Fortify Your Health with Fascia Knowledge

Kashif Khan

All right, everyone, welcome back. We are joined today by Deanna Hansen. Welcome and thank you for being here.

Deanna Hansen

Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Kashif Khan

It’s awesome because we’re going to take a look at this nuance, which is a big thing that isn’t given enough attention, and you’ve dove in deep into it. We’re now going to explore this with everyone. But how does our fascia, which people don’t even know what that means, sometimes interact with everything else that women are trying to deal with? It’s a really awesome subject because I find that so often there are people who do show work, there are people who talk about it online, and there are clinics you can go to. We can get deep, painful work done, and all of a sudden, that’s the one thing that’s like, Wow, this changed my life. I didn’t know it was this one thing. I would never think it was this one thing. It’s amazing to have you here. Let’s start with, first of all, for the people I don’t know: what are we even talking about here? What is this fascia? How is it involved in female health? And why does it matter?

Deanna Hansen

Well, it’s such a cool topic because, like the skin to the body, fascia is the skin to each and every cell, which interconnects every single cell in the body. It becomes the system’s communication system as well as providing stability and ability for the body. The ultimate goal is to keep all of our hundreds or trillions of cells in correct alignment. It’s when our cells start migrating away from the proper alignment that we start having issues in the body. The first thing that will happen is that we’ll get a pain signal because what happens from compression is that gravity’s constantly pulling us down toward the earth. Through unconscious posture and unconscious breathing, we literally wind down over time. Because the fascia is here to support proper cellular alignment as we start tipping off balance, it’s almost like the fascia spins a web of adhesion to connect to everything in its path, including bones, to stop us from tipping over. But this is where the challenge lies. Because of this web, it blocks blood and oxygen flow to cells. It also blocks the body’s ability to remove waste effectively. Understanding how to keep this system healthy and aligned is the focus of my work.

Kashif Khan

When you say a web, is it literal? What would it look like if I were to hold it in my hand? Is it more like collagen-type material? What does it look like?

Deanna Hansen

Yes, it’s essentially scar tissue. It is collagen. Just like scar tissue. The difference is that scar tissue will form from an injury in the moment or a surgery in the moment, where adhesions are like a slow-developing scar that is created throughout the layers of fascia over time. This is the challenge with it because it’s not an immediate insult. It happens through unconscious posture and breathing. That’s why people suddenly can have chronic pain because it’s a slow-moving process within the body, and we’re so highly adaptable. But then we get to this point where suddenly we don’t have any more space to adapt. That’s when chronic pain conditions really arise.

Kashif Khan

Yes. Your body’s constantly responding by expanding the fascia, but over time it becomes too much, depending on where, and that can trigger anything. I picture the Last of Us with this mushroom cloud expanding. Okay, metaphorically, right? Is there, foundationally, an innate fascia that is the healthy version in amount? Then all of a sudden we exceed that, or are we even starting from scratch and going from there?

Deanna Hansen

Fascia is literally what we see as being part of this human body. It is the connector. It’s not that we make more or have less. It’s that, if it’s properly aligned, everything sits where it’s supposed to be positioned. Then again, there’s optimal flow. What happens, though, is that we compress, so the compression creates a squeezing out of the life, and we magnetically seal in this negative alignment. If we’re sitting in front of a computer, say, for decades, which most people are, and we’re not sitting with correct alignment, we fall in and we compress. Then, over time, that fascia slowly communicates magnetically and seals together. It squishes out the life force, the cell life, essentially. It just becomes this container to stop us from tipping over. It basically builds false walls and false floors in the body. If we don’t support proper postural foundations within the body.

Kashif Khan

So, you take some functional material and turn it into literally just structure, an empty structure. So you’re removing life from a location in your body, essentially?

Deanna Hansen

Yes, that’s exactly it. That’s a great way of explaining it. Thank you. 

Kashif Khan

You just explained it; I’m just trying to understand it. Yes. I never thought of it that way. That essentially means that whatever cellular processes, delivery of nutrition, and all that stuff are happening, they probably just die in that location.

Deanna Hansen

Yes. It essentially becomes concrete. Its two thousand pound-per-square-inch force is what the fascia would actually grip and adhere to anything in its path, including bones. Think of that pressure within, and we don’t even recognize it because it’s continual, gradual, and constant. This is what we’re dealing with. When somebody says, Sit up straight and breathe properly, this is what we’re dealing with. When you try to sit up, if you’ve been slumped over for years and you try to sit up straight, you’re going to start to feel that tension and pain because your muscles in the back are going to be fighting this incredible force that’s occurring in the front.

Kashif Khan

Wow. If we take an extreme Quasimodo, I think that’s the name in the Hunchback of Notre Dame-type example. That’s where you could end up if you truly have the wrong posture and treat your body poorly. That fascia builds up and becomes permanent concrete, forcing you into that position.

Deanna Hansen

Well, fortunately, it’s not permanent if you understand how to decompress it. But for the most part, yes, for most people, it is. That’s what creates that dowager hump, for example. If we’re compressed all the time in this forward alignment, the body’s always adjusting and adapting to the forces of life to counterbalance where we’re tipping from. If we’re falling forward, we get this displacement of fascia in the back, which becomes the hump. Whether we’re doing that or whether we’re twisting, which creates things like scoliosis, all of these things are ultimately impacted by the fascia, and if we understand how to address and support the fascia, then we can make massive changes to our alignment, our structure, and our overall health.

Kashif Khan

Just because you’re talking about how the body forms. I’ve heard you say before that it speaks to body shape, let’s say because those four pressure points are caused by fascia. Does it also speak to body type? I’m pear-shaped; I’m this and that. To what extremes can we go?

Deanna Hansen

Well, we can go to the fullest extremes. The way I see how we’re born is that we’re attached to the mother’s breasts when we’re born, and when we get a little bit deeper into this discussion, we’re going to be talking about diaphragmatic breathing and the significance of what this muscle does for our body. We’re born into the breasts of the mother, and then from that point going forward, our body responds against whatever forces are put into our system, and we age from that point moving forward. In yoga, they say we’re born with a signature posture, and the goal of this lifetime is to break through that signature posture. I see it as if we’re born into this lifetime with a signature breath, because whatever part of the diaphragm is compromised, it’s the diaphragm that’s going to be sending the fuel, the fluids, to all of the cells in the body, the oxygen, the most important nutrient. If we’re compressed and we’re only breathing with part of this muscle, certain parts of our body aren’t getting the proper inflation from the oxygen, and that will dictate our body type. We can absolutely change that with this process.

Kashif Khan

Wow. Because I know that a lot of what we see in our research is a hormone-driven body type; there’s estrogen dominance and androgen dominance. You can see and predict someone’s hormones by looking at their jawline, their shoulders, etc. But then there’s this whole other layer, and this is why you have these anomalies of things that don’t add up. There are lifestyle, breath choices, and movement choices that then alter the body because of the fascia, or fascia should say. That’s really an awesome insight. So does it work? The other way too. On one end, we’re saying that your body will change because there’s this innate structure and this web, as you described it, that’s moving parts of you around. It goes beyond things like hormones, food, and muscle. Does it also go the other way around, where it could also affect your hormones and your muscles? Yes? How does that work?

Deanna Hansen

For example, if you were ten years old and you sprained your ankle, I have a very different approach to healing acute injuries, but the traditional approach is to ice for the first 48 to 72 hours to limit that inflammation. The second law of thermodynamics is that nature abhors a gradient. Whenever there’s a gap in the system, nature’s going to fill it in. A tear in a tendon or a ligament, or a bone break, those are gaps. The initial response of the body is to send blood flow, send inflammation to actually rebuild the tissue. However, if we don’t approach the inflammation in the proper way, what happens is that it’s like baking a cake. If you take oil, flour, eggs, and sugar and whip them up, it becomes a batter but if you put the batter in the freezer, it’s a frozen batter. If you put it in the oven, it bakes a cake. We need to add energy to the system. We need to add heat to assist the inflammation in its process of rebuilding. We don’t need to know all of the specifics of the physiology of what gets sent. We simply need to understand how to support the body’s innate method of healing. Why would the body respond to stress and injury in that immediate way if that wasn’t God’s way of handling things? We’ve actually slowed this process down and actually even created a challenge because now if you address it without ice, what’s going to happen is that scar tissue is going to get filled in, which just like adhesions block blood and oxygen flow. It also alters our movement because now we have this area, let’s say, it’s an ankle joint, and now you’ve got all the scar tissue every time you take a step that is going to impact everything up the chain. Even injuries from again like years ago can impact how our body functions because we’re getting compressed and pulled down. That will affect the glands because the alignment in general is getting pulled from where it should be. Even the glands are innervated by fascia. Every single cell in the body is innervated by this tissue. To squeeze one area of the body is going to have a net result throughout the entire body. That again, if you’re looking at what the specific glands that are being impacted are and how this determined body type can absolutely have a direct impact.

Kashif Khan

I know you’ve worked with a lot of people around fascia work. Are you at the point now where you can call it a diagnosis or recognize someone saying, I have fibromyalgia, I have migraines, I have whatever? You’re like, No, you have a fascia problem, and I can see it clearly. Or is it that everybody has a fascia problem and we all need work?

Deanna Hansen

Both. Everybody has a fascia issue because, again, we are all being pummeled with this force of gravity, and none of us are 100% conscious of our breath and posture, lifelong. As a result of that, we start tipping off balance, and the fascia always responding to the forces of life. Even relationships, even the negative emotional states that people get in that cause us to reactively hold the breath, which, if not released, will impact how we feed the cells and where we go from there. We all have issues with fascia. That’s essentially what aging is. How is your fascia system getting compressed over time? What are we doing about that? That’s the outer expression of what we look like as we get older, which is really the inner result of how the fascia responds to these life forces.

Kashif Khan

If somebody comes to you, what are they typically complaining about? Is that like a chronic pain issue? Is it a hormone issue?

Deanna Hansen

It’s all of it. I see people coming with issues with their size and shape. I’m over 40 now. I haven’t changed my diet or my exercise, but now I’m getting a spare tire. I think I’ve accumulated fat. It’s really not fat. It’s really compression and ballooning. We can talk a lot about that. That’s a fun conversation. Chronic pain, because again, what I do when I look at people’s bodies is I look at the whole being. The first thing I’m going to do is look at what’s happening in the calves and the feet. I’m just going to jump back a little bit and talk a bit about the diaphragm first before I get into the cause sites. I’m just going to bring my camera down a bit. The diaphragm rests here. It’s the foundation of the rib cage and everything above it. When it’s working properly, when we inhale, it moves down, and when we exhale, it moves up. It’s this pump that’s continually creating an internal massage for the abdominal organs, the heart, and the lungs. If we’re not conscious breathers, unless you are, you’re not. Most people aren’t. This foundation becomes weak, and we start to fall in. Now the tissue is going to go somewhere. It’s not going to go inside. As I start falling in now, I get this bloated, ballooning belly. This is really where the issues come from because as I also start to fall in, I’m displacing those organs. I’m not giving those organs that continual massage. They become full of adhesions. They don’t have that proper blood and oxygen flow. We don’t absorb nutrients effectively. We also don’t eliminate it because we get cold in that space. 

We start attracting other parasites and bacteria. They create waste, and we keep expanding. People again think it’s this layer of fat that’s being accumulated, but really it’s compression, ballooning, and the resultant toxification as a result of systems that aren’t flowing as they should. Coming back to the question on cause sites versus pain sites, where was I going with that? Oh, yes. When I’m looking at bodies, I’m always looking at what’s going on at the calves in the feet because this is where the fascia will freeze with the greatest intensity because it’s the furthest away from the diaphragm. Let’s say you have a frozen shoulder or a migraine, and you go to a therapist who works in this area. You might have an immediate sense of improvement because they’ve just created blood flow in that space. But as soon as you start walking again, that fascia pattern in the calves and the feet is going to pull you right back into the alignment that created the issue in the first place. We need to look at the whole body because everything connects to everything else. And the calves, the feet, the forms, and the hands are actually the furthest from the engine, so they’re the most impactful in regards to how that creates adhesions and blockages throughout the entire body.

Kashif Khan

Then what? Where do you start? First of all, when you’re working with someone, we may be jumping ahead a little bit, but is a treatment more hands-on work or is it breathing? Is it yoga stretching? What are we talking about?

Deanna Hansen

Fascia decompression is the general science around this. We can use a tool. I have a blocked body. This is the tool that we use for self-care, in two different sizes. I also teach bodyworkers the technique which I call fluid isometrics, which was the very beginning of my journey. I started tapping into my own body with my hands. I was a bodyworker, and then I started applying what I was learning to my clients because I was having these incredible results. The very first thing that we want to do is we want to optimize the breath because even if you have a sprained ankle if you come to me as a patient and I work on your ankle and you aren’t breathing properly, you’re not really turning on that healing opportunity within your body. Whenever we start, we always start in the core of the body, and we always start every single position with block therapy. We start directly on the belly because we train people first how to learn how to breathe from that right space. If you’ve been breathing for decades with the muscles of the upper chest, you won’t just be able to start breathing diaphragmatically. We need a little bit of assistance, so we provide that as feedback. By spending a minimum of 3 minutes in each position, we also literally melt through those adhesions that are locking us out of alignment. That initial position turns on that diaphragmatic breath, and it creates this opportunity for your body to start moving the fluids more effectively. If you think of a balloon fully blown up, it’s round and glows. It almost defies gravity. That’s really what our cells can have the potential for lifelong if we keep this breath nice and strong. Now, if you take half of that air out of the balloon, it’s going to become not round. It’s going to become a little wrinkly. Dust will accumulate in the creases, and it will become heavy, sticky, and dense. That’s what happens as we get older, because if we’re not conscious breathers, slowly we start diminishing the amount of oxygen in all of the cells. Again, it’s the first and foremost nutrient required for every cell to thrive. 

The thing about diaphragmatic breathing that makes it so powerful at the base of the lungs is that this is where the majority of the oxygen receptor sites reside. If we’re breathing through the muscles of the upper chest, we’re not even pulling the air deeply enough into the lungs for this optimal absorption. In Steven Copes, Yoga and the Quest for the True Self, he mentions that we can feed the body up to six times the oxygen from diaphragmatic breathing. In 2014, they did a study showing that 84% of weight loss comes through full, proper exhalation. We have this incredible muscle with this opportunity to truly direct how we move through time, how our bodies look, how they function, and how they feel. Yet most people simply aren’t conscious breathers. I think one of the main reasons is because this amazing muscle is inside. We go to the gym, and we’ll work out our biceps, our chest, our backs, or our legs. But the diaphragm is the most important muscle to spend time and focus your attention on. It even changes the brain’s frequency to one of a relaxed state, as opposed to upper chest breathing, which keeps you in fight or flight mode.

Kashif Khan

It’s funny that we’re talking about this today because just a week ago, I was at an event and we did a breathwork exercise. I’m telling you, I don’t know if somebody slipped mushrooms into the air conditioning or something, but it was like a psychedelic experience. Would you do it properly? Because this body that we walk around in is so much more miraculous and complex than we think it is, it has the capacity and capabilities. But yes, we went through this deep breathing, and I learned, I’ve been conscious about my breathing somewhat while I’m talking to you. I’m trying really hard. I feel a little guilty right now. During that time, it was intense; it was a good 40 minutes straight. But things happened where I literally felt a sense of relief in some muscle tissue. I felt the stress go away. I felt that my gait changed when I got up and walked away. That one session changed me. It was an intense, acute 40 minutes, but it changed me. It just speaks to you. If you do this as an ongoing part of your routine and regimen, how much different could you be? What do you see when people start working with you? What’s the change? Are they spending days, months, or years?

Deanna Hansen

Honestly, one class, because that initial class that we always share with people focuses on the rib cage and the core, is a game-changer for people. Immediately, they sensed I’m taller and can breathe more deeply. What’s interesting and what’s different about block therapy and the approach to breath work as opposed to all of the other breathing exercises? Of course, any breathing exercises we do are going to be beneficial. But because again, when we’ve been in this collapsed position for decades, this muscle now gets folded over and adhered, and acts like a frozen shoulder. Even if we start doing breathing exercises, we only have the ability of what the diaphragm is free to do as we strengthen that. But with what we’re doing with block therapy and fascia decompression, we’re releasing those adhesions that have locked the diaphragm out of our full use and creating more space for it to start working. Then right away, because as soon as that happens, we start pulling that air more deeply into the lungs. There’s that additional absorption of oxygen. We immediately feel lighter.

I love that you said it was almost like a mushroom experience because, in Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now, he mentioned that when we’re breathing diaphragmatically, we’re living in the moment, where God lives. When we’re breathing through the muscles of the upper chest, we’re connected to thoughts of the past and future, where the ego lives. We want the ego and our highest selves to be working in conjunction. But when we’re breathing up here, we’re disconnected from our hearts’ highest path because we’re not even bringing that oxygen as deeply as we can into the body. It’s profound, and it’s just exciting because people have access to this. It’s the muscle we were born to breathe with. I love it when I see somebody finally connecting to that breath because I know now you’re in control of your health. You know how to self-care and really hear what your cells are saying. It’s this beautiful communication that occurs when you really tap into your breath.

Kashif Khan

Yes, what you just said explains a lot. Because if you haven’t done it, it may sound woo-woo. But when you do it, you’ll understand. That’s the exact experience that I had. After it was all done, I went from in time dealing with the current problems, whatever, to like this purpose, like a high sense of purpose. By the end of it, the world didn’t matter. I could be burning around me and I’d still be on my mission, forging forward. I really changed in one session; I elevated my consciousness. I don’t know how else to say it, but I felt this huge sense of purpose. This is exactly what you just said; it wasn’t the past. It wasn’t the present. I was like, I’ve got to make a difference in this world. I wasn’t even trying to go there. It was just an outcome that came out of that. Really cool. Now what if you’re doing all this work and you’re saying it affects certain hormonal pathways, etc.? I’ve also read, some of what you put out there, what I read, that you said that you can actually, because you’re moving parts, for example, your jaw, your mouth, and your tongue, for example, you’re going to change the function of other organs. There’s a connection, for example, between the tongue and the thyroid. How does that all work, because I have never heard that before.

Deanna Hansen

I’m going to back up and just explain the three different pillars that create the whole understanding of fascia decompression. The first one is creating space. As we get older, we become shorter and wider. We are decreasing in our internal space. It’s the adhesions again that are locking us out of alignment, locking some of those cells from our understanding of connection. With the process of simply lying on the tool or a practitioner using their hands in their body in the way that we teach, we melt through those adhesions and we create space. Then the second pillar is inflating that space through the act of proper diaphragmatic breathing. The third pillar is maintaining that space through understanding proper postural foundations. Even the tongue muscle is a foundational muscle to support the weight of the head. People just think that it’s just for talking and chewing, but yet when it’s properly aligned, it keeps the head in correct alignment as opposed to letting the head fall and tip.

The tongue sits right on top of this thyroid gland. So many people have thyroid issues because, if you look at how most people sit and stand, most often we have our heads hanging over to one side. Imagine this big butterfly, beautiful gland here getting compressed and ballooned. Wherever there’s compression, there’s no blood or oxygen. No, but there’s limited blood and oxygen flow getting to that area, and there’s also that ballooning, creating that toxicity on the other side. Understanding how to keep every cell in position in the body is what’s required in order to have that optimal flow. As soon as we aren’t in one area, the entire body’s responding because, again, everything is connected. We’re never just dealing with one area of the body that needs attention. Again, it’s all of it that needs attention. But even by strengthening the tongue muscle and understanding where it should be positioned and working toward that alignment, will lift all this tension off of the tongue area and support proper blood flow to the brain because, of course, the hypothalamus is important in producing, releasing, and inhibiting hormones so that we can feed the pituitary, the master gland of the body. If any of these glands are impacted, which all of them will be to some degree from compression and adhesion, they’re not working as fully and optimally as they can. 

Often, we see challenges and changes in the body as we get older. However, these things are happening younger all the time now because, if you look at kids, and they’re on their cellphones 24-seven. They’re literally squishing their bodies, and as they’re developing, their breath is completely compromised in a different way than when we were kids. Because, well, I’m not sure how old you are, but I didn’t grow up in front of a computer or any technology at all. To see what’s happening in the posture of the youth, is scary, in my opinion, because they’re going to see issues with everything, hormonal issues included, at a much younger age than what we’re seeing today in the older population. However, this is a solution, and I’m very excited to be getting it out there.

Kashif Khan

Since you’re talking about devices, is there a connection? I don’t even know if you’ve gone there yet in your research between EMF and all the pollution we have, like electrically, I should say. Yes. Affecting the fascia?

Deanna Hansen

Yes, absolutely. Oh, yes. I mean, I can’t even put a cell phone up to my ears. I can actually feel it, and I can feel that happening. Putting it on your body is putting in this negative energy. The cells want to be in their harmonious state. Any time we’re inflicting the body with, I had a speaker on one of my podcasts that said from the fifties, we have 144,000 more toxins in the world today than 70 years ago. I mean, that’s incredible to even think about. That we’re still alive and walking around because, I mean, we are literally sponges. The fascia is a sponge. In fact, if you look at a sponge that’s moist and new, you can squeeze it, you can twist it, and you let it go, and it comes back to its full alignment. That’s what our fascia system should be like. You have a sponge that’s been sitting in the corner of a cupboard that didn’t get fully cleaned before. When you get to it, it’s all twisted and it’s hard and you try to bend it, and it’s going to break, and you’ll see dust come out, as opposed to bending a wet new sponge that has the capacity to be able to move all around and then resume its function and shape.

That’s what we want. We want a fluid body that has, again, all the space. We’ve got a full range of motion. I love Gregg Braden. His work is fantastic. One of the things that he shared in one of his books is that on the surface membrane of every single one of our cells is the message encoded: encoded: God lies within. When we compress and get pulled away from alignment, we’re not hearing what those cells are saying. As again, you mentioned, you had these moments of okay, like my purpose. When we connect to those deeper cells than what we’re consciously aware of, we become more connected to our life purpose. Then we can move forward from that place of creativity because God lives in that space. If we decrease our internal space, then we’re pulling ourselves away from that highest version of ourselves. Then we get caught up in the ego in these processes of thinking that are repetitive, as opposed to seeing every moment as a unique expression and something that we can move forward from.

Kashif Khan

Yes, I think when it comes to the physical, we take it for granted that our body will just do whatever we’re making it do. Your simple example of, Well, lean your head like this, and half your thyroid is compressed and half of it is stretched and ballooning. It’s not supposed to do that. Both of those cause their own unique problems, and if you go head to toe, there’s a whole slew of problems you can come up with if you understand how you’re abusing your body physically. Even the most minute thing, like head tilt, whatever, but that chronically for over a number of years or this chronically for over a number of years or this, with your phone, and you see it with kids. There’s new evidence of these new bones being developed in the back of kids’ necks to compensate for the body’s changing to make up for that if the bone is changing. Imagine what’s happening with the fascia. Do you find that there are more young people that you’re working with who need support?

Deanna Hansen

Yes, absolutely. I mean, even babies. Because back in my day, babies were born breathing diaphragmatically. That’s how we are designed to breathe. However, now because the generation has come where the mothers today grew up in front of technology, they’re coming from this space of huge collapse. Now you’re trying to grow this baby in a space that’s already compromised and collapsed. I’m seeing babies that aren’t breathing diaphragmatically as a start. The thing about proper breathing is that pain, fear, and stress cause us to reactively hold our breath. If you see a deer survive an attack, they shake, they release that negative energy, and then they go on with their day. We, as humans, get locked in this freezing mode. If 20 years ago I saw some traumatic event in front of my face or had something awful happen to me, if I don’t release that at the moment now, again, here I am in this position, and now I age from here as opposed to from here. Again, like thinking that the diaphragm is what’s responsible for feeding all of the cells in the body if I pull in because I’m afraid, now I’ve locked that muscle’s ability to function.

We’re designed to survive. We’re still going to start breathing through the muscles of the upper chest. But again, we’re going to be completely depleted from this most important life-giving nutrient. We become these cold, twisted, heavy bodies, and we’re magnetic. If I’m pulling in from a state of fear and or guilt, shame, or whatever emotion we get trapped and stuck in, now we’re actually putting out that vibration to the world. That’s what we’re going to pull back into our lives, where if I’m coming at life from a place of openness and love, and compassion. That’s the experiences that we’re going to have and we’re going to see. It’s fascinating when you think of this brain-body connection. The heart is the muscle to pump all of the fluids to all of the cells. If we have every cell receiving that information, then we have direct communication with the brain so that we can navigate the moment. However, if we have a whole bunch of adhesions riddled throughout the body, again, there’s going to be so many cells not communicating. There are going to be gaps in the system, and that’s where we get caught in patterns of memory. 

It was really amazing because years ago I took yoga, and our yoga teacher trained, and one of the things we had to do was really observe our own bodies through this process of understanding how to open things up. I remember I was walking through a mall, and I was in a really good mood. I felt really light, and I was having a good day. Then this gentleman walks by me. We locked eyes for a brief moment, and he scowled, and my gut immediately churned, and I just felt sick inside. Now I’m awake to what just happened. Then, as I was thinking about this, I was able to rationalize it. I thought, Well, I mean, I don’t know this person. Maybe he didn’t like me, whatever, but maybe he just looked at me and, at that moment, got a shot of pain in his knee. Maybe the scowl was his own personal response. We just happened to see each other at that time. But I took that information and made it about me. That’s where we get caught up in these patterns of thinking when we have some kind of stimulus. It takes us back to a memory where we were traumatized, where if we can understand, Okay, I’m going to exhale, and I’m going to see that there are a myriad of opportunities why that may have happened, and likely it had nothing to do with me. Then you go on with your day in that calm, peaceful state that we are currently in.

Kashif Khan

Does that explain maybe this is a stretch, but why is there somebody who works that can release trauma, pain, etc.? Because at the time of that moment is when you went into that weird position, maybe held that for a few days or whatever, and created that fascia block.

Deanna Hansen

Yes, actually, just last fall, I did a 90-day trauma program as part of my membership. It was fascinating to see people going through this process because people were making these connections. One woman shared that when she was ten years old and sprained her ankle, she recognized that was the moment when she stopped being able to stand up for herself. It’s neat how the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual they’re all tied in again through this beautiful fascia system. When things become entangled, there’s the emotion trapped in there, and that negative collapse affects that brain pattern and what we’re thinking. That’s how we get caught in the remembering and pulled back into that emotional state if we’re triggered. But then what’s the physical component of that? Because everything is interconnected. To be able to look at the body as a whole and see this system as truly the interconnection of all parts of our being and to have an actual approach, then we don’t look at the body as having a disease. We simply see the body.

This goes back to your initial question. We simply see the body as having blocks to flow to certain cells. Initially, that cell is going to give you a pain signal because pain is like the baby crying. It’s not a bad thing. It’s your body saying, Hey, Mom or Dad, I need a little bit of attention and energy because you’re asking me to do this crazy job to let you thrive. Yet you’re starving me and I’m hungry, so I can’t work as fully as I want. Cells giving us signals of pain, anxiety, whatever that is, it’s just them letting you know that they need more attention. But if we ignore that and we keep ignoring that, eventually we don’t even hear them because those cells are pulled so far away from our conscious awareness. That’s when I see we can really get into trouble with disease states because that’s letting us know that that tissue, whatever it may be, is pretty much blocked from life. That’s when other things can take over, because I mean, even cancer as example, requires a certain environment and an acidic environment to thrive. If there’s oxygen and optimal flow, everything gets cleaned away as it comes in. It’s when things become stagnant, chronic, and congested. That’s when things can happen that go wrong in the body.

Kashif Khan

Yes. To your point, there’s so much more knowledge around bio-energetic type medicine now, and energy being a root need to maintain health, and the solutions are all around providing energy. Well, what you’re saying is that before we go there, you have a location in your body that’s dead and not ready to receive it. Let’s get the terrain healthy. That means getting this back to the state it used to be as opposed to this clunky concrete block that it’s now become, which is unbelievable.

Deanna Hansen

Exactly.

Kashif Khan

So in terms of movement, just a thought comes to mind, where I understand that breathing is a very big tool. If you learn how to do it, it’s going to help you support the fascia repair, and movement seems to be another really important tool. Is there movement, for example, I go to the gym regularly, I’m training, and I’m lifting weights. I enjoy doing it. Is there a certain movement that is problematic that you think may be beneficial, like when I’m doing my bench presses by causing myself a problem?

Deanna Hansen

There’s a yes or no answer to pretty much every question because I remember years ago, I heard sitting is the new smoking. Everybody goes and buys these stand-up desks. Well, whether you’re sitting correctly or incorrectly, it’s the new smoking. If you’re sitting incorrectly or if you’re sitting posturally well, it’s fine. Same as if you’re standing, if you’re standing in correct alignment compared to falling out of alignment, the falling out of alignment is equally as bad as sitting. It’s all in how you approach what we do. Mechanics when you’re doing it are key. I mean, I look at elite athletes that say they play tennis, or I was a provincial player when I was a teenager. The number of times that I had my hand up and rotated over only in one direction created this huge asymmetry in my body. I was also a Highland dancer. Also part of that is creating a turnout, which shortens the hip flexor. As I’m growing, I’m doing these sports, and then you end up riddled with these compressed areas as you’re aging. I used to also go to the gym and do weights.

When we’re doing that repetitive, concentric work, we’re creating dense tissue that does eventually causes problems because it’s pulling you down. The marathon runner who can run 26 miles but then dies at 50. Our body is not necessarily designed to be forced all the time to do what we want it to do. Persuasion versus force is the approach I like to take because it’s not that we shouldn’t be doing the activities that we really love and enjoy and that might make us feel good. But just understanding what they’re doing to us and our alignment and having an approach to undo the damage but still be able to get the gains and the benefits from the activities that we’re doing is key. It’s understanding that restoration piece, and that’s where blocking is so effective because you can do your run or do your weights, but then you can come home and you can move out all of the exhaust. If you’re going to the gym and you’re pumping those weights just like a car has an exhaust, so do the cells, and that lactic acid builds up that stiffness the next day. But if you have the ability to put the space back and move it out really effectively, then you don’t have to go through that next day’s pain as well as you put that space back.

My nephew, who was my business partner, when he started with me, was a bodybuilder, and he was big, but he was round and fit. He wanted to join me on this journey. I said, Well, let’s make some changes to what you’re doing. First of all, get rid of all those supplements because all that powder stuff is not working on your behalf. What we want to do, though, is instead of just making the cells you have available as big as they can be, let’s release the cells that are blocked from life to integrate into your work. Now, you not only have more cells for strength, but you’re also properly aligned. First and foremost, the cell needs oxygen because the ATP in the cell is driven by oxygen. If we’re not breathing properly and we’re doing all of this work in the body, we’re going to compress a lot faster and go through aging at a faster pace.

Kashif Khan

Hmm. For someone like myself, that’s doing what I do. One key thing with fitness is that if you don’t like it, you may not stick to it. Then, when you find something you like, you keep doing it. At least you’re doing something. What you’re saying is, yes, you can do that, but make sure you add this recovery layer to your routine, which has to do with the block work and the breathing. Then it lets that reverse some of the damage being done, and you can maintain and keep up. When somebody that hasn’t been doing it like for myself, I’ll be open. I haven’t been working on my fascia at all. I did a little bit of breathing here and there, but I have been training for years. What do I do to catch up? Because I think most people are going to be in that boat. This is fair although ancestral wisdom. We should have known that most people don’t know they haven’t done it. How do you catch up?

Deanna Hansen

That’s the lovely thing about melting. When we’re dealing with the fascia, it’s all about melting adhesions. When we’re breathing through the muscles of the upper chest, it’s like having a space heater. I live in a thirty-story building in my two-room apartment. If it’s -30 in Winnipeg, which it is every winter, if I only have a space heater, I’m only heating one of my two rooms, whereas if you turn on the building’s furnace, you’re heating the entire building. The diaphragm is the body’s furnace. The muscles of the upper chest are the space heaters. We’re all approaching this work from a place of freeze, to whatever degree we’re in. But if you have an ice cube in the freezer from yesterday or from two decades ago, when you take it out, they both melt. It doesn’t matter how old the injury is, how old the body is, or how frozen you are. When you start turning on this muscle, you start becoming a conscious breather because it’s not just about using your diaphragm when you’re blocking; it’s about using your diaphragm all the time. That’s how God designed us to breathe. We’ve just gone through this fallout mechanism and again, so now most people are in survival mode rather than thriving because they’re not feeding enough oxygen into their bodies. No matter when you’re starting, as soon as you start, you’re going to feel it right away, and you’re going to start moving in the direction of continual improvement. That’s what I really like because once we know we’re on the right path, we don’t have to go from A to Z overnight. We just want to know that we’re taking the right steps because gravity is pulling us in one direction. But we don’t have to let it. In fact, when we’re exhaling fully, that’s the counterforce to gravity, and every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Gravity’s counterforce is that full exhalation. When we understand how to work this mechanism properly, we can go through time without our body decreasing in that space. More importantly, we can put the space back in there by taking the time out.

Kashif Khan

Okay, I have to put you on the spot a little bit. An intention for a lot of people now is to maintain muscle mass because of what we know it does for healthy aging and longevity in terms of glucose levels and frailty, and all the other things that you want to think about when you’re getting older. People are doing training and eating a lot of protein, etc. What would you say knowing that you know that there’s so much more to body movement than just the idea to maintain this fascia, which is the foundation of so many other things? What’s the best training movement or exercise to adopt that will allow you to maintain that muscle but also do this? For example, you may say yoga. I don’t know. Well, what would you say if there was one thing that you would do and that’s all you’re doing because it’s all you have time for? What’s that number one choice?

Deanna Hansen

Well, the lovely thing is block therapy, and of course, I’m going to toot my own horn a little bit because I know how beneficial it is, but it’s therapy, exercise, and meditation all built into one practice. You can lie over the block and you can be really passive, but you can also become quite active with it. We integrate isometric resistance training while you’re on the block, and I was certified as an athletic therapist back in 1995 in Canada. Working with elite athletes and one of the things we learned is that isometric resistance is the healthiest way to rehab a muscle. Essentially, we’re always in rehab mode because we’re always being afflicted with negative forces pulling us into negative alignment. I have people always sharing their increase in their muscle mass. Their metabolism is increasing because, as soon as you release those adhesions, now you’ve got more cells needing energy, which increases that metabolism. But I’m a big fan of anything that creates symmetry and balance in the body. I love yoga, Pilates, and any kind of martial art where you’re using both sides of your body symmetrically. It’s when we start really winding up in one direction or another.

I worked on a woman who was a high-level tennis player, and her one forearm was three times the size of the other, and that creates a ton of twisting in the body. Again, it’s understanding what we’re doing, and it’s not to say don’t play tennis if you love the sport, but take those steps to look at your body and be as symmetrical as you can be. Actually, I just had a 30-day posture reset in my membership, where one of the actions I had everybody do every day was that I would give you one thing to change, one simple habit. If you always pick up that glass you drink with the one hand just today, pick it up with the other hand. See how that feels. If you’re always using one hand to vacuum or to do any repetitive task, change it up so that you don’t get caught in these grooves of movement. It’s these grooves of movement that really, again, they cause us to age the way that they do. If we can start using our body in a more symmetrical, balanced way, we’re not only balancing the body; we’re also balancing the mind. And that has a huge impact on how we age.

Kashif Khan

Yes. Your answer makes sense because when you think about when you picture someone who is 100, 90, or whatever, it’s typically not the weightlifter who’s retired. They don’t age well. You don’t often see elite athletes that reach the age of 100. The oxidative stress they put themselves through, the overtraining, and what they’ve had to do with food to maintain their metabolic health, they’ve got to go through. But you do see the yogi, the jiu-jitsu pro, that type of movement where it’s constant full body and it’s, yes, it adds up and makes sense, and then that comes back down to your training, your muscles, but you’re also elevating fascia compression at the same time. It’s this double-whammy benefit, which is awesome. You can actually build muscle with block work.

Deanna Hansen

Yes, you’re feeding the muscle cells because muscle is also innervated by fascia. We want to keep that muscle as connected and open as possible. Again, like if you’re doing a bicep curl and, over time, you’re always lifting heavier weight, but you’re getting caught in this groove. You might only have a certain range where you have the greatest amount of strength. I remember I was watching something years ago and it was Bruce Lee and this big, huge guy, and Bruce Lee, like, you could put him in any position, and he’s got strength in every possible range of motion where you put someone else in, you lock them. They don’t have the strength to get out of that. Now they’re impacted. Then there was this huge big monster guy. If you happened to be under his hammer fists. He might be able to crush you, but Bruce Lee can move way faster than that guy can, and that guy only has the range because he’s slow, big, and burly. You want to have that combination of strength and mobility and the understanding of how to keep, again, all parts of those muscles strong, not just what you focus on. For example, if you’re doing your bench press, I mean, I used to be able to bench press. I’m a girl, and I had like two 45-pound plates on, and I was able to bench press ten reps that way. But again, I was just riddled with pain unless I was doing that specific action; I couldn’t move very well otherwise. We want to be able to see that there’s a whole bunch of different directions that the fibers allow us to move in. If we go and we’re doing a certain routine or strengthening parts, we’re not strengthening the whole, and we move in a fluid, continuous way. These linear movements, again, are going to create a shift in alignment that won’t be positive long-term as the adhesions continue to add up.

Kashif Khan

One last thought: I mean, you’ve taught us a lot about breathing and movement. Is there anything to consider when it comes to nutrition and support of the fascia?

Deanna Hansen

Absolutely. We definitely want to understand that when the fascia is hydrated, I mean, that’s the key, because when it becomes frozen, it’s basically dehydrated. We want to make sure we’re eating good-quality food that’s full of hydration, the vegetables, the fruits. We also want those good fats, because we want those fats to be able to get into the body, every single nerve is myelinated with fat. The brain is largely fat-based. But the thing is, fatty liver disease is massively on the rise. It’s impacting people’s health. If you think of the liver organ and you think of butter at room temperature, fatty liver disease is basically clogged fats in the liver. The liver can’t do its myriad of functions, which are many. We need to heat those fats up so that they can melt and they can get out of the way. Then the liver can start to function.

One of the blocking positions we have is when you lie right where the liver is and you connect to the breath. The combination of being in position for a minimum of 3 minutes, which we always instruct because we need time to create heat, combined with that breath, which of course the liver is right underneath the diaphragm, now you’re getting this internal and external heating mechanism to melt through these fats. For people who aren’t moving, even eating good fats can be a problem because everything is getting all clogged up. Definitely changing your diet to good fats is important, but also understanding that in order for those good fats to do their job properly, we need a certain tissue temperature, and that’s a function of how you breathe. In my view, those are the most important nutrients. I mean, there are a whole bunch of different variations of diets and stuff, and that is not my space whatsoever. But eat clean, be hydrated, and get those good fats in your body.

Kashif Khan

This is fascinating stuff, by the way. Especially your depth of knowledge in terms of something that is passed off as so simple, like go work on your fascia. They get some roughing done, and people get their massage, versus the implications are so far beyond that. I wanted to thank you for taking the time; this is very valuable, and in terms of your membership, how do people work with you? Do you actually work with your people? Yes, okay. How does that work?

Deanna Hansen

Actually, in block therapy, basically, you get the blocks delivered to you, and we have a starter program. We take people through the basics of understanding. We teach you how to breathe and how to connect to pain because we’re going to use pain as the roadmap. But the lovely part is that pressure overrides pain, and you’re also in control of the amount. We give everybody the empowering ability to navigate their own bodies through the process that we teach. We have a membership filled with a number of different programs, so all you need is the block, and then you get access to the membership online. You can do the work yourself or themselves. We also have a university program, and I have teachers all over the world teaching this to their communities. People can do one-on-one sessions, they can have a yoga-style class. Now that the whole world is on Zoom, you can even do live classes on Zoom. There are a lot of different opportunities in how to connect. But we do have a free gift for people. I’ve had people join my university program after doing just this starter program or the sampler program because you understand right away what is going on. The lift in the rib cage, the flow into the limbs, and how that impacts, just like you said, like you feel like you’re on a mushroom trip. It’s this beautiful lightning in the body. Immediately, you sense what’s going on, so people can dive into that. If this makes sense and is something that you’re wanting to follow through with, then you already have an understanding of what the process is about.

Kashif Khan

Very valuable because I think this is a foundational thing just like, hey, what do I eat, what do I exercise, and how do I sleep? Fascia maintenance is another foundational thing that we just don’t think about but is so important. Thank you for joining us; it is truly fascinating. 

Deanna Hansen

Thank you so much. Kashif. It’s been a pleasure to be communicating with you and your audience.