#220 Unlock Your Body's Wisdom: An Expert's Guide to Healing Hypermobility and Pelvic Pain with Dr. Mamak Shakib

The information provided in this podcast is educational and not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions.

Dr. Donnie Wilson struggled for decades to solve her numerous health issues and heal her body. But with focused determination, she healed herself. And in doing so, she discovered the Dr. Donnie stress recovery Protocol. On this show, you're going to hear from doctors, nutritionists and Experts along with Dr. Donnie, who will give practical advice and wisdom to help heal your body. This is how humans heal.

Hi and welcome to how humans heal. I'm Dr. Donnie Wilson, and in today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Mamak Shakib. She is a rehab clinician, which means that she helps people with movement and stability in their bodies and especially in the pelvic floor. And she specializes in hypermobility syndromes like Ehlers Danlos syndrome. So I'm so glad to bring her expertise and insights to how humans heal. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you. Dr. Dani, thank you so much for having me here and providing the means for everyone to hear the little bit that I have to share here.

Oh, it's so important because so many people are suffering in pain. That's one of the main things is people are in pain around the world and especially around the United States, and they're looking for answers. But it's really hard to find a clinician like you who really understands what can help them, especially pain in the pelvic floor, but also pain throughout the body, let alone other symptoms that we're going to talk about today. So anyone listening, if you're experiencing definitely, if you have hypermobility that you already know of, or Ehlers Danlos syndrome or other related syndromes, or if you simply are having pain, including pelvic pain or pelvic floor issues, this episode is going to be really helpful for you to understand more and to understand how Dr. Shakiber Mamak, we all refer to you as will be able to help you and guide you more, especially with her online resources and in her clinic in Irvine, California. So tell us more. Like when we, when it comes to someone like you as a rehab clinician, how is that different than like a chiropractor, for example, or a physical therapist or, you know, some other practitioners that people might be going to when they're in pain, how is what you do different?

So I have to clarify that all those specialties that you mentioned, we're all in the world of rehab and the world of rehab is not really well defined, but we can always say that it has to do with posture, mobility and functionality. The issue that I'm seeing in all of those fields, and not necessarily for everyone that belongs to those categories, is that we're trying to formulate treatments for everyone, when in reality everything is very, very specific to the individual because our lifestyles, our habits, injuries, even our mindsets are very unique to us and they all impact how well we treat our conditions and how well we prevent injuries. Now I want to clarify that while I work on pelvic floor dysfunction, excuse me, the reason that I do what I do is because I firmly believe thinking about a floor of anything without considering the stability of the house that the floor is part of is simply jumping the gun and not getting the results that we should be seeing. So while there are pelvic floor issues that are nerve related and they can be more complex, it does not take away from the fact that the stability of the house is super important. So you can have, or an individual can have concurrent symptoms when in reality addressing just one and forgetting about the other ones, it becomes.

A partial treatment, so to speak.

So the reason.

And I wish that was not the case, that I do things differently. I wish there were more people that would, more clinicians that would address the issue more thoroughly is because I want to know why something happens. And in order to know why something happens, we don't chase the symptoms, we chase the source. And when you ask the right why questions, you'll be amazed at the answers you, you actually see. And I think what ends up happening for the patient population is they go to the authority, but the authorities don't ask the right questions or they don't pursue the, the, the right whys, so to speak. So my, my, my focus in practice is postural stability and functional mobility. So that automatically puts me in the face of people with maybe partial treatment, failed treatments for pelvic floor dysfunction because the stability of the pelvis and the posture were not addressed. And also my, my, my heart is given to my patient population of with hypermobility. All danlas any connective tissue disorder with joint hypermobility because this is a group that they have.

Faulty collagen. This is not something they develop later on in life. And so the, the parts of our body that we use generally for to assist us in functional mobility and better understanding of our posture at any given time, AKA or perception is not all there. So there is that lack of understanding of how to be. So they categorize themselves as clumsy when in reality anyone and everyone would be clumsy if they were not having certain structures in A strong presentation. So I see doing hypermobile individuals as a result of.

The fact that the focus of my practice is postural neurology and neurokinesiology, which is a mouthful. So to explain that.

And I don't want to make this about me or what I do, but I want to make sure people understand that your body parts are not against you, they are for you. If we provide the grounds for our body to, to shine, every part of our body, every part of our existence is dying to show what they can do for us.

I love that that you're saying that, because I find that. Well, of course, so often when if someone's been in pain and they've been struggling trying to find someone to help them, it becomes almost like an internal battle with their own body. And you begin to kind of say, why is my body like this? Or why is my body doing this to me? And it. And this is internal struggle. And what you' is to start off by realizing, hey, it's that your body wants to be serving you. Your body wants to be able to, you know, work with you. And, and by having that shift of perspective already changes things. Because then you can come in and say, hey, let's look at the body as something that has a, you know, is able to. If we can understand that it's the. Where things are being out of balance or needing more support, then we can give the support so that the body can do what it's intending to do and wanting to do.

It was created, it was a gift given to us with all the knowledge, all the intelligence to solve everything that is man is not man made. Once you enter the man made problem, you are creating something that is not natural anymore. So we can have alterations in nature, but it does not take away from the fact that your body is here to serve you. It loves you. And whatever message it delivers to you has an innate serving purpose in mind. So once we change our relationship with how we look at pain, then the coexistence with it, if it has to come down to it for whatever reason, then it changes. You're not working or fighting an enemy, you're working with an ally. And you will get directed naturally by your body when you make that relationship and that connection. So that's something that is not being taught in the world of. I'm going to call it sick care because we do not have health care. What we have is sick care. And one of the challenges I have as a clinician is I want to show my patients that they're Fully capable of that. They may be lacking some things, but they have so many other resources, natural resources within themselves that if they access it is going to. The outcome is still going to be outstanding. And I want to show them the way. I want to teach them the way. When in reality, our sick care model wants us as providers to simply, you know, I jokingly said I want to teach you how to swim. They want me to make sure you don't drown. There's a big difference here.

That's such a good analogy.

It really is how I feel. It's really how I feel. And really my motivation is to share what I just shared with you with as many people as possible. So I'm not treating a patient. I feel like I'm a voice of the brain. I want people to understand that their brain is not against that. It's a gift given with every knowledge in the. That can exist about you with one condition, and that is to serve what the individual wishes. So we need to be careful what we wish for and how we wish things. So we get plenty of warnings from our body. But when we don't have the hearing, we don't hear the message. That's when we mess things up. And amazingly enough, the moment we make that realization and we shift our mindset, the brain forgives us for all the abuse we put it through, voluntarily or involuntarily. So that's the message I want to get across. This is why I'm against the podcast that. That I am. Because we all have our challenges, the hypermobile individuals, which, by the way, every hypermobile individual has pelvic floor dysfunction based on the fact that your every joint is hypermobile and unstable, including the pelvis. So if your pelvis is a bowl with a spine connected to it and the lower extremities connected to it, what makes you think that all of a sudden those joints are going to be perfectly fine?

No, they're all completely interconnected. It's going to get affected somehow.

Exactly. And so I'm not saying that everyone has incontinence, because incontinence is one of the chapters of the book called Pelvic Floor Dysfunction. We have to understand, we're always. We're looking for one chapter, and if that chapter does not exist in our life, we say, oh, I don't have that. When in reality, when you shift how you're looking at things, what you're looking for, then you see so many answers right in your face that you've missed. So I'm encouraging people to be A smarter owner of their own body, to understand we're not enemies, and to change that mindset of looking at aches and pains and injuries as something bad. Of course it's bad. I mean, I wish it didn't happen, but it's there to serve you. And if you don't hear it, it's going to repeat itself because you're not hearing it. So.

Such a good point. Oh, my gosh. And I. I shared with you that I identified myself, diagnosed myself with hypermobility syndrome after years of migraines and various different other symptoms. And so I. What you're talking, and I think others who are listening, who, maybe, maybe you, maybe someone listening doesn't even realize yet that you may have hypermobility. So we can talk through this common symptoms of it, which you're starting to talk about with the pelvic floor, but we'll jump into that. But just to share, based on what you were just saying, is that for many years I would be asking the question, you know, like, you know, I would be like, why is this migraine key happening? Like, as if I'm saying, you know, I wish it wasn't happening, right? But then I started to ask the question differently and be like, no, really, what's happening? That. So that I can work with my body to understand why it's giving me this signal. Right? Pain is a signal to say, hey, something needs attention. Something. I could be doing something differently. And if I only knew then what that was, I would do it differently because I would rather avoid the migraine. Right? So I. In that process, one day, you'll. You'll appreciate this, I'm sure. I woke up one day and I was. I was in a migraine state and I was on the floor. Usually I was on the bathroom floor because it would make me super nauseous. And I was like asking these questions of myself. How can I understand what this signal my body is trying to signal to me? And I realized, oh my gosh, this is the only way my body can give me a day off is to do this.

So true, right? Oh, my gosh.

Right. How often do we. We keep pushing ourselves.

We see paid cases like that. Like, the only way that you actually slow down is if the. If the body disables you. Because other than that, you're just going and going and going, oh my God.

So it's like if we don't. If we don't pay attention and give our bodies the attention they need and the breaks and the recovery time, they're gonna eventually give. Put. Give us signals which is. Could be pain and could be, yeah, taking you out for a day or longer. And. And it's a hard lesson. But once I learned that, I'm like, okay, I would rather schedule time off my life, feel good than to wait till I feel bad. And so once I. But it's. I learned that while in that pain state. And so, you know, just to. Just as an example of what you were describing is like, I think that the more that I could be with my body in a loving, compassionate way, then I could receive those messages and make those adjustments. And. And now I don't get migraines, because I solve that, thank goodness.

Yeah. And I think that some of the listeners may be thinking, yeah, well, if it was just migraine, sure. I mean, I'm thinking about my hypermobile patients when it's like, let's go through the list.

Let's go through. What are the common symptoms that you hear that people come to you for?

I mean, at this juncture, it's a community and that. That, you know, everyone talks. And so there's a lot of referral. I'm very active on social media because I want to use those platforms to get the message across. And. But the one thing that I always say to all of my patients, that includes my hypermobile patients, is that as human beings, when it comes to movement, I want you to think about movement like you're moving your house from one. One place to another place. So some of your belongings, you throw in a box and you tape it. Some of your belongings, you have to bubble wrap. We all have to bubble wrap. Only the hypermobile individuals are more enthused to bubble wrap. They're more interested to know how to bubble wrap because they have been injured. We all get injured when we fail to take care of ourselves. Bubble wrapping is not putting you in a bubble. Bubble wrapping means taking care of your body better when it comes to mobility. This is for everyone. I do postural neurology. I want to know that map of movement that exists in my brain, that according to that map, my brain tells my body to move a certain way, for this. This muscle to fire after this one, for this joint to move this way and that way.

What does that map look like? Because if you look at all the babies on this planet, in fact, Dr. Donnie, you and I, every listener that is listening to this right now are generations before and generations to come. We all are born as helpless infants. And Somehow, without any DCs, any PTs, any personal trainers, no bands, no Weights, nothing. We go from helpless infants to running toddlers. How do we do it? This is what posture neurology is. There is a map. We're hardwired to move a certain way for one thing to happen after another thing. So why in the heck is it that when it comes to injuries or stabilities, we forget the manual? The manual is right in front of us.

So I refuse to call myself anything but a rehab clinician because I think that's the part that's being missed.

It's like you're rehabbed from life, really.

You know, that's the blueprint of movement. So I want to know what does your map look, look like and what's the end result? So if I put you through a series of actions and I study how you behave performing those actions, if I'm asking you for your legs to perform without any other part of your body.

Helping it, but just taking their own weight off of the legs to perform and you can't do it, well, then I can see that your map is off and your methodology is off. So it's no longer about a hurt hip. It's about the hip being loud enough to bring you to my office. But there's a lot more happening. So unless we start from the map and go to the end, we are missing it. If there was a virus on my laptop, I take it to a guy to fix it, or I should say a person to fix it. They're going to first locate the virus, see if the virus changed the language of the software, run it through to the very end, close the laptop, hand it to you. Well, why is it that we don't do that? What we do is we go to the pained joint and we do stuff to it and we half ass it and then pain is not killing us. So we call it, okay, I'm good enough. Good enough is never good enough. And then we say, okay, well, I guess now it move from one hip to another hip. Now it's my shoulder. Oh, it must be my age. No, all of your joints are the same age. The reality is we're not approaching as clinicians, we're not approaching it holistically, globally, as patients. We don't even know how to behave. We all drive. We've exhibited what the rules of driving are and how to drive, but we don't even know what. We don't even know what the principles of movement treatment are. Well, what do you expect? You're like a drunk driver driving. So of course you're going to injure and Damage things. So when it comes to pelvic floor dysfunction, it's the same concept. When it comes to hypermobility, it's the same concept. We cannot change the connective tissue, but we can certainly catch ourselves before we do a dysfunctional move. And most importantly, we need to know what to replace it with. And that's the key. That means a clinician has to spend time with the patient. That means 10, 15 minute procedure is not going to be cutting it. That means coding for better reimbursement is taking priority over the care of the patient. That is the problem that's happening. And so with hypermobile individuals, there are so many joins, so many body parts because this is a systemic condition and that so many different systems are involved. And no part, every piece of us is given to a specialist and no specialist thoughts. And so these are people who are disbelieved, told they're doing these things for attention. And they've had these almost alter all their lives.

Oh yeah, it's very.

I want to clarify that. But to answer the question, what do they look like? What they look like are people who already in my practice at this juncture, high majority come in with hypermobility. But on an average week I diagnose myself with three to five patients who were never, never knew they had hypermobility. So these are people who have joint issues. They already know that. That's why they would have come here to my office to begin with.

But they also have dysphorias, they have gastrointestinal issues, they have pots. That's when they get up and they get dizzy and they pass out, they have tachycardia, their heart just beats fat, the blood pressure fluctuates and it's sometimes it's really low. They don't understand how they get up in the morning and they can't even walk because their ankles are killing them. They don't understand why they bump into things. They used to be so active and you know, they shined as children because, because of their hypermobility, they could do things that no other kid in their group, in their dance, in their ballet and their gymnastics or whatever they were involved in, they could do. So historically, just chronologically speaking, they start with that history. And of course, you know, it's like, wow, I'm up on the top because I'm doing stuff that other people can't do. So they do a lot more of that and they really impose the move on the joints, which they pay off later. So then later on in life there Is that drop in performance because they're hurting and then they go on it. I want to be active. So these are pushers. And my most educated, strongest patients are my hypermobile patients, their go getters. They're rock stars. So they are, they're like, damn it, I'm just going to go and work out. So later on in their life, like in their maybe 20s and 30s, they're really, generally speaking, of course, they're always exceptions. They're really pushing and they're very active. They're running, they're doing this, they're doing that. They're, they're be. They become what I call dopamine junkies. So they're really getting that dopamine and that excitement from their workouts. The best solution, natural solution for depression is what exercise. So they're doing all of that and then of course they injure themselves and now they're like, what the heck happened? So there is cardiac issues that there are different kinds of elu danlos. There are 13 subtypes. So not everyone has these things. But there is that blood pooling that happens very common just for no reason though there is a reason.

Hands and feet get swollen. I mean these are young people. It's like why my hands and feet getting swollen? It's a connective tissue disorder. So your blood vessel, blood vessels, your nerves, everything can get impacted. The, the skin, they can have stretchy skin. Not all of them do, but some do. The eyes themselves, very, very, for lack of a better word, I'll call it translucent skin. And eyes, just sensitive skin. And there goes Mast Cell Activation or MCAs, which they don't go hand in hand. They're very commonly.

Go together.

And then there, there's the 13 subtypes of Eller Danlis. So some of them are more.

I would say damaging to the internal organs like.

Cardiac system, the, the heart or vascular.

I've done a lot of detoxes over the years and many of them made me feel a lot better, worse. Not only that, but I've had a lot of patients come in and tell me how after doing a detox they.

Have a stomachache and headache and they.

Can'T sleep and they're feeling anxious and.

I'm like, I can't just recommend that.

My patients do a program that's going.

To make them feel worse.

So I finally decided to design my own detox program. It's a 14 day detox program that's not, not like other detox programs out there in several ways. One is that I'm focused on helping you to get the toxins out in a safe and effective way using nutrients, antioxidants and supporting our natural detoxification pathways in the body. Also, I'm helping you to decrease your exposure to toxins by learning the ways that you've been exposed to toxins and how to change your day to day lifestyle to decrease your toxins over time. And I'm helping you to look not just at chemical environmental toxins but also emotional and energetic toxicity. And yes, it's possible to accomplish all of this in 14 days. I have so many patients, patients who have done the 14 day detox and report back to me how much better they feel. And I think it's also because I help you to know what to eat. You are getting adequate food that tastes good, plus protein shakes that I developed that are good for your body, that your body knows how to use these nutrients and take them in and use them to help you safely detoxify without feeling worse. Also I help you to balance your blood sugar levels, get better sleep and introduce things like meditation, biofeedback and other types of stress recovery into your day to day routine. So I just am so excited about it. I want to make sure you know about this 14 day detox. I'm going to put the link, you can find it at Dr. Dr. Donnie.com forward/detox d program but I'll also put the link below so you can find the 14 day detox program at Dr. Donnie.com I look forward to guiding you through this detox so that you can actually feel better on your way to better health.

So these are people that generally speaking you would think okay well this is a different problem. That's a different problem. Okay, so they come in like a couple days ago I saw a patient, she's not even in her mid-40s and she's already had over 10 surgeries.

I counted the medication, she's been on medication and supplements over 30.

So terrible. And was just diagnosed two years ago.

And this is the thing is because when a lot of times it's not diagnosed a lot of practitioners, I mean I'm finding that there's more familiarity with hypermobility in the medical community, but it's still not very much. And so anyone listening, you might have been struggling with these symptoms that mama's just been mentioning and your practitioner may not have put it together like she's saying you could be getting symptoms in various parts of your body, including digestive symptoms and they're not realizing that it's all interrelated. And so then you and the treatment ends up being more medications or surgeries because if it's a joint issue then it leads to a surgery. I had a part of my hypermobility is in my sternoclavicular joint and I had to have surgery on my neck to handle part of the inflammation from that. And the doctors still never, they never identified what the issue was. I'm the one who was like, oh, I know what it is. I have hypermobility in the joint and it caused an inflammatory caps encapsulation of the tissue. I understand why completely, but, but I'm a practitioner so I could identify for myself. But I know it's really difficult what people are going through and I'm so glad that they're, I'm sure they're so grateful when they finally find you and, and maybe you can share with us while you're sharing us with us some cases, what are some stories of when people work with you and they start to see changes? What does that look like?

I think that the one that comes to my mind the most, which I always tell her, you make my day, is when I'm working with a hypermobile patients and it's all about discovery. We're changing the movement profile in patients. That's what we're doing. And patients don't have to be hypermobile. Every individual with any and all dysfunctional movement patterns and joint issues have the wrong profile. And please don't take that as oh my gosh, I need to retrain my brain. You don't need to retrain anything. Your brain is way above us and we're way below what your brain knows. Your brain has many functions, two goals. The goal is for us to live a long life and for our day to be as pleasant and safe given what we throw at it. So that means we're not going to die from any of these. We just become highly dysfunctional. That's because the first goal was for us to live a long life. So it is serving us with that purpose, main purpose in mind. So it changes the profile of movement depending on what you throw at it. If this is not available, it's going to grab something else and make the best of that. And as a result of that, we sway farther and farther from that original perfect design that we all go from when we're born, until we become learning toddlers and until we start going to school, sit for extended length of time, play one sided sports, play video games instead of going out there and being stimulated by nature. That One leaf as you're walking, and the leaf falls down if you're not looking at your phone because you're too busy texting, as an example, that leaf falling has a purpose. It stimulates your visual field, your vision plays a huge role in your postural mobility, in your postural stability.

That's what postural neurology is. So. So I forget what your. What the question was. I get so excited when people start working with you.

What do they start to notice? What is that experience of.

This is when she told me.

We were working together. And I'm like, okay, because my goal is, you know, I jokingly say, you're my apprentice, looking at you as a project. So that means you. I don't want you to go treat someone else. I want you to be the master of your own body, to recognize what you're doing, catch yourself before you commit the crime. So she was telling me we were working together, and she said to me, this is a young, beautiful lady that I. I love all of my patients. But anyway, she said to me, you know, Dr. Shakib, this is what I'm doing. And she said, and I know that's not right. And she said, you know what the best part is? I know what to replace it with. I said, bingo. That is the case. You just have more attentive ears because you're hypermobile. Otherwise, other people. People come to me, like, on average, during the week, on average, probably about 40% of people I see come to me and say, you're my last hope, which breaks my heart.

That should never happen. That should never happen. And that's heartbreaking. In schools, they're not teaching us how to move. Jumping jack is great, but how's that going to serve me?

Fundamentally, we need to change a lot. So when a patient comes to me and says, rib subluxation is very common among hypermobile individuals. For those people who don't know what that means.

I don't know if I should even get into it. We won't turn this into a rib subluxation. Those who have rib subluxation know what they. What it is.

Well, it's like you get this pain in your side, and you're like, why am I having this pain? And then you realize, oh, it's the rib keeping moving out of place. It happens to me. Absolutely. Yeah.

So your ribs are. So here's your spine, and your rib is connecting. Obviously, when it suplexes, it goes. It goes in fairly. It drops. And when it drops, happens to be that the sensory nerve runs along the bottom portion of the rib. So when it drops, it pushes onto that sensory nerve and that's where the pain comes from. So that's that. Imagine it's every joint in your body. So every joint in your body includes your ribs, includes, includes your intercostals and includes your thoraco. I mean your, your ribs connected to your spine. Etc. So with that said, when people can figure out how to breathe, because the foundation of every exercise is a breathing, not abdominal breathing. Because I don't know when people say belly breathing, I'm like, I don't know what that means. Because you got to show me. There's too much of the right, right term, wrong performance happening. So I can't trust the terminology. Define the terminology to me because I don't know what that is to you. So when I. When we figure out your tendencies to sublux this rib and then we try to focus. This is guided visualization. We're bringing everything that's out there that is going to assist us. That's what global and holistic approach to treatment needs to be. It's not what I learned in school. Frankly, no one taught me a thing other than here's Eller Danlos syndrome is very rare, which is far from the truth. And move on. So I did not get the education about these things from school. I got it from after school. I pursued the why and became certified and trained in different things. So when you understand how to breathe correctly is when you can use your guided visualization to really get to that rip a little bit more and play with it there. We've used guided visualization and visualization. This is nothing new. Many years ago I had a patient that was in 1984, volleyball Olympian. And she said to me, I was talking about her about some of these. She said to me, when she would not play well, the coach would tell her, go in the corner and start vividly visualize. This is, this is something she did prior to 84. How come we don't talk about this.

Guided visualization? Your brain doesn't know much difference between reality and something that is vividly visualized. But why don't we use that knowledge to our advantage? Why don't we make the connection with our body that way? I mean, I did hypnobirth my way. Not the way the recording encouraged. But that's guided visualization. You associate something really, really pleasant to something that is very painful. It confuses your brain in that it likes to go towards the fun thing. So you skip the pain part because you were Too busy enjoying the fun thing that you were looking at in your head. It's a beautiful thing. Why don't we use these techniques? I'm not saying there is no room for medication. Of course there is. But I think we're not, we're not, we're losing the connection with ourselves. We're not understanding ourselves. We are becoming more distant and that has to change. This body is created to serve us. It will continue doing that until the last breath. Why don't we make that relationship a much healthier one? We're so busy trying to build relationship with outsiders. What's the relationship you have with you? How can you have a better one with someone else when you don't have an amazing one with the closest thing to you, which is you? That's the message I want to get across. All these other things are just techniques, but the essence is that message.

That's beautiful message and I completely agree with you. You know, it's not about putting it as, you know, medications and surgery or this approach. It's. We need to first connect with ourselves and then, and we want to be able to choose treatments that don't, don't have negative effects whenever possible. Right. So if you can, we can use something like guided imagery. And I use guided imagery in my work too. I love it. It's so powerful and it doesn't have a negative downside. So it's like, hey, let's choose that as much as we can. And then if we need to choose, say a medication or a surgery, if it's necessary, then we weigh out the risks and sometimes we need that. But it's not to the exclusion of so many other things we can do to help hopefully prevent the need from, from needing so many medications and surgeries. Because of course, pain medications can be highly addictive and lead to so many other issues. Right. So if we can, if we can do something other than rely on some medication that's addictive and harmful, then that's a better solution in my mind. And I, and I think you're right that the, the way to kind of bring that into your awareness is to realize, hey, I'm. I want to serve my purpose and my passion and, and that there's ways to relate to our mind and our nervous system. I love that your neurology work goes beyond just thinking about the nerves and muscles and more like, hey, we need to be looking at how our nervous system works. And part of how it works is through our imagination and our visualization skills.

And here's here's something since we're talking about this. I mean, when we look at the brain centers, the center, the nuclei for our breathing, the vagus nerve, right next to the nuclei for the part of our body or part of our brain that says uprise against gravity. That's called pmrf. So with that said, I mean, talking about perfect architecture, perfect design, everything and everything that we do when we're happy, naturally. What, what happens when we're happy? We sing, we whistle. When we're happy, we open our arms and look up. Oh my God, I'm so bright. These are all part. I mean, this is what I teach my patients to activate their pmrf. I tell my patients to whistle, to drink out of a straw, to, to hum, to sing to, because that activates your breathing apparatus better. So we have so many natural things that we are so far away. I don't want people who are taking medication to feel bad about it. That's not my intention. But I'm saying this is a good time to really invest in learning about yourself. You are an amazing being and you have so much, so many precious, amazing tools available to you that you just don't know about. Invest in learning yourself about yourself. Invest in believing in yourself and that your body is not against you, but it's for you. And the relationship changes drastically. And amazing, amazing. It's really, it really is a. You know, this is so simple and some of our issues and some of our pains are so complicated that we don't believe this simplicity in an answer and for that answer to be a true answer. And I'm telling you, I've been in practice for over 30 years. Today I'm more passionate about what I do than ever before. And that's because every single day I see a proof of that. And I hope, I only hope people who are listening or watching this can look into it. I think we, we know more about our phones than we know about our bodies. The different features that we don't know about ourselves. And we need to change that.

It's so beautiful. Like. And I love that you're mentioning the vagus nerve, right? That maybe describe, to tell us a little bit. And you already just mentioned things like humming and singing that help heal the vagus nerve. But just while we're, while we're on that topic, tell us a little more because I think it, it's also doesn't get talked about enough.

No, it doesn't get talked enough about it. And you know, one of the things that happens, I mean, just the, just the Connection between your autonomic nervous system, your breathing, and all of that, it's just. It's such an intricate and beautiful process. I mean, every. Everything that happens in our body is so beautifully coordinated. One of the things that I say to my patients when they have anxiety, when there's an increased heart rate, there is an increase in anxiety. That is the physiology of it. We cannot deny that. So one of the things that I tell them is we want to activate. So your nerve goes through back here. And so that drop in the head will. We want to stimulate the nervous. The vagus nerve. So we want to drop your chin, Take your deep breath in, Drop your chin and think about. Or you can place your hands in your armpit. So take a deep breath in, drop your chin and push your armpits out with your pressure. So you want to increase your interthoracic pressure. So when you increase your inner thoracic pressure, you actually drop the heart rate.

I can feel that. I can feel that.

Right? That's like this. When you do biological breathing, and I call it biological breathing, it's so funny because I made it up. There is no such thing as biological breathing.

I like that name. It makes sense to me. It makes sense to me.

I mean, it is biological because everything else. I mean, are we capable of breathing through our mouth? Heck, yeah. Of course we are. But that's not the natural way. Natural way is when we study babies and see how they breathe, because we're all given the same opportunities.

So no one is. I mean, of course there are cases where, you know, there. There are some. You know.

There are some babies that are born with some complications, but we're talking about in general. So when we study the way we're breathing, that is how it's done. So I call it biological breathing. And then I was on social media not long ago, and someone else was talking about it. I was like, I know I made that one up, but I'm glad it's getting around. So people are talking about. It's like, hallelujah, I don't care. I mean, do the right thing. I don't care. I don't want to. It's not about me.

But.

So when you do biological breathing, which is different than the belly breathing, you are having a circumferential expansion of your trunk. Your core is not your abdominal from here to here. It's all of this area. All of your trunk is your core. Core stability is the foundation. Without your arms and your legs, you're disabled. Without your trunk, you're dead. Keep that in mind. So what else do we do for Vega? I mean these are some of the hacks I like. Like, I get anxious a lot. I have a lot on my plate and I like things done perfectly, which is not a smart thing to do. But that's unfortunately a challenge I have. So change your physiology. How do you change your physiology? You start if I, if I, let's say I brush my teeth with my right hand because I'm right handed, start brushing your teeth with your left hand. Start doing things. If your tendency is to want to rush and run, walk slower, you do the opposite of what you otherwise would be doing and that makes your brain think what the heck is happening. So in an attempt to know or figure out what's happening, it gives you tranquilizer.

All you, I'll be using that. It slows me down, it calms me down and I start my day correctly. So these are the things that are available when you study these things. Right. So I'm, I, I'm heartbroken when I see a 24 year old taking anti anxiety medication because when she does PowerPoint presentation for her work, she gets very anxious.

Like, well, how is that gonna.

Look like in the future? You know, we're, we're.

Let'S just discover, let's just pretend our bodies are that one super interesting person that we want to spend the rest of our lives with with. And we have so much interest in trying to learn more and more about this person. Let's pretend our body is that person. Let's start paying attention to our body and.

Invest in ourselves, fall in love.

With ourselves and our own body function.

I mean it's not, it's not cocky, it is not.

It'S not anything bad. You are a precious, wonderful.

Amazing organism and your brain would love to hear you say that to it.

We're so quick at giving compliments for to people and yet we forget to give that to ourselves. That's just not right. That's not correct. So let's change that as I love.

It and this and I like the playfulness like and the experiment like I, a lot of times I find myself saying to patients as well, like let's just choose something small and do it as an experiment. Be curious, be observing. Notice how do you feel when you do it differently and then not that any signal from your body is bad. The signals that your body gives you are helpful. Those are learning opportunities.

It doesn't help when you know the source of entertainment is now the source of info or was for A while a source of information. Now, thankfully we have Internet which has its own challenges, but overall I think it served human, served US well.

You're 100% right in that. But then you know the terminology, bad cholesterol, good cholesterol. There is no such thing as bad cholesterol because that bad cholesterol is, actually has an amazing purpose without which we'd be a disaster. So it's not a bad cholesterol. It's an amazing cholesterol. It's bad when you throw anything off of homeostasis and balance, it's all about balance and homeostasis. So I think we need to be very careful, very respectful of what we throw at ourselves, our body functions and what they do. I think it's just not kind and we don't realize the subliminal messages we give ourselves that don't serve us well. So I'm inviting everyone to recognize the mistake that we've made and make a change, make an effort to make a change.

I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that and thank you for sharing about your, your brilliance and your, and your work and, and I know that people can find you, as you mentioned, on social media. I'll put the links and, and at your clinic and, and I think you can be. I'm so glad you are sharing online because I can see that so many people are going to be able to benefit just from this conversation. So it's like even though you're working with the body and you're teaching people how they can relate to their own body and learn from their own body, you're teaching people beyond your being in person in your clinic. But I also know people can go to your clinic and meet with you in person as well. Right?

Yes. I have a, I have a clinic in Southern California and I, I resisted virtual anything because I think nothing replaces a one on one. But unfortunately there are people from other countries and states that approach me. So I'm left with no choice but to do the online coaching. And so it's all about that. And everyone should realize no matter what aspect of life you're looking at, aspect of health you're looking at, your health and disease sit on three pillars. You, the actual structure you're dealing with, the nutrition your body needs to heal its cells and its tissue and the emotions that influence it all. So every aspect of health, you take anything in your head and imagine that as those three aspects involved. When you only address the nutrition, only address the structure, or only address the emotion, you're doing Partial treatment that is not holistic approach. And no matter what I do, granted I am a rehab clinician. I have to. I'm obligated to tell my patients and whoever comes across my path the truth about health, the truth about disease, and that they are in charge. Life is by design, right? Yeah. Yeah.

And. And we have so much opportunity to, to learn this. And I love that you're pointing out that connection between the physical, the, the emotional and new nutrition like it is. It's because sometimes people might try one thing and then kind of give up and realize, oh, oh, our emotions are connected to our physical body. Absolutely. So like we. To be able to help with processing on all those levels is, Is so important. And, and I was going to mention that in my book master your stress reset your health. I cover so much of this too. So if, if anyone is wondering about another resource that place you can look and read about some of the things we've been talking about today as well. And, and because I, I hope. Yes, I, I really do think that the message is clear from, from this conversation that it's like to know that there is hope, there are options, there's different ways of looking at this and there are practitioners who specialize in helping you heal instead of keeping you in the place you are now.

Definitely. For the people that are hyper mobile, I have a website that I write a blog every week, same with Pelvic floor Dysfunction, that I'm using them as a resource for everyone because I think the right questions or the questions need to be answered. And so that I just want to make sure that people can use that as a resource. And.

I'll put, I'll put links to them for sure, making life a little bit easier for people who are being a little bit challenged. That's all.

Thank you so much again, Mama, for coming and sharing about all of this with us. And, and thank you all for listening in to how humans heal. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. I'll get look forward to connecting with all of you very soon.

Thank you.

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