bone.

And then the more dense it is, the more the elastin. You know, when you see stretch marks, that's basically the elastin without collagen or when you see saggy skin, it's the elastin without the collagen because there's an imbalance now and so and then also in these hooks and grips things get trapped.

So the melanin might get trapped. You might have age spots or you might have broken capillaries broken everywhere because you have less flow. So as these grips hook on to bone, that's blocking the blood flow to the surface of the skin, and things can get trapped along the way.

so all of these things really can be traced back to why are things getting trapped? And you know what's going on? It's the collagen that's migrating. So I don't feel that the body isn't creating enough.

I feel that the further we tip off balance and the more that we age, the more the collagen has had to migrate away from its balanced, equilibrium of collagen, elastin.

And so the collagen is more on the front of the body, and then you've got the back to the body that's under this constant forward pull. So now like if you feel the tissue in the back of the body is very different in texture than in the front of the body, it's hard in comparison to the front, where in the front it's really hard when we go deeper than the bloating, because when we compress and when we fall in.

For example, I'll show you right here. Again, if I'm not supporting proper alignment and I start falling in, then it's going to go there, you know, it's got it has to go somewhere.

So if I take away that space now, here's my belly. And if this is how I sit all day, I mean, this is how I look if I'm sitting unconsciously all day. So we don't want that.

We want to have this strong muscle to support the weight of the rib cage and everything above from coming and crashing down into that core space, because as soon as it does that now, it starts displacing the organs in the abdominal area, creating inflammation, lack of absorption, lack of illumination, Paris or whatever.

I mean, we start attracting all of these things, but that inflammation. So again, the collagen is being pulled away to create false walls and false floors.

And whenever I'm assessing people you can really see it. So for example, a lot of people, a lot of women in particular, they don't like the, knee fat, they think it's knee fat.

So if you look at the person standing that has that pocket of displaced fascia above their knee, they will be hyperextended when we stand properly with a slightly bent knee, we're actually contracting the muscle and we're getting that lift.

As soon as we hyper extend the knee, we're taking away the floor for this tissue. And now we've got this hanging tissue and gravity's going to manipulate it, and the collagen is going to stick to the bone to create that stability.

And then the elastic part is going to be hanging. And then people think, well, I've got knee fat. You don't you have displacement of fat. We've got compression and ballooning.

So the compression is the collagen. The ballooning is the expansion of all the garbage and the stuff that's getting pushed out the other side. So whether it's knee fat right above the knee or sometimes you think, oh, I've got all this fat on the inside part of my knee, it's because your knee joint has collapsed on one side and it's ballooning on the other.

And that's really the migration of collagen that's causing that. Such, such a profound and different. I'm sure a lot of women have never heard this before, and it's such a unique way, but accurate way of looking at things.

So I just want to circle back before we wind up. You said tongue placement. Could you just explain where the tongue should actually be place so the ladies know where to put their tongues.

So about a pinky nail distance from your teeth at the roof of the mouth is a ridge. And if you'll notice your tongue perfectly, docs into that ridge, and the surface of the tongue should be against the roof of the roof of the mouth, like you were supporting an almond between your tongue and the roof of the mouth.

When I'm not conscious, my tongue will dart too far forward and go to the right and I'll end up clenching more on my left side. So we want to have a symmetrical job.

We want to chew same amount on both sides. Most people don't, so they start chewing on one side more than another, and then that's going to affect the alignment of the tongue.

It's going to create that muscle twisting. You know, it sits right above the thyroid. So then as the head's coming forward the tongue is twisting. We're getting all these adhesions, this collagen migration sticking to bone through here.

People end up thinking they have a double chin. They really have a weak and displaced tongue. So when we consciously position the tongue correctly, we actually support the weight of the head instead of the head falling forward like this.

So it works together with the rib cage. Of course we need the rib cage aligned. If it's falling in, then your head is going to get pulled and so on and so on.

We can track that all the way back down to the feet and toes. But it's a way of understanding how to support. Alignment of the head with the tongue makes a huge difference.

And one simple thing to do slightly, pull your chin in, align your tongue, and then turn your head one way or another. Notice the range that you have, the quality of the movement, and now let it go.

Do what you normally do and then turn your head without subconsciously thinking of it. Notice, Different range of motion. Possibly. Yeah yeah yeah. And more painful and often like for some people they'll, they'll hear the grating that wearing down where as soon as you align and you go through that movement, you've got the space.

So then the space allows for the movement to be without stress. So no need for inflammation. And we stay young and healthy. Awesome. So we've got fingers and toes and tongues.

And so just real quick to wrap up, we are talking about menopause. So how does fascia say play a role in hot flashes or anxiety or fatigue? when we're dealing with menopause.

So of course, with menopause, I mean, we tend to be a little bit older because that's when it happens. So by the time most people are getting into menopause, we've already had decades of adhesions developing in the body.

So whether we're talking thyroid gland, any other gland, if there's not space, it ceases to function properly. So then your body, as we go through this menopause, like the heat flash in my view, is like the fever.

It's the good thing your body's working hard to try to move stuff that it doesn't want out of the body. And it's it's doing it through this manner. I know this isn't menopause per se, but cramping when we have our cycle.

Again, my my experience is from the body having to contract to move the tissue out in its cycle. Because if we're not properly aligned, gravity can't simply pull that tissue out when that uterine lining is ready to go.

So now we're cramping and cramping and cramping, trying to push it out. So when we support proper alignment with breath, then the symptoms that we feel through whatever parts we're going through, they don't need to express themselves because there's balance.

And once there's balance and regulation in the body, there's no need for symptoms to show. So, I think next month I can say I'm one year. So I've actually.

yes, away from saying I'm in menopause. And yeah. And I mean, it's, it's, it's been a nothing burger for me. So, you know, regulating your breath really helps you to regulate the, the symptoms that you have, whether it's the bloating, the weight gain, the fatigue, the brain fog, the pain, painful sex.

I mean, all of these things come from adhesion. So when we can understand how to support the fascia, the flow of the fluids and the energy in the body and keep that breath strong, we really have a very different opportunity to navigate the aging process and really chart a new course for what that means.

With all of the wonderful information that's now coming out into the world from this different perspective. Love it, love it, love it. Yeah, I always say that the breath is your your best friend, your best medicine.

It's free. Brings into the world escorts you out. It's always with you. And we just need to remember to be mindful and utilize it right. So well. This has been phenomenal and I could talk to you all day and you have great tools.

We you've spoken to my community. you have blocks used how well. So how can the women who are listening find out more about you? My website is blocktherapy.com.

There's a ton of information that would direct you to our YouTube channel where there's lots of free videos, and we also have a Facebook community group where anyone can join.

And there's almost 15,000 people in there. You can ask questions and you'll have the community answering on your behalf. Awesome. I send my patients to that Facebook group all the time and stay tuned because I'm always doing something fun with Deanna.

So, after the summit, I'm sure you know, we do webinars, we did a webinar and it was just so much fun. And we went through her nine steps. And whether you had her block, so you just had a towel.

We got such amazing feedback from it. So, this is just a really important piece. for you to all know about, which is why I've brought Deanna here today.

So thank you for being here. I always learn something interesting. I always get reminded of important things I'm going to get back on my fingers and toes tonight.

And thank you so much for the opportunity. It's been an absolute pleasure. you're so welcome. So here's another one. I hope that you are, like, making your mess during the menopause transition.

Like flowchart of all the things, all the pieces, the puzzles that help you to feel better. And so this is definitely, you know, one of the ground zero, one of the most important, you know, the the bullseye of how to age gracefully and just to have a different perspective on weight gain and hair loss and, wrinkles and all of these things.

So thank you so much for being here and bringing us this gift. So we'll be back with another talk. Stay tune and always. Thank you for being here.