The Fascia & Fibromyalgia Connection

Deanna Hansen

Thank you so much, Dr. Murphree. It’s such a pleasure to be able to share with your community.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Hey, you know, before we got on here, I was telling you a little bit about my journey with some of this body work. And years ago, when I was we had a very large medical practice and one of the medical doctors that worked there really got into myofascial release. She had a peer form, a syndrome, and it was just it was agonizing for her to drive every day to the clinic. And she found out my first release got me all interested in it and I started sharing it with my fibroid patients. And then I actually took the training with the originator of Myofascial release and I have a chapter in my book all about my last release, but it’s a little bit dated compared to what you’re doing. So, so first of all, what is fascia? Let’s talk about fascia. What’s fascia?

Deanna Hansen

So the way I see fascia is it’s literally the surface cell membrane of every cell connected to every other cell. So the fashion becomes this matrix, this communication system that provides us not only stability, but mobility. And the real goal is that we keep every one of our trillions of cells in its correct alignment, because if we do that, then we have optimal space within and around the cell for ease of flow of nutrients into the cell and waste away from the cell. So the fashion system is really here to support the cell in order that we can ensure flow is optimal. And really, if flow is profoundly simple, there’s nothing in the body that creates congestion or even aging. It’s the adhesions that develop through the layers of fashion over time, from compression, from gravity, as well as unconscious living, being dominant on one side, using the body inappropriately, not consciously breathing. That ultimately causes us to fall into that internal space and the cells begin to migrate away from their rightful position. The further they get, the more the fascia will grip and adhere to everything in its path to try to create stability, stopping us from tipping over. And as much as it does that, unfortunately it also limits mobility as well as flow within the body.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So I use this example kind of a visual, which is not a great one, but it’s one that I use that the fascists like Saran Wrap and it wraps around every organ, every tissue, every every bone in the body. It’s, you know, if you were to take everything away, but the fashion you’d still see, you know, the, the figure of a person there. And that fashion can become dysregulated. If you take this Saran Wrap and you start to just tighten it up, kind of like you would a rubber band and you get all these buckles and places where you’re blocked. And that’s oftentimes where you’re starting to get the trigger points and the pain points in this. But a also big part of that is you see that your metabolism, your energy just tanks because of that. But right. So the visual for me is this Saran wrap that wraps around everything in your body and you can’t separate any, you know, your body from this fascia. And the state of your fascia really dictates the state of your health.

Deanna Hansen

I had recently done about a year ago or less than that, an interview with Gill Headley, an anatomist and years ago back, and I think it was 2007, he put out a video called The Fuzz Speech, which was really helpful when I was initially teaching my therapist because he works on cadavers, but he really dove in through the cadaver, into the fascia system and really showed the the fuzz being the adhesions that develop between the layers of fascia as well as scar tissue and how that can negatively impact the body. So a number of months ago we did a discussion with him, which was fascinating because of course, he has progressed in his understanding of the fashion along the way. And he started talking about the fact as he continues to explore deeper and deeper, it’s like this infinite tissue. And he started to talk about the Perry fascia. And as soon as he said that, I said, that’s what block therapy addresses. Because even inside the bone, every single cell, whether bone, organ, brain, skin, whatever it is, all is innervated by fashion. So we are literally interconnected, even though there’s different layers of thicker fibrous vascular surrounding thing. There’s also an innovation of fascia in every single tissue in the body.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So you mentioned that the compression of the fast fashion is one of the triggers of fibromyalgia. Can yes. I think it’s you know, I don’t know what came from the chicken or the egg. And everyone’s got a different take on what is the cause of fibromyalgia. There’s all kinds of different triggers. But definitely I would agree with you. I mean, that’s a big part of it. And that can come from trauma, scar tissue, the past surgery. There’s all kind of things that can create that. But can you go into a little more detail about that compression and how it affects someone with fibromyalgia?

Deanna Hansen

Absolutely. So there’s three pillars to this system. Basically, the first one is creating space. So if we have every cell perfectly aligned, we have optimal space within the body. Over time, under the forces of gravity and incorrect posture and breathing, we literally wind down over time, which decreases our internal space. We basically get shorter and wider as we age. So this compression is creating a lack of flow within the tissues. So what we do with our work with fatty decompression is we use a tool called the block body or the block baby. Now we also can use a rolled up towel, which makes it really simple to try this work. But essentially what we’re doing is we’re wanting to melt through those adhesions all the way to the bone, and we use either bamboo or wood as the medium because we want to have something that is similar in density to bone, so that as we’re going through those layers, we’re connecting to the root of the issue. And actually it was John Barnes when I first read that the fashion will grip and adhere with the force of up to £2,000 per square inch. 

So to consider that internal force in the body is pretty interesting to even imagine because we don’t feel it. It’s constant. So we’re not even aware that it’s there. So through the process of lying on the tool combined with the second pillar, which is proper diaphragmatic breathing, this is really where the magic happens. I’m just going to bring my computer down so you can see for a moment. So the diaphragm is a plate of muscle. When we inhale, it moves down. When we inhale, exhale, it comes up. If it’s working properly, it’s creating a continual massage to the organs in this area. It is also the foundation for everything above. So if it’s nice and strong, everything above is supported properly. If we’re not conscious breathers, we ultimately fall in and collapse. So now we have the weight of everything moving into the core space. Displace the tissue, displacing the organs and dramatically affecting the amount of oxygen that we’re pulling into the body. In fact, I read from Stephen Koepp yoga and the quest for the true self that we can feed the body up to six times the oxygen when breathing diaphragmatic lee and whenever I say this, I often get people saying, well, it’s not like I can pull six times the air into my lungs. It’s where we’re directing the air because at the base of the lungs is where the majority of the alveoli reside. The oxygen receptor site. 

So if we’re breathing shallow through the muscles of the upper chest, which is typical these days, we’re not bringing that air deeply enough for optimal absorption. We’re also not exhaling from that deep space to properly detoxify the body. And in fact, in 2014, they did a study proving that 84% of weight loss comes through proper exhalation. There’s a really interesting TED talk on this. So to be able to access proper diaphragmatic breathing is really the key. And my view and I think so many people’s understanding of what we need to be healthy, lifelong. The challenge is pain, fear and stress cause us to reactively hold the breath. So if you see an animal that survives an attack afterward, they’ll shake. They’ll release all of this energy, this adrenaline, this energy that came in through fear. We as humans, we tend to freeze. We tend to hold that state in our breath. And then we’re forced to breathe through the muscles of the upper chest, because we’re still going to breathe our bodies built to survive, but only when we’re properly breathing diaphragmatic can we thrive. So as soon as we start locking away that breath, we diminish the oxygen. Of course, every single cell in the body, first and foremost, requires oxygen to do its job. Well, I like to give you the example. 

If you took a balloon and you blew it up fully, it’s round, it glows. It almost defies gravity. Take half the air out of the balloon. It’s wrinkly, it attracts dust, it becomes heavy, and then it becomes an anchor for gravity to grip and manipulate us. So as we go through life in this very stressful world that we tend to live in, if we’re not trained in proper diaphragmatic breathing, that really becomes, in my opinion, the stepping stone to aging in a way that can create disease and all of the things that can afflict us negatively. And then the third pillar is understanding proper postural foundations. How can we prevent the body from collapsing into this internal space? And it’s I mean, we’re a world built on exercise, but it’s really understanding what areas of the body we should be focused on for strengthening the tongue. Muscle is even one of the three main foundations that we teach people to strengthen because it in part is also designed to help support the weight of the head, which we’re not trained for, that we’re taught, you know, you chew and you talk, and that’s kind of the function of the tongue. 

But if we don’t work it properly, then as the rib cage gets pulled forward, now the head gets pulled forward, that will strangle everything in this area, the thyroid, major lymphatic drainage sites, carotid arteries, which affects how we sleep, the ability for the brain to function well, it will. It affects everything. So those are the three pillars that really make up the system. And together they can very effectively release the pattern of Sasha that we’re currently in and rebuild the body back in correct alignment.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So my training as a chiropractors for a number of years is very focused on posture and that was based on what’s called chiropractic biophysics, where you look at someone’s posture and from that posture you can tell kind of where their trouble spots are. And that really a lot of that had to do with the fact you didn’t understand that 30 years ago that, you know, 20 years ago now learning about the fascia that all kind of came together. But, you know, you got people that are walking around your head weighs 8 to £10. So it’s like a bowling ball. And if you’ve got if you lost the curve in your neck and you got your head out like this, you know, people with poor posture, it’s like taking a bowling ball. And if you’ve got an 8 pound bowling ball, you can walk around the bowling alley, you know, a big game with two hands, you know, if you’re a petite person, but you take that same £8 and you put it out here and you do that for maybe 5 minutes or so. I mean, everything just starts to shake and everything becomes stressed out. It’s the same thing kind of what you’re talking about, right? You put the changes in the posture, create these troubling patterns of stress that then show up as muscle pain and joint pain and just cellular dysfunction. It affects the mitochondria even.

Deanna Hansen

Yes. And when we’re looking at the body, we look at the co sites for the pain and the issues. And what I’ve observed over time, the Cavs in the feet, the forearms and the hands and the top of the head, they’re the furthest from the engine. So because fashion will grip and adhere to bone magnetically sealing us, these are the real areas of the body that we need to address, because even for people with a scoliosis ideal, a lot with this we think it’s a function of the spine. You can do all the work in a specific area of issue, then you start walking and you’re going to have one foot that’s acting more like a flat tire. So the body’s going to get drawn away. And if we’re right handed, often it’s the left side. But that’s just a general rule. And then the way that the body is designed to stay upright, we naturally will anchor the other side to stop us from tipping over. So if this is my feet and this is my hip joints, we have one foot pulling away and the other foot anchoring. So then we have this congestion and confusion in the pelvis, which also takes away the proper amount of space in the core for the breath, because it’s now pulling and twisting the body. So as muscles get involved, so everything is connected, but without releasing the limbs and bringing activity and awareness into these spaces of the body, then we’re going to be just managing issues or symptoms as opposed to really getting to the root of the problem and creating a full on healing for people.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So now Johnny Whitton, doctor witness on here at any time, it’s all about posture and how it affects us. Mainly if focus on pain and the vagus nerve and some of the other things that we talk about. But it is not a stretch to think about. If you’ve got heart, you know, scoliosis, that’s incredibly uncomfortable. Maybe don’t have scoliosis, but this is how you are all day. Maybe it’s your posture, you know, at work. Or maybe it’s just you’ve kind of gotten old and crumpled, you know, from injury or whatever. So posture definitely affects the fascia over a period of time. What are some of the other things that create a problem with the fashion trauma? I mean, trauma is a big one, right? Yes. So you help folks understand what are some of the things that compromise? The faster that we have.

Deanna Hansen

I think one of the biggest things that is a little bit of a confusion for people is exercise because it’s all about keeping internal space. So if you think of the majority of sports, tennis, I was a provincial volleyball player the number of times I wound up and I rotated and twisted over to one direction that created a pattern in my body. Tennis, you know, you’re overusing one side. So we have a very much asymmetry happening in the body, doing weights in the gym. This is probably one of the most negatively impacts of things I can see on the fascia. If it’s done incorrectly. There’s a very healthy way to do resistance for the body to gain strength. And there’s also a very unhealthy way. And most people don’t recognize that just to go to the gym and to start pumping your body, if you’re already already out of alignment, what you’re really doing is strengthening yourself further out of alignment. And we don’t want density in the tissue because density means lack of flow. 

So when we can create integration as opposed to let’s build and build and make those cells that are accessible to the energy as big as possible rather than not, let’s integrate all of the cells into our strength, feed them properly with oxygen so that the ATP is triggered and that that battery keeps going. Then we have a very different body compared to one that is forcing. So this process is about persuasion versus force. I was the person in as an athletic therapist in my twenties. I’m now 53. At the time I was £50 overweight and I was running, doing TIBCO, dieting, weights, exercise, you name it. I was doing it and I was getting bigger. And then when I started the practice of yoga, the first thing that our instructor said was every 30 seconds, reminding us to breathe. Every single time I was like, Wow, I’m not breathing any time she’s telling me. So that was about 20, 23, 24 years ago. And I started to recognize no wonder things aren’t moving because I’m literally frozen inside my body. And it was when I was having an anxiety attack at the age of 30, 23 years ago, when I suddenly recognized that, okay, like this anxiety attack was truly the seed of everything to come. 

In that moment, I thought I was going to die because I couldn’t get my breath. I dove my hand into my abdomen, encountered pain, let out a gasp of breath, knew I was going to live another day. But then I started exploring in that tissue and it brought a huge amount of calm to me that I woke up the next day, a little tender but really excited to get back home and work again. After the second day of working in there, my belly was flatter than it had looked in years, so this became my process. Every day I would come home after working on my patients. I would work on my own body. Within two weeks, my chronic low back pain was going away and so on. And so on. So what I’ve recognized over time is that I always said I have anxiety, but what the reality was was I was asking myself to work really hard on my behalf, but I was starving them. I wasn’t giving them what they needed to do their job for me. 

So they were simply giving me a signal, they were giving me information. And that’s the same as pain. Pain as I like to use the analogy, it’s like the baby crying. It’s not something we should be masking or moving away from, but something instead we should be moving into in the right way. And what’s really lovely is the pressure fibers in the body are larger than the pain fibers. So when you connect into the fascia in a nice, slow controlled manner with the breath, suddenly that acute pain, it suddenly changes in sensation. And most people refer to it as a good pain. And it comes with gifts of healing. Because as you melt through those adhesions, now you spark blood and oxygen flow into tissue previously blocked, and now those cells become integrated into use for you or for your life.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So now talk about trauma. So, you know, trauma can mean different things. And the physical trauma, the emotional trauma, but trauma plays a big role in you know, you store that trauma memory in the fashion. There’s different sales and it affects the fashion. Can you talk a little about that? Because it’s a common unfortunate is a very common denominator for fibromyalgia is the past trauma. Unfortunately, many, many of my patients had a very difficult childhood, you know, but it could have been, you know, a bit of an accident later on. I mean, it could be surgery. There’s all kind of things that can create trauma. But that’s something that I really associate a dysfunctional fashion with some type of trauma. And we’ve got speakers at Taco Bell about trauma and the role that it plays in poor health. But can you connect the dots for us for there?

Deanna Hansen

Yes, we actually just finished our 90 day trauma program in our membership, which was fascinating. It was it really was an incredible journey for me to be part of the community going through this. So again, it’s because pain, fear and stress cause us to reactively hold the breath. So whether I was ten years old, 20 years old, whatever age I was, if I didn’t release the trauma in the moment. So let’s say I witnessed something horrendous right in front of my eyes. I’m going to pull away. I’m like, Oh, my gosh, I don’t want to see that now. If I don’t release that, this is where I am. And now if that doesn’t release, I’m going to have to be breathing up here. And now I’m aging from this alignment. And not only is it going to block blood flow to the cells that the diaphragm isn’t now feeding, it’s also connecting us to our brain. So the way I see it is the heart is designed to pump oxygen to every single cell in the body, and then every single cell in turn communicates with the brain every single moment, giving us information if we have every one of our trillions of cells communicating, then we’re living in the moment. 

Our brain pattern is in a relaxed brain pattern, and we can respond to each moment as a unique moment. So when we develop adhesions throughout the body and our breath is locked, we’re only supplying whatever percentage of cells we’re able to supply. So let’s say it’s 20% of the cells in our body that’s really only receiving that circulation. Those cells are going to be communicating with the brain in every moment. And it was years ago when I was walking through a mall and I had started my practice of yoga and we were having to do all of these self-discovery type exercises. So I’m walking through the mall and I’m in a really good mood and this gentleman walks by me and we lock eyes. He scowls. And immediately I go into this mode because it reminded me of how my father would look at me when he was disappointed. But because I was in this teacher training for yoga, going through this process, I thought, wait a second, that was that could have been pure coincidence. Perhaps we happened to lock eyes when he got a shot of pain in his knee, scowled, and I made it about me. And why would it even be about me? I don’t know this person. 

So suddenly I recognized that that’s the habits that we go into when we have some kind of a memory or a recognition. But when your body is fully open, instead of me getting pulled into that which could have led me on a tangent for the rest of the day, I was able to say, No, no, that’s not about me. I’m going to exhale that energy out of my body and I’m going to reset. The thing with trauma is people haven’t reset. So now they’re going through that process from again, whatever time it started and they’re accumulating more and more and more of that same energy into their bodies because we’re magnetic. So if we’re storing guilt, that’s the energy we’re putting out into the world and we’re going to be attracting more of it. So we’re going to continue to attract those similar scenarios, which is going to replay that trauma over and over again and actually grow in time. So when we can literally reboot the system by unlocking those faster patterns and pumping fresh life into that space, we can let go of the physical, the emotional, the mental and the spiritual that all become connected inside the cells.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So people hear mom faster release and assume they have heard that oftentimes they associate going to massage therapists and they just do massage therapy. I always encourage people to seek out a John Barnes certified practitioner because it’s totally different than going to somebody says, oh, I do my special release and then they do a deep tissue massage, no different really than you know. And with fibro because they have such a low pain threshold is, as you know, they don’t tolerate massage unless it is done a certain way and then it can be incredibly helpful. But long stroke strokes where you’re working on the fact there’s not you know, a lot of people say, oh, you know, it hurts so good, but then they’re miserable for three or four days. What is different? Why could somebody with fibromyalgia go through your therapy opposed to going to someone that does, you know, deep tissue massage?

Deanna Hansen

There’s a number of things, actually, that are important to understand with this. And the first one is we put the person in control of their own body. So this is a self care process. So I’m not going to go and do something to you. I’m going to teach you how to work in your own body and how to understand the limits of what’s good and what’s bad. And this journey, we do it lying down. So you could be on a floor, you can be in a bed. We can even do it on a chair. And everything is very slow and gradual, so there’s nothing forceful. I like to use the example. If somebody is riding on the ocean in a boat, you’re going on top of the ocean. We deep sea dove, but we deep sea dove in a very slow and progressive way. So we’re not moving on the surface. We put the block in whatever position we’re doing and we connect with the breath. And the rule is your breath is your guide. As long as you’re breathing in a relaxed way, you are feeding and healing the tissue. 

If your breath becomes compromised because it’s too painful, that’s your body saying, okay, too much, let’s back off. And then we provide you with different options and variations and how to address the area so that you can do it with that relaxed breath. When we connect with that proper diaphragmatic breath, it brings us into the parasympathetic state. So we’re relaxed, it’s very meditative and again, it’s very slow and controlled. There’s nothing forceful or aggressive and so we have a number of people in our community who have fibromyalgia and they use this and we’re seeing incredible results with them.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. And anything you can do to balance this sympathetic and the parasympathetic is, you know, with the fibromyalgia, we’ve talked about this in some of these interviews, but the sympathetic is the stimulating part of your nervous system. And in fibromyalgia, it’s on hyper alert. It’s vigilant. It’s picking up every sensation, every thing that’s going on, and it’s overreacting to everything. And so you have this thing where you’re wired and tired. You feel all this internal tension and stress, and sometimes you’re irritable and anxious and you don’t know what to do with it. But at the same time, you get all this nervous energy and you’re just totally exhausted. And that’s because you’re calming. Part of your nervous system is dormant. It’s just it’s not doing anything. So some of the techniques with the working, with the fascia and the breathing techniques and then focusing on the vagal nerve can really have dramatic impact on somebody that has fibromyalgia, just changing this overreactive response that they had. There’s so many things that you and I wouldn’t even think anything about.

Deanna Hansen

And initially, our very first class that we always teach people to do is to connect into their core, in their rib cage so that we can teach them how to activate that breath. And it was an Eckhart Tolle book where he mentioned that breathing diaphragm magically connects us to the relaxed brain pattern. And if we’re breathing through the muscles of the upper chest, we’re connected to a fear pattern, thinking of thoughts of past and future. So to be able to bring that breath into the moment immediately really turns on that healing potential inside each of us as an individual. And then we teach people how to become a healing machine as opposed to a scared body that is looking outward for the answers. This really teaches you how to connect to your cells and how to learn to listen to the language of the cell, which is fascinating. 

If it was in Greg Braden’s book, The God Code, where he shared and he goes into the detail of how all this is, but he shared that on the surface membrane or sort of the surface layer of every cell membrane is the message God lies within. So to be able to connect to those cells and again, maybe we’re only connecting to ten or 20% because of the adhesions that are blocking flow in the body. I mean, they say that we’re only using 10% of our brain. I actually think most people are only feeding the brain 10% oxygen, because once we start really melting those adhesions and working this pump that is that we’re born to use, we literally become almost a physiologically different animal. Everything about everything inside our body changes when we turn that breath on.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Now your therapy is a hands on therapy.

Deanna Hansen

So it’s actually a self care.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

But you can do it at home. I mean.

Deanna Hansen

Yes, yes.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Okay. What are a few things that people could do today? And we’re going to give them your website and they can check out more about your what, your program and what are some of the things they could do today, either with their breathing or with their posture that would make a difference that they can notice within, you know, maybe a few days of starting this new habit.

Deanna Hansen

Well, we actually have a free gift that we are going to offer everybody that would like it. It’s nine classes where we teach you how to use a rolled up towel so that you can start this process and really understand how to engage proper diaphragmatic breathing, even for people who lie on their backs. Some people really struggle, even one, given the instruction to breathe through their belly because it’s literally locked away. Some people don’t even really know how to access that. So through this process, we teach people how to get into the space, how to find that muscle and how to start working it. And then by releasing the rib cage initially, right away we become a lot lighter and it becomes a lot easier to breathe. So we can start right away simply by using a rolled up towel and following this instruction and people are having amazing gains just from doing this.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Diana, what’s the website that people should go to to learn more about this.

Deanna Hansen

Blocktherapy.com.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Block therapy easy. That’s an easy one. Great. Hey, listen, this has been interesting. I really enjoyed spending some time with you, and I want to you did mention your book, and I don’t know if I have this up or not, but I’m going to hold this up and I’ll be candid with you. My intentions were good, but my time is so crazy right now. Only got through about half of it. But. But when I read, I thought, wow, she’s really taken John Barnes work to another level. And the fact that someone can take this information and do it at home is I mean, that’s unbelievable. I mean, it’s just a fantastic, fantastic thing that you don’t have to go anywhere. You know, you can do this at your leisure, at your home. It’s great.

Deanna Hansen

Yes. Thank you.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Thanks so much. And again, they tell me that the tell me the website one more time is.

Deanna Hansen

Blocktherapy.com.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Blocktherapy.com. Great. Thank you so much, Dan. Enjoyed it.

Deanna Hansen

Thank you so much and it’s been a pleasure.