Fascia, Block Therapy, and Cellular Health: What Midlife Women Need to Know for Lasting Wellness

Natalie Tysdal (02:38)

Deanna, welcome to the podcast.

Deanna Hansen (02:40)

Thank you, Natalie. I'm so happy to be here.

Natalie Tysdal (02:43)

Let's jump straight into fascia, why it matters and what we need to know about it.

Deanna Hansen (02:49)

my favorite topic. So fascia is literally the connection between every single cell in the body. It is the communication system between all cells and the two main proteins that make up the fascia are collagen and elastin. And when these proteins are in balance, we have both structural support for the body as well as mobility. And if that's the case that they're actually balanced, what we have is space in and around every single cell and

That's really the goal because as long as there's space, there's ease of flow of nutrients into the cell as well as the removal of toxins and debris away from the cell. However, this is not our reality because as we go through time, gravity is constantly pulling us down toward the earth. We're dominant on one side. We have past traumas, injuries, even possibly surgeries. Also, what we do every day matters as far as are we doing manual labor? Are we sitting in front of a computer? Do we play a sport or an instrument? All of these things

add up to create the patterning that we have in our body. And it creates grooves. we essentially over time, we become shorter and wider. We get pulled down toward the earth. And what happens to the collagen component is it migrates to areas of need. Because again, this is that structural piece. So if I'm tipping off balance, we're going to have this migration of the collagen to create what I call false walls and false floors. So we don't actually tip over and land on our face.

Now, what that does though, is it creates barriers to blood and oxygen flow and it also keeps stagnancy in the body. So we don't have proper lymph drainage, we don't have our cells being properly fed and clean. And this is really what we experience as we become older. And the thing is, is we've...

We've agreed that this is normal for aging, but it doesn't have to be. We don't have to actually allow the body to compress over time. So fascia compression is really what causes pain, aging, dis-ease, and ultimately death. And the process that I take people through is fascia decompression, where we're putting the space back into the body that time has taken away so that we can reestablish that ease of flow that's necessary for optimal health.

Natalie Tysdal (05:05)

Wow, there's so much to everything you're saying. Why is it not more commonly understood? And why are we not regularly doing things like we do for exercise to help our fascia?

Deanna Hansen (05:18)

Honestly, ⁓ it was in 2000 that I started really tapping into this system. And I actually went to the world's first fascia conference in 2007 that they had at Harvard. But interestingly, know, ⁓

Rolfing that's a fascia technique and that's been around since I don't know if it was the 60s or the 70s But there's been fascia work that has been done for years It just wasn't a mainstream concept and they did share when we were at the fascia conference that you know surgeons would just cut this tissue and throw it away and This is really the tissue that we need to look at to maintain structural integrity and to be the healthiest versions of ourselves So I'm super thrilled now that the world is waking up to this because I've been dealing in this topic now for 25

years and it really has become more in the forefront for people just really as of late.

Natalie Tysdal (06:08)

Are there things we are doing to help our fascia without, like you've said, identifying it? Like, I know that massage is therapeutic, not just relaxing to me. Like, it actually helps me feel, we all, many of us who do massage know this, but are there other things, like is exercise helping our fascia? Are massages helping our fascia? Are those things contributing to better health overall with fascia?

Deanna Hansen (06:35)

So that's a great question. I mean, definitely we want to move. I mean, we're built to move, but I have a very different approach to fascia decompression. So when you're getting a massage or say you're using a fascia roller, what's ultimately happening is you're moving on the surface layers. So you're stimulating flow to the surface. And absolutely that will create a feeling of calm. If you're getting a massage, you know, if you're exercising, you're going to be improving blood and oxygen flow. But the problem is, that collagen, that migration of the

Natalie Tysdal (06:40)

Mm-hmm.

Deanna Hansen (07:05)

structural piece, it creates adhesions and it will grip and adhere to bone.

with a force of up to 2,000 pounds per square inch, locking us out of alignment magnetically. So the work that I teach is to actually, instead of moving on those surface layers, we hold. So we're putting pressure into the body. Pressure over time creates heat. When you combine that with teaching people proper diaphragmatic breathing, that's like turning on your body's furnace. And then those two actions together are very effective at getting to the root at the bone.

So doing that more surface ⁓ work won't get to the root of the issue. So it will definitely give you benefit. But we want to take people out of just managing pain and managing symptoms. We want to get to the root of the issue so they can actually step forward and take their body into a whole new alignment. that's really the exciting part about this process is people are having tremendous transformations as a result of doing this work.

Natalie Tysdal (08:06)

Wow. Give me examples. What do people feel before and then when they start doing this work, how do they feel better?

Deanna Hansen (08:14)

you

That's a loaded question too, because ultimately anything that feels negative in the body comes down to your cells not being properly fed and clean, which is a result of your fashion not being properly aligned. So whether it's chronic pain, whether it's having struggles managing size and shape, vanity issues like how we're aging, cellulite varicose veins, past trauma, emotional issues, lack of sleep, anxiety, depression.

⁓ any disease in the body, really comes to the body not getting to those cells and whatever tissue that we're talking about not getting properly fed and clean. So we've had just such incredible results from anything with Parkinson's to MS to dealing with obesity. I had one client who lost a hundred pounds in a year. Now that's not a typical thing, but I mean I was shocked. She said she hadn't actually changed anything except starting block therapy and in one year dropped a hundred pounds. We actually have a video sharing that.

people with connective tissue disorders, ⁓ chronic pain of years, decades, ⁓ pretty much anything and everything. It really comes down to making sure that those cells are properly fed and clean.

Natalie Tysdal (09:26)

Well, it's interesting how our mind and our body works together. Like you talk about the woman losing weight. Well, if she had anxiety or other issues that if you can get to the root of some of that, it all starts working like clockwork, like it just works. But sometimes it's hard to know where the original problem is and where to start. So I love how you're saying this can all work together, but.

You also said block therapy. So we talked about fascia. What is the block part of this therapy and how can people, I want to talk about ⁓ if they need to go to someone to do it or if they can start doing it themselves.

Deanna Hansen (10:06)

This is self care. So I'm going to back up for one second. So when I started this process 25 years ago, it was with my hands in my own body. This is how I understood what was going on very quickly. saw incredible transformations in my own body. Then I started applying that technique to my patients. As an athletic therapist, I always dealt with deep tissue work and I started doing what I was doing on my body to them. And then I started attracting other therapists because I was gaining ⁓ so much awareness for people that this is actually working where other tech

Natalie Tysdal (10:09)

Okay.

Deanna Hansen (10:36)

techniques weren't. ⁓ then block therapy became the self-care version of that technique. So was about a decade later that I started recognizing how...

I tried teaching people how to use their hands on their own body, but there was some limiting factors to that. So then it became a matter of teaching people, I'm holding up the block here for those that can't see. ⁓ It's a tool that we specifically made for this journey. There's two sizes, the block buddy and the block baby. And what we do is we teach you how to lie on this tool. So this would replace a practitioner's hands. And so you're lying on the tool throughout the entire body. We have, we do positions and we teach you how to move through the tissue through

shearing actions coupled with conscious diaphragmatic breathing so that we can melt through those adhesions that have formed, move blood and oxygen into those newly created spaces. And then the third pillar, so that's the first two pillars, creating the space in the body that time has taken away, inflating that space with proper diaphragmatic breathing. And then the third pillar is maintaining that space, understanding proper postural foundations so we don't simply fall back into those negative patterns that created the issues in the first place.

Natalie Tysdal (11:46)

Wow, does it hurt?

Deanna Hansen (11:49)

We teach people how to find pain on purpose. And that's the thing. So we really educate around the concept of pain. When you're moving into the tissue, we're not adding pain to your body. We're making you aware of the pain that's deeper than what you're consciously aware of. And the lovely thing is you're in control of what that.

pain is. And there's really only two rules in this process. The first one is your breath is your guide. So if you're moving into any spaces where your breath is compromised because it's too painful, we teach you that that's too intense. We always want you breathing in a relaxed way. As long as you're breathing in that way, you're feeding and healing the tissue. So that's the nice thing. And that's the second or the second rule is we also hold for a minimum of three minutes because we can't rush through melting. So that's the lovely part. Everybody is in control doing this work on

themselves and we do it lying down. We can also do it seated, but you can also do it in bed. So we have people with, say, fibromyalgia that can't get up on the floor and get up and they can start in bed and have tremendous benefits and then work toward becoming more mobile to ⁓ use the tools in different ways.

Natalie Tysdal (12:55)

Is it something that you ⁓ recommend people do every day and how long really does it take?

Deanna Hansen (13:03)

15 minutes a day, you're going to start to see some major changes. Most people in my community, I for sure have probably a couple hundred thousand people in the world now doing block therapy. Once you start doing it, you become kind of addicted to it because the sense of calm that you get, because we're really tapping into proper diaphragmatic breathing, we're turning on the parasympathetic nervous system, which is where we need to be to heal, to rest, and to feel calm. So that's the lovely piece is right off the

because we always start in the rib cage in the core. We're teaching people how to breathe properly and really the breath is the game changer. This whole work is really around making sure people are breathing diaphragmatically. The diaphragmatic breath, we're literally physiologically a different animal if we breathe diaphragmatically compared to breathing through the muscles of the upper chest, which most people are doing because pain, fear and stress cause you to reactively hold the breath. And we're built to survive, so we're going to breathe somehow, but we end up breathing through these second

muscles and it really limits the amount of oxygen absorption we have in the body. It also limits the amount of toxins we release through not exhaling properly. Also when we're breathing properly.

I'm showing people here for those that can't see the diaphragm is a plate of muscle that is at the base of the rib cage. When we inhale it moves down in the body when we exhale it lifts and if it's working properly it's also giving all of the organs and the heart and the lungs a continual massage which adds energy to the body. If we're breathing through the muscles of the upper chest then we're basically frozen in this area and this muscle the diaphragm becomes weak. So what happens is the weight of the rib cage and everything above we start

crashing down into that core space and we start putting tremendous pressure and tension inside the abdominal cavity which impacts how the organs work. It impacts how we absorb nutrients, how we eliminate waste and it also changes the ⁓ frequency of the brain. If we're breathing diaphragmatically our brain is in a calm state. Breathe through the muscles of the upper chest and you're in fight-or-flight. So there's so many benefits to understanding how to turn on your proper breath.

Thank

Natalie Tysdal (15:17)

Wow, as you were saying all of that, I was trying to pay attention to where I'm breathing. And it's not something we think about. Like we breathe without consciously saying breathe from the diaphragm, breathe from the upper chest. How do you change that? Is this the block therapy or how do you change where you're breathing?

Deanna Hansen (15:38)

This is really what this process is all about. Now there's lots of people teaching breath work, but here's where this is a little bit different and unique. So for example, if I'm not breathing properly and I've collapsed into the core, my diaphragm is getting locked.

into this negative alignment. So if I'm doing breathing exercises, I basically have available whatever amount of the diaphragm is available to me. Because again, those adhesions will grip and adhere to bone with that 2000 pound per square inch seal. Even on the rib cage, this happens over time. So through this process of fascia decompression, when we're lying on the tool and we're teaching people how to release that patterning in the rib cage, we create more of that diaphragm to function. So

of like a frozen shoulder. You know if you don't have full range of motion in your shoulder you only have a certain range. Same with the diaphragm. So we want that full range of motion to occur because that's really the muscle that helps move the blood and oxygen to feed all of the cells. And they've also proven that 84 % of weight loss comes through proper exhalation. And back in my 20s before I uncovered this whole method I was as an athletic therapist I was doing the work. I was running every day Tae Bo 400

Natalie Tysdal (16:55)

Yeah.

Deanna Hansen (16:56)

sit-ups a day, was 50 pounds overweight. I was becoming more compressed, more toxic, the harder that I was working out. So now at 56, I don't exercise. I lie on my block. I treat my body with...

gentle care as opposed to force. Like I used to try to force my body into submission to get the body that I wanted and it really just took me in the opposite direction. So we have such an interesting mindset around what exercise is and what we actually need to do to support our tissue in a healthy way. And it's really about rejuvenation and slowing down and moving in and listening. We are so focused on outside of ourselves and when we can actually tap in and go deep inside,

We uncover tremendous gifts and creativity and health along the way.

Natalie Tysdal (17:46)

Well, we're so distracted. mean, we're doing everything everyone tells us to do. And it's one of my goals this year is to be able to, mean, 15 minutes, just still is a lot for me and for a lot of people of, know you're not completely still, but of just not letting things come at us from social media, from any media, from the phone, all of it. So, okay.

get me started, give me some examples of how one might get started doing this. I know you have a whole program, but what does that look like if someone is like, this is what I wanna try?

Deanna Hansen (18:24)

Well, we actually have a free gift for your audience where they can download a nine part series using a rolled up towel. We teach you how to roll it up so it's nice and dense and that alone, we're going to be working through the whole body. We're going to open up the breath. We're also going to teach you some postural foundations in that nine part series. That's a great way to start. It's simple. You're going to feel the difference. And then if you want to go to that next step, then you can get our starter program, which is where we always ask people to begin. It's a nine part series, our starter program.

as well using the block and there's a class that is a block class. There's 25 minute classes, 45 minute classes and hour classes. So there's three of each and then there's also a corrective exercise that goes with all of those classes. In that starter program we also have a two hour seated chair class for those that can't actually get up and down from the floor as well as a whole bunch of other videos like blocking around the house, conscious walking, like how we should actually be moving our bodies properly. We don't recognize that what we do all

day adds up to create the situation that we're in and we have so much control over what we do but we just have to become conscious of doing that. So that's what this is all about. It's really bringing conscious awareness to your body, your breath and giving yourselves what they need to thrive. So people can dive right into the free gift and get a really deep taste for what this is all about.

Natalie Tysdal (19:47)

I love it that it's something you do with a rolled up towel. getting ready to travel. So I was just thinking like, what can I do when I'm gone? ⁓ Do I really help? Because especially for me, when I travel, I get really tense. ⁓ I mean, we all do, right? There's a lot of, there's a lot that goes with traveling. ⁓ Can we talk for a moment about ⁓ just detoxing that you mentioned that this helps your body detox. Why that's important and what that means.

Deanna Hansen (20:04)

Yes.

If we have a buildup of inflammation and toxins, we're going to be attracting bacteria, fungus, viruses, like all the things that we don't really want in our body. basically what's happening is because we're compressing and we don't just compress linearly, we literally spiral down in one direction or another. We're trapping all of the toxins. There's like every cell, just like exhaust from a car has byproducts of functioning. So if that doesn't get moved out of the body, it adds up and we become

Natalie Tysdal (20:27)

Mm-hmm.

Deanna Hansen (20:46)

Toxic and acidic and an acidic body is not a healthy body We want to have a body that has ease of flow and we have to have space for that the lymphatic system if we have adhesion throughout the Lymphatics aren't going to move so even say in your head if we if we have an area through here That's all blocked and congested all of the stuff that's going on in through here. It's not going to be getting properly removed So think of having ⁓ a concussion like we have this impact in our head, but if we're all

blocked through here, all of that debris from the injury gets stuck and trapped.

And we need to move that out of the way in order that we create space to bring blood and oxygen to those cells. So whenever we have stagnancy in the body, we have a lack of cells getting properly fed and clean. And just like how you feel when you're hungry and dirty, we're never as good when we're in that state and the cells are the same. Everything is really just a microcosm, macrocosm. Like what's going on here is going on individually in all of those cells. And I mean, we can even think about aging in that regard.

Natalie Tysdal (21:20)

Mm.

Deanna Hansen (21:50)

is healthy. It's plump, it's round, it's clean like a fully blown up balloon. But take half the air out of a balloon, it becomes wrinkled, it traps dirt and debris in the creases, and it becomes heavy and falls toward the earth. So if our cells are doing that, that's going to be depicted on our surface through aging skin, jowls, wrinkles, age spots, all of those things. Compression and ballooning is ultimately the issue. So when I was back in my 20s and I was 50 pounds overweight and working out like a fiend and literally

starving myself because I was so wanting to have a smaller body. It was like, why are the rules of weight loss not applying to me? But I recognize it's because I was locked from my breath. I was breathing in such a shallow way through the muscles of the upper chest. I was a dancer in my earlier years, always told to hold my belly in. And if you're doing that, you're forced to breathe from the muscles of the upper chest. We need that belly to be moving and soft, but it's...

Natalie Tysdal (22:28)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Deanna Hansen (22:49)

We've been so ingrained to believe that the six pack, you know, that hard body is a healthy body, but it's not. It's one thing to have a strong muscle when you contract it, but when it's relaxed, it shouldn't be hard. That really ultimately means there's no space and there's no flow. And that is a body that is not going to age well.

Natalie Tysdal (22:53)

Yeah. Yeah.

How does this differ, but most of the people listening here are women. We have some men that listen. How does this differ from midlife women to everyone else?

Deanna Hansen (23:19)

Well, I'm 56 and it's really no different. mean, you know, there's different challenges with each decade that we go through, but at the end of the day, I don't really look at the number as far as what aging is. It's really about how compressed are we because compression creates pain, disease.

Ultimately death. So if we keep that space in the body as we go through time, what does that look like? And every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So gravity is constantly pulling us down. The full conscious exhale is the counter force to gravity. So when we're breathing consciously and properly with every breath, we can go through time without having gravity manipulate us and grip us and make us compressed and tight and ballooned and toxic. So

I don't really see age as being the issue. I have people in my community in their 80s and 90s starting this work and having tremendous benefits going backward through time in their body. it's exciting because I I created this 25 years ago it began. And so this community of people going through fashion decompression, we're the first ones that are really gonna see what does that mean from the perspective of longevity.

Natalie Tysdal (24:34)

Yeah, I love that. Well, I want to give people links, so I'll be sure and put that in. there one thing you would suggest? Just one. If you have two, that's OK. But you could start today. What could you do today? The breath work is one that you mentioned. But for someone listening, thinking, just want to feel better, what would you recommend?

Deanna Hansen (24:56)

So the feet.

because the feet are the furthest from the engine, they are what pattern us in how we age. So there's something I share on YouTube all the time, working between the toes. If you take your finger or a pencil or even a cord and you put it between each toe and you hold for three minutes between each toe, you can do this while you're watching a TV show or, you don't have to do all toes at the same time, but you start to repattern the feet. Our entire fascia patterning and how

we

descend to where the earth gets tied and locked into the feet. So when we change the feet, we change everything up the chain. ⁓ So that's what I would recommend is start at your feet, get your breath going, start at your feet, and those two things alone are going to make a monumental difference in what's going on with aging. They have actually now proven the link between toes and longevity. So if our toes aren't part of how we walk, how we stand, and we're basically moving around on clubs instead of having these toes as dynamic.

parts of how we move, we tend to fall. And if we fall over the age of 70, for example, oftentimes you don't really recover from that. having strong toes is the key to being mobile and changing the game in even size loss. Like it's a big deal.

Natalie Tysdal (26:06)

Yeah.

is fascinating. And I was having pain in one of my big toes and I bought these funny socks that have spacers between them. And it does kind of stretch like you're saying. And it feels weird and good. And so now I'm sold. I mean, I know what you're saying. Now if I could do that to my whole body, wow. Yeah. ⁓

Deanna Hansen (26:37)

Well, I'll give you one more thing if I can. The hands.

So the feet, the hands, and the head, they're all the furthest from the engine. So this is really where we want to pay attention. So the hands, you can do a similar thing, and it's not as long. You would take between the thumb and the index finger, and you would push into the webbing for, again, three minutes. I'll just do this if I'm on a podcast. Sometimes people can't see what I'm doing. If you do that between the second and the third finger for three minutes, between the third and the fourth, between the fourth and the fifth.

Unbelievable the changes in your arm and the tension in your shoulders in the alignment of your head and your neck. So these little practices add up really quickly and I have had people share the most crazy things just from doing the breath, the toes and the hands. Like even one woman said she stopped losing her hair.

Natalie Tysdal (27:28)

doing that right now and it's kind of a weird, it's a in between my fingers, it's a like my toes, it's a weird pain that feels good.

Deanna Hansen (27:38)

Yeah. Yeah. So we should have, if you look at how everybody stands as an example, most people are walking around with their palms facing the back of the body. That's creating this internal rotation of the arm, which causes the rib cage to come down. If you look at a skeleton,

Natalie Tysdal (27:40)

That's probably the best way to describe it.

Deanna Hansen (27:54)

Palms are forward, that's anatomical position. That's how we should actually be at rest. Very few people are walking around with their palms forward. This is gonna help this. This work between the fingers will help to repattern the hands to bring lightness and to bring alignment up to the shoulders, which impacts the head and even the rib cage.

Natalie Tysdal (28:00)

Hmm.

Wow. Okay. Well, Deanna, I'm going to put links in the show notes ⁓ for anyone who wants the free information that you had mentioned ⁓ and your book as well. I'll be sure and put a link to that. Anything else that you want to share?

Deanna Hansen (28:29)

You know, it's...

My tagline is breathe and believe and if you start this work you will see changes and you will be probably blown away at the level of changes no matter what's bringing you to the table again whether it's pain, trauma, managing size and shape, whatever it is you're going to get the benefit of it all because when you tie your body or when you address your fascia you are impacting every single system, every single cell and that's the key.

So it's exciting and just start, just start to understand how to breathe diaphragmatically and begin to notice the differences in your life.

Natalie Tysdal (29:10)

One other thing, I said that was the last thing, but are there things we should be consuming to help with this, like collagen protein? Obviously more water we know is good, but other things that we should be consuming to help?

Deanna Hansen (29:23)

I'm not a big fan of supplements like collagen supplements, those things not so much. As much as, ⁓ you know, we're mineral deficient and we're toxic. So what are the things that are gonna benefit? And there's so many wonderful things out there that you can use, but really it's clean eating. ⁓ Getting those fruits and vegetables, now having said that, if they're not organic, that creates an issue as well. So there's lots of companies out there that I actually really appreciate that give what the body needs to

⁓ properly fed and clean from that perspective. But it's clean eating, like you know, don't eat the, you know, craft dinners and all those things that are like toxic because they're just not going to serve. And structured water is also really important. So ⁓ you get that from your fruits and vegetables more so than just drinking water. I'm a big fan of spring water, but there's a lot of people that have different mindsets around that.

Natalie Tysdal (30:19)

Yeah, that's a whole different podcast that I've done. So thank you again. It's really nice to meet you. I appreciate the information and I'm excited to be doing some of this.

Deanna Hansen (30:21)

Yes.

Thanks, Natalie, for having me. It's been a pleasure.