Episode 351: Fascia & Lymphatics Explained: Healing Pain, Injury, and Immune Health with Tiffany Cruikshank from Yoga Medicine
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify
In today’s episode, we’re diving deep into the essential role of fascia and lymphatics in our health, and why these systems are vital for healing. Whether you're dealing with sports injuries, low back pain, chronic pain, digestive issues, or even tension headaches, this episode is packed with valuable insights you won’t want to miss.
I’m joined by Tiffany Cruikshank, founder of Yoga Medicine, a transformative online membership that goes beyond just yoga classes. Tiffany’s expertise spans over 15 years in the wellness space, from her early studies in premed and Chinese medicine to her specialization in sports medicine, acupuncture at Nike HQ, and her recent focus on fertility and women’s health.
What we cover in this episode:
Fascia & Why It Matters: Learn why the fascial system is essential for overall health, how it impacts pain, mobility, and recovery, and why we need to treat our fascia to support overall well-being.
Myofascial Release (MFR) to Support Your Nervous System and Body: Tiffany explains how Myofascial Release (MFR) can be an effective adjunct therapy to support the nervous system, relieve pain, and improve mobility. She also shares practical insights on how to do MFR at home as a tool for self-care and injury prevention.
Lymphatics, Glymphatics & Brain Health: We discuss the fascinating connection between the lymphatic system, glymphatics, and brain health. Tiffany emphasizes the importance of considering lymph for anything related to immune health, especially in the context of autoimmunity and immune system dysregulation.
Aging and Wellness: As two women who have been in the wellness space for decades, Tiffany and I have an unplanned but heartfelt discussion about aging. We explore how we can reframe the aging body, particularly from the lens of Chinese Medicine, and Tiffany offers her perspective on Chinese Medicine’s view on perimenopause and how it makes sense of the female reproductive system.
Tiffany will also be teaching an upcoming masterclass at the Funk’tional Nutrition Academy (FNA), which is currently open for enrollment. If you’re a practitioner looking for a comprehensive, holistic approach to client care, this is the program for you.
In this episode:
Exploring Fascia and Lymph Health [02:00]
Yoga Medicine: Purpose-Driven Practices [08:46]
Fascia's Response to Emotional Input [12:46]
Hyaluronan Aggregation and Mobility Issues [17:47]
Enhancing Proprioception: Yoga vs. MFR [24:30]
Fascia Care: Quick, Impactful Techniques [34:28]
Thoracic Pump and Pressure Dynamics [41:12]
Lymphatic Health Through Movement & Massage [44:43]
Embracing Aging Mindset Shift [51:46]
Yoga Medicine: Classes, Trainings, & Outreach [58:54]
Resources mentioned:
Funk’tional Nutrition Academy™ (Next cohort starts in April of 2025)
Organifi supplement powder (save 20% on your order with code FUNK)
LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK get a free sample pack with any purchase!)
Qualia Senolytic (get up to 50% off and an extra 15% off your first purchase with link + code FUNKS)
Bon Charge (Use code FUNK to save 15%)
Kion Aminos (Get 20% off monthly orders and 10% off one time orders)
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Erin Holt [00:00:00]:
I'm Erin Holt and this is the Functional Nutrition Podcast where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource. I've got over a decade of clinical experience and because of that I've got a major bone to pick with diet, culture and the conventional healthcare model. They're both failing so many of us, but functional medicine isn't the fantasy that it's made out to be either. We've got some work to do and that's why creating a new model is my life's work. I believe in the ripple effect, so I founded the Functional Nutrition Academy, a school in mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same. This show is for you.
Erin Holt [00:00:46]:
If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. I would love for you to follow the show, rate, review and share because you never know whose life you might change and of course keep coming back for more. Hey friends, Today we're going to get into all things fascia in lymph and why it matters. This is going to be a great episode for anyone dealing with any type of sports injury. Low back pain, hip pain, SI issues issues, but also tension headaches, chronic pain, digestive issues, endometriosis. Anybody that might carry tension in their abdomen, definitely tune in. I am talking to Tiffany Cruikshank, which feels like a long time coming because I've been an avid follower of her work for 15 years.
Erin Holt [00:01:42]:
She is the founder of Yoga Medicine. That's an online membership that really goes beyond just yoga classes. I've been a subscriber for years. She has four years of pre med, four years of Chinese medicine specialty in sports medicine. She actually created and built out the acupuncture program at Nike headquarters and then later went on to specialize in fertility in women's health. She is a smarty pants. Today we're talking specifically about the fascial system, why it matters. We're going to talk about MFR or myofascial release and how to use that to not just support your body but also your nervous system and how to actually do it and use it as adjunct therapy.
Erin Holt [00:02:22]:
This is something that I recommend often in practice and we'll talk about why we'll get into lymphatics, glymphatics in brain health. I know we've been talking a lot about autoimmunity and immune dysregulation here on the show. We need to be considering lymph for anything immune related. And then definitely stay till the end where we get into an unplanned discussion about aging as two women who have been in the wellness space for two decades. I definitely got a little bit emotional at the end. Tiffany brings Chinese medicines view to menopause to the show, and I thought it was a really, really helpful reframe when we're thinking about the aging body. So definitely stay tuned till the end if you're interested in that. Tiffany, I'm so excited to announce she'll be teaching an upcoming masterclass in FNA, the Functional Nutrition Academy, which is open for enrollment now.
Erin Holt [00:03:13]:
So if you are a practitioner looking to help your clients in a very comprehensive way, one that leaves no stone unturned and really helps people view healing in an altogether new way, this is the academy for you. So go fill out an application, get on a discovery call with us, sign up. It won't just change your practice and change your career. It will change your life. I don't say that lightly. Okay, here's Tiffany. Let's talk about fascia.
Tiffany [00:03:41]:
Hi, Tiffany.
Erin Holt [00:03:42]:
I saw you straighten your posture as soon as we started recording, and I immediately did it. So thank you for that.
Tiffany [00:03:48]:
Yes, happy to help.
Erin Holt [00:03:49]:
Okay, so I have known you. We haven't known each other, but I've known you for a solid 15 years. I did the math last night, and I was like, when did I start following Tiffany and her work? And it was 15 years ago because I did my yoga teacher training in 2010, so it's pretty wild.
Tiffany [00:04:06]:
Yes.
Erin Holt [00:04:07]:
And you are always my favorite. I would always. I'm like, if I do anything, I do it 110. I'm like, if it's not gonna be 110, it's why bother? So even when I taught yoga, I would, like, spend so much time preparing for classes and I would, like, study a bunch of different sequences before I created one. And you were my biggest inspiration because I love the way you sequence. It's so smart. It's so thoughtful. It was so unique.
Erin Holt [00:04:31]:
And 15 years later, I'm still practicing with you, so obviously what you're doing is working.
Tiffany [00:04:36]:
I love that. Yeah. I mean, I'm. I'm the same all in. So maybe that's why we're attracted to each other.
Erin Holt [00:04:43]:
Maybe. There's also. Back in the day, people used to think that they would always say that, like, I looked exactly like you in. Which is not true, but there's an angle when you turn to your side. I've, like, had my husband and my daughter, like, confirmed. Like, people that see my face all the time, and they're like, yeah, I could see that. I could see it.
Tiffany [00:05:01]:
Yeah.
Erin Holt [00:05:02]:
Okay. So in case people don't know who you are, let's spend a couple of minutes just getting into it a little bit. When people ask me what I do, like, for my profession, I'm like, a little bit of all of it, kind of. And I feel like that's similar for you. You've weaved a lot of different modalities together. So for somebody who doesn't know you and your body of work, can you tell us about what you do now and how you got here?
Tiffany [00:05:25]:
Yeah, the quick version. Well, I started teaching yoga when I was 16. I had. I mean, I had a troubled youth, like so many people. And my parents sent me on a wilderness program when I was 14, and there was an herbalist there that would take me out on plant walks. And not only learning to survive, but learning how to use plants as medicine for me was so inspiring. And I knew it was something I wanted to do something with. So that's what started my interest in holistic medicine.
Tiffany [00:05:52]:
When I got home, I saw a little sign and a phone number for yoga and eventually started going and really fell in love with the practice. I had always been really athletic growing up, so the physicality was interesting. And, you know, of course, those who have done yoga know that there's a lot of layers to keep us interested. So I graduated when I was 16, went off to college, was pre med and met an acupuncturist and just fell in love with the art of Chinese medicine and how it really makes sense of each individual person at the same time. When I went off to college, there really wasn't any yoga. So I trained to be yoga teacher when I was 16 and started teaching. And I went on to Chinese medicine school and have really specialized eventually in my teaching, really in more therapeutics and drawing these two worlds together. What I really love is bringing Western medicine.
Tiffany [00:06:40]:
I love anatomy, physiology, and really understanding the body. But Chinese medicine, to me, makes sense of a lot of the gaps that we have in Western medicine, of understanding the body. And what I've really made my career is kind of fusing these two worlds together for yoga teachers also with my patients and bringing resources to people as a practitioner, as a acupuncturist. And healthcare provider. I think giving people those tools that they can use on their own has really always been so important to me that like yourself, not necessarily making people reliant on me, but empowering them. And I think yoga and a lot of the tools we'll talk about today can be such really great ways to do that. So I love just like that seeing that glow in people's eyes when they start to get that spark of how they can care for themselves and enhance their health.
Erin Holt [00:07:26]:
So do you do like needles in bodies with now?
Tiffany [00:07:31]:
So yes. And I should just put the cat. So I did my four years of pre med, four years of Chinese medicine. I took a specialty in sports medicine and then I was at the Nike headquarters. I created their program, their acupuncture program and eventually started seeing a lot of fertility patients. And so I took on a specialty in female health and fertility later on too. So yeah, I do still see patients. It's kind of, I mean it went from really being the bulk of my career and kind of doing teacher trainings on weekends and things to really shifting to being more yoga as the focus.
Tiffany [00:08:00]:
But I do see patients one day a week. So.
Erin Holt [00:08:02]:
So I obviously we've never met in person. I've never had your hands on my body, but I've benefited so much from your medicine virtually. And when I definitely referred our own clients to yoga medicine for their own practice. Because it's not like just like a vinyasa class you can access that. It's not just a hatha class, you can access that. But also really for some of the lymphatic work that you work into your classes and then also the myofascial release. And that's really what I want to talk to you about today because we've never talked about fascia ever on the show before, I think which is wild. So can you take it from the top? Like if somebody's never heard the word fascia or myofascial release before, tell us what exactly is going on.
Tiffany [00:08:46]:
Well, first off, and I just off the tails of what you said, I'll say one of the things that I think makes yoga medicine really unique or one of the things that's really important to us is having these purpose driven practices. And so sometimes that's very specific things like lymphatics or pain regulation or understanding more about your body, providing those educational resources. And sometimes it's just really simple things. So yeah, we love to have all of the different tools and I think fascia is such an interesting one. And luckily now we have, we have so much more information that we can use. So much more information on fascia and myofascial release. I've used it with my patients now for over 20 years as a really important adjunct to my treatments. That's how I actually really started getting into using it in yoga, is I was giving it to my patients to use to kind of continue their care between their acupuncture treatments with me, and just found it to be a really successful tool to help enhance their outcomes and also speed up their recovery.
Tiffany [00:09:42]:
And now we have so much more information 20 years later than we did 10 or even 10 or 20 years ago. There's so much fascia research now. And I think what's really cool about this system, like so many systems in the body, is that we used to think it was this inert filler in cadaver dissections. You know, we take it out and throw it in the buckets. But what we know now is that it's a really intelligent, responsive system. It's a fluid system and it's constantly responding to demands. So that could be demands of athletic endeavors, that could also be demands of being sedentary. That could be changes in pain.
Tiffany [00:10:18]:
We know there's a lot of nociceptors, which are ultimately what transmit pain responses into the brain. And there's so much in the fascia. But I think again, the kind of high level stuff is like, this is an intelligent system that's built to adapt and we can steer that into a positive direction. It's always adapting. It's always adapting. Like if you're sitting or, or moving, it's always adapting. But we can choose to steer it in a positive direction, whether that's mobility or performance or working with injuries or injury prevention or pain. I think one of my favorites nowadays is actually using it simply for nervous system regulation, which is really profound.
Tiffany [00:10:55]:
And we know, I know you talk about it too, how important nervous system regulation can be for our health in so many different ways. So the fascia or the fascial system is responsive. Is it responding to. So it seems like it's responding to our movement or lack thereof.
Tiffany [00:12:33]:
Is it responding to our emotional body as well? Like how in tune is it to what's going on with us externally, internally, all of it? I mean there's definitely suggestions of that. I don't think we have the evidence based information for how it's responding to emotional input, but I think most people who study fascia would say yes, there's definitely some connection there. But I think really cool about this tissue is we have these very specialized cells, different types of cells, and kind of the main one people talk about are the fibroblasts that are responding and laying down more collagen, creating more hyaluronic acid, which are kind of, I feel like really familiar terms to people nowadays. And I mean that's pretty precious if you can stimulate the body to create those resources internally. Obviously you need to eat and drink, drink water and eat the necessary components, nutritional components, to be able to make collagen, of course. But then you also. Just because you're consuming them doesn't necessarily mean that your body is responding and laying down collagen in the appropriate way in the appropriate areas too, in the needed areas. So being able to stimulate those cells, they literally hold on.
Tiffany [00:13:43]:
The fibroblasts hold onto the collagen fibers. So as you move, especially with loaded movement, body weight too, as you move, they're listening to that and then responding and secreting more or less collagen. And in the gliding zones, it's a kind of a similar thing. There's a different type of cell, the fascia sites that secrete hyaluronic acid in response to, to just movement like an oil can. So there's more information there, but that's kind of the general big picture of it.
Erin Holt [00:14:09]:
The reason I asked about the emotions, because I've definitely heard people talk about that in connection with fascia. And when I've had myofascial release work done to me, like when I go to a practitioner, I will definitely feel some type of emotional release or it's not uncommon for me to be on a table and feel emotional. It's a pretty blanket term. But, you know, grief might come up or anxiety might pop up. And so I know that there's like a link. I just didn't know how strong that link was really mapped out well.
Tiffany [00:14:38]:
And. Well, the link that we know for sure, and I kind of alluded to this before, is that there is a very strong nervous system regulation within the fascia. So we have a lot of what are called Ruffini endings in the fascia, which is one. I mean, there's a bunch of other nerve endings that are influencing how we feel and how we interact with the world and potentially our emotional state too. But the Raffini endings in particular are nerve endings in the fascia that are listening and responding to more of the kind of like slow melting pressure that we might put into it, rather than like aggressively rolling around on myofascial balls or something. And they respond by instigating this parasympathetic response. And for me, I mean, it's probably one of my favorite ways to use MFR now with patients with myself. I think it's an area we've overlooked for so long that we now know we can actually, it is evidence based.
Tiffany [00:15:27]:
We do know that it's there. We can point to it. So maybe I would assume at least part, if not much of that emotional response is coming potentially from that nervous system regulation effect as well. So more to come talk to me.
Erin Holt [00:15:40]:
Like I'm in fourth grade. So by like, like I stimulating the fascia or doing release techniques on the fascia, that is what gets the nervous system into a parasympathetic response.
Tiffany [00:15:54]:
So the nerve endings in the fascia, we know there's a really high density of nerve endings in the fascia, meaning they're. They're sensory nerves. So they're listening. They're listening and responding. And these specific ones, the Raffini endings, are listening, responding to very specific stimulus. So like if you're using a myofascial ball or massage, and I think this is an advocate for, you know, for so many years, we've been like, deep massage is better. We really gotta get in there and do the thing. What we're finding now is a lot of these effects are actually coming from the.
Tiffany [00:16:24]:
It doesn't necessarily need to be soft techniques, but techniques that you can stay with and relax into. Because these specific nerve endings are responsive to that slow kind of held response where you're able to. This melting response where you're able to. It kind of implies that you're able to relax, right? So if you're laying on a myofascial ball or a tennis ball or something and you're like gripping and grinding and forcing, you're not going to get that as much of that nervous system effect as you would if you were able to stay and relax and kind of soften into it to instigate that parasympilic response especially. Well, at least in regards to this specific nerve ending.
Erin Holt [00:17:01]:
Well, I just had a massage. I went away with my girlfriends for the weekend and we all got massages. And I was like, go deep because I'm like 110% or nothing, right? And then I was like holding my breath because it was so intense. I was like this, this probably isn't very great for my like nervous system right now. Like if I can't even breathe through.
Tiffany [00:17:20]:
This, it might not be doing what.
Erin Holt [00:17:22]:
I hope it's going to do.
Tiffany [00:17:24]:
And I think that's so many of us. That was me too. And I've started to shift my mentality. We used to have this understanding with myofascial release. It was all about breaking up scar tissue and adhesions. And what we know now. And if you think about it, collagen, type 1 collagen is actually stronger than steel. So mathematically the ability to break up some of these, the scar tissue is.
Tiffany [00:17:47]:
Is challenging at best, is probably not going to be happening in most of these scenarios. So what the newer research is actually suggesting is that what's probably happening most likely in a lot of these scenarios is that hyaluronin, which is kind of more the scientific word for hyaluronic acid, starts to self aggregate or bind to itself instead of binding to water, which is really this kind of healthy state of hyaluronin in the body, it pulls water and it makes the tissues more resilient because water is resistant to compression. Anyways, long story short, it creates this densification of hyaluronin, which can affect our mobility, our movement, our pain. And so probably a lot of what's actually happening is breaking up that hyaluronan and not necessarily the collagen. The reason I say all of that, that's just the background for anyone who's nerdy and interested in it is basically it's giving us this understanding that we don't necessarily need to like grind in there so much that maybe less is more. I mean, shocker, right? Right.
Erin Holt [00:18:45]:
I'm still not ready to accept that as truth yet.
Tiffany [00:18:48]:
And sometimes there's still an advocate for deeper work because this densification can sometimes need a little bit more stimulus to break up that those hyaluronin chains. And so I think there's still a place for it. But especially with pain, less is definitely more to help with that nervous system regulation which is so important. And we know now too that proprioception competes with nociception. So proprioception, like this body, this awareness of where my body is in space, those are different nerve receptors. Nociception is this awareness of extreme changes of, of threat. And then our brain will translate that into pain. So pain is more complicated than that.
Tiffany [00:19:25]:
But the nociceptors are communicating threats to the system which can be eventually turned into pain in the brain.
Tiffany [00:20:50]:
So with that aside, so if you think about this, the proprioception. So if you think about your spinal cord, you've got information coming through your spinal cord. And this new awareness is that proprioception, this proprioceptive information I just mentioned, is actually competing with the nociceptive information. So what that means is if I don't have enough proprioceptive information, awareness. Just think about this as like body awareness, right where my body is in space. If I don't have enough of that information going into the brain and spinal cord, my body literally puts out a magnifying glass on this nociceptive information and amplifies it, which means again, a higher propensity for a pain outcome and so just increasing. And this is, I guess this is an advocate for yoga and myofascial release and just slowing down and having better body awareness. Just by driving more proprioceptive information into the nervous system, we can help to dampen down those pain levels.
Tiffany [00:21:46]:
And so again, I think a really good reminder why a lot of us, I'm sure many of your listeners do or have done yoga. It's so easy to come to yoga and like want it to look a certain way or be a certain way or feel a certain way. But really I think a lot of the therapeutic potential from a yoga practice comes just by being and listening and enhancing that body awareness and proprioception as a way to regulate how we feel and how we experience the world.
Erin Holt [00:22:13]:
Yeah, this is like knocking my socks off a little bit because I, I have historically pretty proprioception. It's kind of like the running joke. I'm like, I never know where my body is in space. Like I have a tendency to get injured. I have struggled with chronic pain in the past and hyper vigilance where my brain is always scanning, scanning, scanning.
Tiffany [00:22:30]:
Like where's the problem?
Erin Holt [00:22:31]:
Where's the threat? Like I will pick it up super fast. And I was like, I guess I'm just built like this. But I'm wondering if there is like kind of going back. I'm wondering if there's any research to link this up with trauma. I bet there is because there's research to like link up everything with trauma. But you know, child of an alcoholic, having kind of like a rough and tumble go of it in the formative years, having to disassociate to just like kind of check out. I wonder if that is potentially what led to this lack of proprioception. Like I'm like, I am checked out, I get a flee.
Erin Holt [00:23:02]:
Like I'm like, she's left the building folks. So not being in my body, I struggled with eating disorders for so long. Yoga was part of my recovery because it was a practice that taught me how to get back into my body, that my body is actually a safe place to occupy. But that hasn't necessarily changed. Like I still have that, like, you know, when I'm in a Yoga class and there's mirrors. I'm always looking in the mirrors. And I've had a yoga teacher be like, hey, stop checking yourself out. I'm like, I'm not looking at my ass.
Erin Holt [00:23:27]:
I'm looking to make sure that like my shoulders are where they're supposed to be. Because without that feedback of the mirror, I actually don't know. And so I am 40 years old, still very injury prone because of that. So I think that whole riff is just fascinating to me.
Tiffany [00:23:41]:
Well, yes, to all of that. And I. There's definitely a connection between those. And I'll say also there's a even probably more research connection between hypermobility and lack of proprioception. And I think it's challenging too because the more you practice yoga, the more you kind of expect of yourself as well. And I think you're kind of like me in the sense of being a perfectionist and just like, why do you think, you know so. So I mean, I think there's part of it that's good to keep checking and I think that visual input can be helpful to kind of see where you are in space as well. There's nothing wrong with that.
Tiffany [00:24:13]:
And you're probably enhancing a lot of that proprioceptive input without maybe noticing it. It's like when you're working with someone with pain or nutritionally for a lot of different reasons, as they get better, their expectations recalibrate and they're just kind of like, you just see what's left that's not better instead of realizing how far you've come.
Erin Holt [00:24:30]:
Right.
Tiffany [00:24:30]:
But yeah, there's absolutely connections with that as well. And I think MFR for me can be such a great way to enhance proprioception because it gives us this really tactile input. And for some people, yoga can be a great way to do that. I think sometimes yoga can be challenging for people and MFR gives us this like physical input to like sense and feel and then to decide do I need this level of intensity, I get to adjust and maybe move the ball around or use some props to decide the intensity to find a way to self soothe, to find a way to self care. I get these choices now to decide am I going to beat myself up and destroy the tissue and like try and break things down or am I here to self care? And I think that's a really important reminder with all of this research that we've talked about is that this is freaking intelligent tissue. Right? Like we're here to support this tissue that's built to adapt that's proprioceptive, that's helping to self regulate, that's regulating the nervous system. Those things all have like such a huge potential therapeutically on a lot of different, a lot of different issues. You know, just those, those simple things.
Tiffany [00:25:36]:
And so just shifting our perspective, I think, to being here to listen and not getting too caught up in like, is my purpose of doing, getting better. Because just the listening is the process. Right. And I think it's more about like how I feel afterwards and how I feel in my life, which sometimes is hard to reflect because as you get better, like I said, it's hard to remember where you came from for sure.
Erin Holt [00:25:56]:
I mean, I think of a client who came to me, this is years ago, but she couldn't eat cauliflower because when she did, she would get such this insane stomach ache that like, she just like couldn't even deal. And so we did some gut restoration. And long story short, I was like, I think you're feeling better. And she's like, yeah, I think maybe I'm feeling better. And I'm like, okay, when you eat cauliflower, do you get that raging pain that you like can't eat for the next two days? She's like, oh no, that's not happening anymore. I'm like, well, like we, we have.
Tiffany [00:26:22]:
To acknowledge the harder to acknowledge like.
Erin Holt [00:26:25]:
The good stuff and the, you know, the benefits that we're receiving because we're hyper fixated on how much further we have to go. It's like the gap in the game. Right?
Tiffany [00:26:33]:
It's so true. And as healthcare providers, I think that's like such a big part of our job is just keeping track, tracking progress and reminding them of how far they've come so that they stay on track. Right.
Erin Holt [00:26:42]:
It's like a hundred percent. So tell me about the myofascial release techniques that you're using because this is a lot of stuff that people can actually do for themselves to themselves at home.
Tiffany [00:26:54]:
Yeah, I mean, I think the best kind of starter techniques are things you can begin with are just with tennis balls. And really, I mean, obviously there's a lot more specificity beyond what we would share on a podcast that you can't really see as well. But basically it's just about positioning your tissues and body weight over the ball as a way to stimulate these tissues that we talked about that are again, intelligent. They're listening, they're responding. And so for pain, usually the best strategy is just these static positions. So it's adding compression to the tissues. Again, that kind of slow melting pressure to stimulate those raffini endings to have more of an impact on the nervous system and that nervous system regulation for pain, for mobility, what's actually really cool. So sometimes there is a case for movement, too, because now we know that we have these cells that are called fascytes.
Tiffany [00:27:41]:
They're specialized fibroblasts for those interested that live in these gliding zones. So every muscle, every tissue has to glide past the tissues around it. Whether that's another muscle, a nerve, a blood vessel, Whatever it is, they have to be able to glide just a little bit. And that allows for mobility. That obviously helps when there's no. Gliding can also contribute to things like pain. And so when there's proper gliding in these fascial planes, it stimulates those fascia sites to actually produce more hyaluronan, which is like the oil can to those. Those fascial planes, and so adding a little bit of movement in.
Tiffany [00:28:19]:
So let's say maybe you're like. One of my favorites is rolling the back. So maybe you take two tennis balls, Place them on each side of the spine. It doesn't need to be perfect. Even if they were right next to each other, there's still room for the spine, but kind of equidistant from the spine and lay back on them. Oh, so good. And maybe you're, like, between the shoulder blades, you could, like, move your arms around a little bit and get some movement of the tissues there Again, just to instigate what's. What's called shearing, which is this movement between those gliding layers to stimulate those fascist sites to act as that kind of oil can, which can be helpful sometimes.
Tiffany [00:28:51]:
It's also helpful with pain, But I would think about more for mobility and performance.
Erin Holt [00:28:55]:
It just feels good.
Tiffany [00:28:56]:
So you can also just not overthink it and just go with what feels.
Erin Holt [00:28:58]:
I prefer to overthink whatever. I'm like, am I doing it right? Is it in the right spot? I don't know. Is this gonna work? Another thing that I was telling you this before we were recording, But I used your classes for abdominal release. I carry a lot of tension in my abdomen, and I've never had a surgery there. There can be actual scar tissue for folks who have had different types of surgeries. Whether it's a c section or any type of endometriosis, we can see scar tissue and adhesions really impact the digestive tract. So sometimes we'll have folks that have, like, really blatant digestive symptoms, but their stool test squeaky clean. Or their sibo breath test, totally negative.
Erin Holt [00:29:39]:
So it's not really a situation where we're like, oh, we can throw some herbal antibiotics at this and call it a day, or of like, it needs physical support. So visceral manipulation can be a really effective tool. But practitioners are pretty hard to come by with that. So self massage or self touching, I don't know, you can say the word better than I can. Has been really, really helpful for some of these clients, myself included. And I think you use, for a lot of the abdomen stuff, you use one of the bigger, like squishier balls, right?
Tiffany [00:30:08]:
Yeah, well, and first too, just to track back. I think a lot of people with trauma and stress can hold it in the abdomen. There can be nervous system connections there. Sometimes it's just a mechanical input. That's helpful. You can use the tennis balls in the abdomen. Everyone has a different preference too. And different body shapes can appreciate different kinds of tools.
Tiffany [00:30:27]:
But I do like one that's inflatable, that's a little bit bigger, like probably a little bit bigger than a grapefruit size. But really it's personal preference, like you can use your kids like inflatable ball. If you have something in that realm, even a bigger one than that. Just make sure obviously it's safe and it's not gonna pop. I mean, you're not gonna fall very far on your stomach. But just make sure that putting that safety precaution out there. But yeah, I studied, when I, when I was an undergrad, I studied shiatsu and Ampuku, which is like a, a type of abdominal massage, Japanese abdominal massage. And I was having a lot of digestive issues and doing a lot of internal things too at the time and working with a naturopath and all of that stuff.
Tiffany [00:31:05]:
And the abdominal part was a really big part for me too, so I use it a lot with clients. And yes, you're right. Like sometimes it's very physiological. You've got to do the nutrition or the supplements or the gut protocols. Yeah. And then sometimes you're. You just realize it's either multi dimensional or more of a mechanical issue. But for the case of this podcast, I think it can be really simple too.
Tiffany [00:31:25]:
You can use the tennis balls or the ball. That's a little bit more complicated to, I think talk to in a podcast. But one of the things I like and I've kind of done ever since I was an undergrad, which is a long time now, first thing in the morning or right before bed, lying on your back, it usually helps just to bend your knees, to put a little slack on the abdomen is just some using the fingers to massage. And I'm. I'm usually working through, like following the gut. So you can start right lower quadrant of your abdomen, work up to right upper, then left upper, then left lower. So you're following the GI tract. And, you know, just starting in that right lower quadrant, you can make circles, use pressure.
Tiffany [00:32:00]:
But I'm. I'm looking for areas that are tender. It might feel like. I'm going to use this very subjective word, areas that feel stuck or tense or, you know, you might feel things in there, but I am trying to get things moving. And so if you find a tender spot or an area that feels stuck, adding a little bit of pressure in there, and then as you inhale, trying to push your fingers away, and then as you exhale, letting your fingers sink in, and you can kind of massage on that exhale and. And you'll feel things move around quite a bit. And I think especially over time, as you get more familiar with these techniques, again, it's really simple. So then I go to the right upper quadrant and spend.
Tiffany [00:32:36]:
I don't know, maybe you can spend more or less time, but at least 30 seconds to a minute in each of the quadrants. So you spend a few minutes there and kind of. I like it first thing in the morning with a big glass of water, maybe some lemon water or something, if you like those things. But just to stimulate the digestion and elimination first thing in the morning. And that can be an easy one. Yeah.
Erin Holt [00:32:57]:
And really helpful for constipation, too. Yeah, yeah. Folks who struggle with ongoing constipation.
Tiffany [00:33:02]:
And I love it for, like, endometriosis and painful periods. So for that one, one of my favorites is if you're lying on your stomach, the two tennis balls right inside of your frontal hip bones. And for people who can tolerate it, for my patients who can tolerate it, and I'd say it's 50, 50 with endometriosis. People who love it or hate it is doing some of that right before and during the period. It's a good way to keep circulation flowing during that time and can be helpful for pain regulation as long as they can tolerate it. You don't need to torture yourself. If it's too much, you skip it.
Erin Holt [00:33:32]:
Yeah. The two balls right inside the hip bones lying on your stomach, that one, it's like. I mean, it's like. It's a. It's uncomfortable, but it. I feel so much better afterward.
Tiffany [00:33:41]:
It's.
Erin Holt [00:33:41]:
It's really, really helpful. What about. How about anything for hiatal hernia?
Tiffany [00:33:47]:
I think that one's a little bit more complicated. I personally like to do hands on work for that. Personally, it's a little bit more complicated to do on your own, I think.
Erin Holt [00:33:55]:
Yeah, yeah, I think so too. So I was hoping.
Tiffany [00:33:57]:
It's a good question. You know, sometimes there's a quick, easy thing. Yes. And the other thing I'll say is for most of these, the evidence suggests that all you really need is 30, 60 seconds in each spot. If you're working in a large area like I love working, including gluteus medius and the back of the hip and the side of the hip there for a lot of people, for back pain and side pain and all that, that would be each point that you land on. Right. So in a big tissue you might pick a few points, like in the glutes, I'll do two or three. And lingering, like you want to feel like you can stay.
Tiffany [00:34:28]:
You don't necessarily need to have a timer, but feel like you can stay long enough to have a meaningful impact on the tissue. So when you're new to this, that might be hard to judge, but eventually, as you get more comfortable with it, you might sense things shift or you might just become familiar with like, oh, I did that for like just a few breaths the other day and it didn't seem to change much. And the next day I did it for a minute or two and stayed longer and it helped. So it's vague and subjective, but my point is that it doesn't need to be a long time, it can be quick. When I'm working with patients with injuries or specific issues that are going on, I really encourage them to do just a few minutes a day as a way to help again, keep things moving forward. What's interesting about the connective tissue and the fascia as a type of connective tissue, but what's interesting about the fascia, it is tissue that different than muscle. Muscle responds really quickly, five to eight weeks, usually with regular inputs the connective tissue. And again, fascia is a type of connective tissue is remodeling slowly over time, so over months.
Tiffany [00:35:23]:
So I just want to be kind of committed. You'll see changes in pain, you'll see a lot of changes along the way. But having more of that long term approach can be helpful with fascia.
Erin Holt [00:35:32]:
So this, you've called out some things that this could be helpful for injury, like, you know, being one of them. Chronic pain I would assume would respond well to this sort of thing. And we see a lot of that with our chronic clients. You know, whether it's autoimmune or some other type of chronic condition. Digestive stuff, endometriosis. Who else?
Tiffany [00:35:51]:
I.
Erin Holt [00:35:51]:
Sometimes people don't listen until we like call out their exact.
Tiffany [00:35:55]:
So I mean my favorite things I have my specialty, sports medicine and orthopedics. So I see a lot of low back pain, a lot of hip issues, SI issues, rotator cuff stuff, tension headaches. I mean even migraines. You kind of have to experiment a little bit more with those around when you're going to do them. Some people love it during a migraine, some people don't. Some people like it right before as they feel it coming on. Some people, you do it between. It's more preventative.
Tiffany [00:36:19]:
Tension headaches, tmj. I mean, you name it, like every part, every physical ailment almost. I mean, obviously I need to put this caveat in here. I think this is really important and something that we always talk about in our teacher trainings at yoga medicine, we're training our teachers, is that this is not meant to replace medical care. It's going to feel, sometimes it feels like a cure all because you get some really great effects. But there's, it's not replacing surgery. You know, when people need surgery, you got to go to the surgeon and that's something they have to weigh out with their doctor. But it can be a really great adjunct post surgery.
Tiffany [00:36:50]:
So there's a lot of different ways you can, you can do that. But I think it's pretty profound to consider that this tissue is literally remodeling in response to, to these inputs and physical inputs too. But again, it does take time.
Erin Holt [00:37:02]:
So yeah, and consider like adjunct therapy is, is a really great way to think about this because even with, you know, I keep coming back to our practice and things we might see recurring sibo, for example, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Like yes, there's an issue with bacteria in the wrong place, but usually it's more of an issue with the, the gut, brain access or motility. There's some type of like physical component going on too. So we have to hit it from both angles. Unless this we want the SIBO to come rip roaring back.
Tiffany [00:37:32]:
Yeah, I totally agree. And this is why I think it's so important as a healthcare provider to have a, a good resource of other providers. Because it's rarely one. It's almost never one thing. You're, you get that patient who's like the one thing and you're like, wow, that was amazing. Clients.
Erin Holt [00:37:47]:
I'm like, this is amazing. Everyone rides off into the sunset. I'm like, write the testimonial for us.
Tiffany [00:37:52]:
It's yeah. They're like, it's magical. Yes.
Tiffany [00:38:49]:
Most people are multidimensional, especially when they've had, whether it's digestive or an injury, something going on for a long period of time, there's usually multiple layers of it and you know, you've gotta usually address them all. So at least a few of them.
Erin Holt [00:39:02]:
It'S like the 15% of the hero cases and then the rest, like you have to like really do some work, scratch your head a little bit as the practitioner. Okay. So you know, it's usually multifactorial because all of the different systems in the body are all impacting each other and talking to each other. I know we don't have a tremendous amount of time to get into lymphatics. However, that is a component to the work that you do. So can you speak into why that is? What does the lymph system have to do with the fascial system have to do with like the muscles that we're moving in yoga? Like how does it all tie together?
Tiffany [00:39:33]:
Well, I think lymphatics and I know you've had someone on here for lymphatics, so I'll just kind of do high level stuff. But I think lymphatics is really interesting. It's our waste removal system which is less interesting, but it's also really important for regulating inflammation. You can think of this as like our immune highway. It's our immune transportation system. So anything related to immune or inflammation, it's a fluid regulating system. So obviously things like edema or swelling or lymphedema, it's really interesting. But even the waste removal part, you know, I think that's interesting to maintain as a way for keeping tissues and organs healthy.
Tiffany [00:40:06]:
And these lymphatics serve all the tissues, all of the organs. So implications are pretty broad and widespread. And I think this is a system we know a lot less about in research and science, that we're learning more and that's often overlooked. And there are a lot of really simple ways to support this system. I mean there's a lot of built in ways like just moving. These lymph nodes are congregating around your major joints. So just walking and moving and simple things are ways to change pressure around those lymph nodes to help drive movement. And your lymph is, is, is like a river in that sense.
Tiffany [00:40:40]:
It needs to keep flowing to stay healthy. And so supporting that lymph flow. In yoga, I think one of the things that is really potent and really simple is just simple belly breathing. Lying on your back, bend your knees, put your hands on your belly, inhale, try and breathe into your hands and expand your belly as much as you can. It doesn't even need to be a lot or for some people it's hard to even sense. And that's fine. You could use some pressure with your hands to kind of resist and feel into. And on your exhale, feel the belly kind of drop back towards your spine again, any amount.
Tiffany [00:41:12]:
But really what is interesting about this because I think, I think a lot of times it's easy to kind of look over it and feel like it's too simple. But it's creating this what we call the thoracic pump, which is basically looking at the pressure differential. And the chest is a negative pressure system, It's a gas system versus a fluid filled system in the abdomen. Two separate containers. As we inhale, the diaphragm pulls down. So that's what's distorting the belly and the abdominal contents and it pulls air in. And that's this increase in negative pressure. But what's cool about that, while that is interesting, if you're not nerding out on that, is that it, that negative pressure, that increase in negative pressure on inhale is what pulls venous blood as well as lymph back to the heart.
Tiffany [00:41:56]:
And so it just this ebb and flow of our breath, this deeper breathing especially is what helps to drive that lymph flow and also really great because it's massaging vagus nerve. So it has an effect on regulating the nervous system and the thoracic duct, which is also part of the lymphatic. So a great one. Cuz Just really simple and accessible. A few minutes of kind of lying our back. Belly breathing can be really powerful. And I'll just mention too, because my dad's in memory care, Alzheimer's is always top of mind and really interesting to me. We also have lymphatics in the central nervous system called our glymphatics.
Tiffany [00:42:28]:
And same thing is happening with the glymphatics. The cerebral spinal fluid is the fluid of lymph for the central nervous system, and that moves up on inhale toward the brain. So from the spinal cord toward the brain on inhale and on exhale, it moves back down with that also venous blood. So csf, or cerebral spinal fluid, goes up on inhale, venous blood comes out. We just talked about back toward the heart. So there's like, you don't need to remember all those details, but basically there's this rinsing mechanism that is happening anytime we start to breathe more deeply. And abdominal breathing especially is a way to really drive that and support glymphatics. Really helpful too, because a lot of our glymphatics happen at night when we're sleeping.
Tiffany [00:43:09]:
So for people who have trouble sleeping, being able to support that in other ways, I think is really impactful. We want to be able to clear out those metabolic byproducts in the brain because it's a very, very metabolically active tissue and needs that clearance for all of helping to support and hopefully minimize or prevent these neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and whatnot. So.
Erin Holt [00:43:30]:
Which are absolutely floating. So I think feel like there was. That's one of those things that's like, we don't really think about that until it becomes a problem. You know, like, with autoimmunity, we're not really thinking about autoimmunity. Until we get diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, we're not really thinking about. You know, it's like we have to really start thinking about things more proactively if we want to live long, healthy, good lives free of pain, or at least little as being possible.
Tiffany [00:43:54]:
Which is why I think these simple things are really great, you know, like belly breathing. That's not a hard one. You could do it with your abdominal massage in the morning. You know, you're kind of doing it anyways, so.
Erin Holt [00:44:03]:
And there are. You had mentioned that the lymphatics is really helpful for fluid retention. I sometimes will get swelling. And so that is something that I have found to be so crucial because for me, like, just deep breathing, if I'm Swollen isn't going to cut it. But doing your classes, I will just go on yoga medicine, and I will type in, like, lymph and just do one of the classes. And there's very specific movements and things that you help us with that really make an immediate impact. So if I'm like, if I travel, if I come off of a flight, if I have like a kind of a wonky few days, I will do one practice, and it really will help my body come back to baseline and recalibrate. Recalibrate pretty quickly.
Tiffany [00:44:43]:
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, again, I think just some movement and deep breathing can be helpful for people who don't have, like, pathology in the lymphatics, or I think anything you do is going to be helpful. Tapping over the main lymph nodes so you can do that belly breathing as a way to start, as a way to clear an exit for the lymphatics, because as you increase that flow, you want to keep pulling it back. And then just some, like, simple tapping over the axillary nodes. So in the armpit, the inguinal nodes in the groin, you can do some, like, massage around the sides of the neck. There's the cervical nodes, so kind of those are the three main ones. And, oh, and there's a ton of nodes in the abdomen. So that abdominal massage we talked about before, that can be just stimulating the nodes can be a great one.
Tiffany [00:45:21]:
The rest is all kind of a little bit more specific than, you know, you can talk about on a podcast. But, yeah, I mean, and just movement and deep breathing can be a way to instigate, I think, like so many systems in the body, our body is freaking brilliant and has a lot of checks and regulations in it. So just the deep breathing, the movement can be a driver. Simple inversion. So just like, legs up the wall, if you're familiar with that, can be a nice one, too, to help support that return back to the heart, the lymph, and venous blood return.
Erin Holt [00:45:48]:
So I'm curious to hear from you. As somebody who has been very active and like an athlete, really has your own movement practices change at all throughout the decades?
Tiffany [00:46:01]:
Oh, my gosh, yes. And I think that's my greatest hope for everyone. I. I feel some people have this resistance to aging and to changing. For me, I think what's so beautiful about it is being able to adapt and support myself through those changes. And I think what's. For me, what's really cool about yoga is we do have a lot of these tools. And, you know, especially as you Understand the body a little bit more and maybe appreciate the wisdom and aging and.
Tiffany [00:46:28]:
And the changes, we can start to adapt and shift our practice to meet our needs. And part of that is not just, you know, the calendar years. It's also like, I took up tennis again from, you know, I played when I was a kid 30 years ago. And, you know, and so my practice is changing with that, too, and where you're at in, you know, your stress levels of work and what you need. And to me, it's really about being truthful with myself. I think, especially. Especially now. You know, a lot of us put a lot of pressure on ourselves to stay active or to accomplish a certain amount.
Tiffany [00:46:59]:
We bring that to our mat and feel like maybe you have to do a certain amount of chaturangas or you need to sweat enough or you need to. And yes, we know that muscle tissue is really valuable and stimulating is important. And there's so many things now, right? You listen, you have, you have such a great podcast and are always giving all these great resources. I think it's. It's easy for people, too, on the Internet, on social media. You were talking about this on your social media recently to get overwhelmed by it. And, you know, I think for me, when it comes to yoga, the biggest thing is slowing down for a moment enough to recognize, am I just pushing myself to do an active practice when I really should be doing a meditation or a yin practice or slowing down and taking care? And that can be hard. I do think it's a.
Tiffany [00:47:40]:
It's a learning experience of. Of recognizing watching how your body responds to a vigorous practice when you're exhausted, you know, and learning from that and then watching how your body responds, you know, in different ways and learning over time. So you have to be easy on yourself, but to open yourself up and allow yourself to be really truthful with yourself and kind of clear away that need to, like, accomplish and do things and really showing up for yourself what you do.
Erin Holt [00:48:05]:
Yeah, I like that phrase, being truthful with yourself. And I mean, there's. Getting to know yourself is probably the most important thing we can do. It's the number one relationship we have is the one with ourselves. And I would say second to that, the one we have with our. Our physical bodies, because they're along for the whole.
Tiffany [00:48:21]:
The whole thing, the whole haul.
Erin Holt [00:48:23]:
I have no. I turned 40 last year, and everyone's probably so sick of me talking about it, especially, like, my, like, my listeners in, like, their 70s and their 80s. They're like, get over it. You're 40 like you're a spring chicken, move on. But I do notice that my body is different and I don't like having labels put on me. I don't like somebody else telling me what my experience will be. I want to figure it out for myself. But I will say, if I'm being truthful with myself, I've noticed some different things about the way that my body moves.
Erin Holt [00:48:52]:
And I am no stranger to my body being shaped. Shit show. And I'm so grateful for everything that it's overcome with my battles with autoimmunity and chronic pain. Like, I'm in a really good, healthy, resilient place with my physical body. But man, like, I do feel a little stiffer than I used to feel. I do feel like recovery is changing and I have to figure out how to navigate, you know, the next part of my life in this body that is not getting any younger. And I do feel that more of the recovery practices are becoming more and more important. Things like supporting, you know, having an understanding, not just focusing on the muscle tissues like you're saying, but also focusing on the other tissues and doing things to support those.
Tiffany [00:50:59]:
Yeah, I think we spend a lot of time resisting the changes and the moment that we can Embrace them. I, I mean I feel those changes too. Supporting recovery, supporting nervous system regulation is so big, especially perimenopause and menopause for females. I think it's a really big part that's overlooked and thank goodness there's a lot more attention to building muscle and strength, which is equally important and bone density and all of those things and nutrition. But nervous system regulation is also important and I think also it's so different from one individual to another and so being able to kind of tune in really key into those areas that are most helpful for you. I mean you're working with an athlete, they're already doing all the physical things. You know, the recovery and nervous regulation is so important. If you're working with someone who's sedentary, you know, being active might be the first low hanging fruit you want to start with and, and stimulating muscle tissue.
Tiffany [00:51:46]:
But I think for me the big thing is the mindset shifting from this broken thing and the negativity around aging to appreciating that I am lucky enough to live long enough that I get to experience these changes and to bring it as a challenge like to notice, to remember all these systems we've talked about are, are built. Yes, they all, most of them change, decline slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly over time with age and are a lot of them are impacted by hormonal shifts through perimenopause and menopause. But they have mechanisms built in that we can intervene with, as you know, with nutrition and other modalities. All these we've been talking about that can influence that. And I think that's the positive side of things, you know. Yes, we have to make peace with the fact that we will change, we will have wrinkles, we will lose some strength at some point like. And that's okay. You know, I think what's interesting to me is in Chinese medicine there's this view of especially you were talking about 40s, you know, I'm 45.
Tiffany [00:52:46]:
But this perimenopause and menopause transition as a really precious transition of going from reproducing and caretaking to self care. And this, what's really thought of as this wisdom, wisdom phase, this conservation of energy, it's our body's way of shutting off the reproductive process to conserve these precious vital substances in the body. And it really being our body's inner wisdom that does that, that allows us to tap into this more steady state and this more constant source of internal wisdom that we have as we enter that. And I think that's what We're. We don't talk about. That's what we don't really share is that there's a beauty to this too. I mean, not to. Not to, like, take away.
Tiffany [00:53:29]:
Obviously, there's a lot of ups and downs. I'm not trying to minimize that. There's a lot of changes, and a lot of women experience a lot of symptoms in that phase. But there's more to it too, hopefully.
Erin Holt [00:53:38]:
And I think this is a really important conversation that probably needs to be had because there was a while where we just. We didn't talk about it. We weren't allowed to talk about it. There wasn't space to talk about it. I spoke. I recently spoke with somebody who is in her early 70s, and she has so much anger because she's like, we were the generation that was forgotten about. I get so emotional thinking about it because it's like there were. There was no space for that.
Erin Holt [00:54:03]:
There just wasn't. And it's like. And now she's kind of paying the piper because this is when estrogen hormone replacement therapy was considered so dangerous. They. They had no resources, they had no space to say, like, something's really wrong here. And it was just basically like, suck it up and deal. And now I think there's a. Such a.
Erin Holt [00:54:21]:
I'm so grateful that we are actually looking at female physiology and acknowledging like, hey, maybe it's a little different than men. And so there's a space to talk about it. And with that, we're seeing a lot of hyper fixation on it too, indefinitely. More of the negative aspects of it, which again, we need the space to be able to talk about these symptoms and these things that are happening in our bodies and to be heard and listened to and acknowledged and validated. But it's. It is a natural part of this process. So there needs to be some type of acceptance. And I love what you said about the steady state, because I think we look at this time as a loss.
Erin Holt [00:54:57]:
A loss of fertility, a loss of estrogen, a loss. Just a loss of beauty standards, a loss of the bodies that we once knew. There's a huge grieving process when the body changes. Um, I just spoke with somebody last week who wanted to work with us, and she's like, I gained five pounds. And this is like. She's like, I need my body back and this is not my body. And there's a real confusion, grief, rage, despair that comes with not feeling like we're living in our own bodies. So.
Erin Holt [00:55:26]:
So it, it feels like a loss. But if we can reframe. If we can have resources, if we can have the space to talk about it and we can have resources to support ourselves and we can have a reframe about what is actually going on. I think that can put a lot more women in a lot of better, better space.
Tiffany [00:55:42]:
I couldn't agree more with all of that and I think I'm so grateful that there's more attention coming to again, we're so lucky to live in this time where people are talking about it. Completely agree, couldn't agree more. But I think with that comes, you know, us finessing the language and the nuance behind it. And I have hope that we're talking about those things too and getting there and learning more. And I think one of the things in the yoga practice that I think is so valuable in this and in so many other parts of healthcare and health and wellness is the non judgmental curiosity we can bring to ourselves and cut ourselves some slack, show ourselves some grace and kindness and. But that curiosity to see like, okay, well is this something I can work with? And that curiosity might be going and talking with different healthcare providers to see what resources and you know, we all, I mean, I think it's really big in the media now that not all doctors are well trained in menopause care. So sometimes it takes searching to find someone. And I think for me working with patients too is also sometimes just pushing them to be an advocate.
Tiffany [00:56:45]:
So searching for different healthcare providers that might be better at working with menopause or searching for different tools, whether that's in a yoga practice. You know, we talked about the different practices and how those, you know, can be useful and being truthful with yourself. But I think being an advocate for yourself, you really have to nowadays for a lot of things. But this included and that curiosity, that non judgmental curiosity is a big driver for that I think is to keep getting curious and don't let yourself get stuck in this mindset of just being doomed. And yes, also balancing that with making peace with the fact that things are going to change at some point. As far as like especially wrinkles and aging and our capacity, our physical capacity is slowly, slowly but surely that's the problem. I think a lot of people come into me and they're like, I'm 40 and everything's gone to shit. You know, it's like, doesn't necessarily need to change all at once.
Tiffany [00:57:34]:
Like there's something wrong if it's changing all at once that early. But yes, we need to still make peace with that. Things will Change. But I think there's a power to the curiosity that's important. And advocating for yourself and shifting your own mindset. That change, that start, that change starts with us and how we see ourselves and how we are talking with other people about that. And not just you and me as, as the people running the podcast, but like every person listening to this, like, starting to change our own mindset about perimenopause and menopause. Because when we change our mindset about it, it changes how we talk about it, how we interact with people, how we see ourselves, our own self worth, our value, how we live our lives.
Tiffany [00:58:16]:
And so, yeah, I don't know. That's, that's what's important to me, I guess.
Erin Holt [00:58:20]:
And it's, yeah, it's crucial. People are like, how did you put an eating disorder or into remission? And I was like, I changed how I saw myself. How did you put autoimmunity into remission? Yeah, it was nutrition. Yeah, it was functional medicine.
Tiffany [00:58:31]:
Also.
Erin Holt [00:58:31]:
I changed how I saw myself. I changed my mindset. And people get frustrated with that because it seems so easy. It wasn't, it was a slog. It was like a lot of work. But man, did it make a humongous impact. So that always, always needs to come online too, when we're talking about any type of healing. Tiffany, thank you so much for this conversation.
Erin Holt [00:58:49]:
Tell our listeners more about where they can find you and access your work.
Tiffany [00:58:54]:
Yeah, it's just yogamedicine.com and you can find our practice site there. So we have a site where you can find. I have hundreds of classes, I think we probably have over a thousand all together with other teachers on there. So you can search and find specific things to practice with. We have teacher trainings for those yoga teachers or healthcare providers interested in studying more of the therapeutics of yoga. We have a lot of free resources. Our podcast, we're on social media, Yoga Medicine, and then we also have our, our nonprofit for those interested, which is Yoga Medicine Seva foundation, which we work really hard to help provide vocational skills to women who have been rescued from trafficking, specifically in, in India, as a way to give back to this culture that's given us this practice of yoga.
Erin Holt [00:59:35]:
So that's amazing. I'm curious, with your trainings, especially in the therapeutic side of things, is that only for yoga teachers or can other healthcare providers do those as well?
Tiffany [00:59:46]:
Yes, so it is a lot of, I would say a quarter of the people in our trainings are usually healthcare providers. You just need to have experience with Yoga and a deep, and an interest in that deep subject matter expertise. So they could do one offs. It could just be the lymphatics or our pranayama trainings or shoulder or spine or nervous system trainings. We've, we've got a bunch of them. Myofascial release training. So we have a bunch of them they can choose from. And yeah, if you're a healthcare provider or someone just with a deep interest in any of those things, you can, we have them online, we have them in person.
Tiffany [01:00:15]:
So it's kind of your choice. What.
Erin Holt [01:00:16]:
And I will say just because we do have a lot of practitioners who really love the geek speak here. It's definitely the way that you teach is definitely more into the, the anatomy. It's very obvious that you have a medical background when you are teaching. And I mean that with like a lot of compliment like this. I have a huge compliment that I'm paying you. It's not so much that the touchy feely type of yoga, not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just, it's very much focused on the body. And so practitioners, I think really gravitate to your work because of that. Because you're learning so much when you, when you study with you.
Tiffany [01:00:54]:
Yeah. And I, I think the learning, I mean, you do this too so well. I think the learning is, is also the empowerment because you give a patient a tool and they can take it home and they may or may not do it, but if they really understand the a little bit, just a touch of the what, why and how behind it, not only will it enhance the effects, I think, but also their ability to take it home and do it and be proactive with it. And so I mean, I think that's what you do too is, is like being able to make these concepts relatable, take big concepts and make them succinct, make it relatable in our body, something we can feel, which I think makes it really interesting and fun.
Erin Holt [01:01:30]:
I agree. Well, thank you so much again, Tiffany and everyone. Go check out yoga medicine. You won't regret it.
Tiffany [01:01:37]:
Thanks for having me.
Erin Holt [01:01:43]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Functional Nutrition Podcast. If you got something from today's show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.