Homeschool Moms, Reduce Stress With This Wellness Tip

Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

Heart rate increases steadily, pins and needles tingly crawl up the back of the neck, nausea emerges and rapid, shallow breathing ensues. These are feelings we experienced in the middle of many homeschool days as the stress mounted. Getting little accomplished against the ticking clock, the house becoming more and more a mess, the loving children turned to unruly and difficult. A horrible scene which brought visions of escape to us and can do the same to the most committed homeschool mama.

One fellow homeschooling mama confessed that throughout the day, she’d walk to the kitchen window to stare at her neighbors motorcycle and imagine hopping on behind him as they raced off into the sunset, never turning back….a simple adios to the husband and children to which she was so devoted. Of course, it was a ridiculous fantasy which brought many laughs as we watched our kids play together at the park. But, it defines the struggle that homeschool moms go through daily…the mental game which taxes the physical body. When Jesus said in Matthew 11:28: “Come to me...," it’s moments like these that bring reliance on that word!

Prayer and scripture are always the best default to these moments, and we want to add another strategy to help break the cycle and control the reaction of our bodies to this mental stress -- the foundation of effective breathing. This sounds basic and simple, too good to be true. However, research abounds to show that when we breathe more effectively, we benefit greatly in many ways which include the ability to lower our heart rate and calm down emotionally.

This idea of breathing more effectively is known to us as diaphragmatic breathing. It is a strange concept for most people and one which we navigated with such success in our own lives that we have  been inspired to teach the strategy to moms and children alike. We’ve seen the struggle to grasp this concept because it’s counter to what our bodies want to do when we inhale and exhale. But, we think it’s worthy of devoting attention to, as it has become a superpower for us, and we know it can help you, too! 

Simply put, it is the focus on fully inflating the lungs while extending one's trunk when inhaling, and then completely deflating the lungs on the exhale to release all of the oxygen from them. This action enables a more efficient breathing cycle and a calm state of being.

While there are countless ways to learn about diaphragmatic breathing, we’re sharing resources from a program called Block Therapy which we were introduced to towards the end of our homeschool journey (and wish we would’ve known about sooner). The way efficient and effective breathing methods are taught in this program is easy to understand, and the connection made to our cells and fascia system are amazing.

God's fascinating design of the way that diaphragmatic breathing nourishes our cells, which in turn feeds our fascia, inspires us to continue to learn more and to share about this process as we see the benefits to our health.  

In our podcast episode #13, we had the honor of talking to Deanna Hansen, the founder of Block Therapy, where she shares the basic concepts of Block Therapy and enlightens us about the wonders of our cells and fascia system.  We think these concepts can enlighten and empower homeschool moms to tackle the little stressors as they come, so they don't mount up and try to derail the day. We are sharing only some of the transcripts from the podcast and we encourage you to listen to the entire episode. 

From Deanna Hansen, founder Block Therapy:

“The world is definitely waking up to this amazing system that's in the body, but I still feel I have a fairly unique perspective on what the fascia system is all about from 22 years of literally spending over 60,000 hours diving into patients' bodies, my own personal body, and uncovering an understanding that is really changing the game for how a lot of people treat themselves in regard to self care.

The first thing that I really love about the understanding of fascia, I see it as being the cell membrane of every cell membrane interconnect. So from head to toe, we have trillions of cells and each cell is connected in this matrix through the fascia system. It creates both stability and mobility in the body, and it's also the communication system between the cells and all parts and every cell, whether we're talking bone, brain, muscle, organ, whatever.

Fascia innovates all tissue in the body. So you really can't separate it from anything else because it is everything, literally. So what is really important to understand when we're looking at the body is how everything is interconnected and how there are certain cause sites to the pain and to the issues that we're dealing with.

And that's everything from our size, to chronic pain, to how trauma is stored in the body, to just mobility in general. All of it, disease. Everything really comes down to having optimal flow. And optimal flow is created through space. So when every cell is in its perfect position, there's optimal space so that the cell can absorb the proper nutrients.

Getting oxygen being the most important, as well as release of the toxins which are the byproducts of functioning so the system always stays properly fed and clean. As long as cells are in their place and they're being consistently fed and clean, then they're not going to struggle. They don't have to send out pain signals. They don't start to undergo changes as a result of aging. But the reality is, that's not our situation. 

Gravity, of course, is this driving constant force that pulls us down. Over time we see the effects of gravity through what we experience as aging. Basically because we're dominant on one side of the body we don't just age. In a linear fashion, we literally spiral down. As the fascia is here to support both stability and mobility, what happens if we're not conscious of proper postural foundation and we're starting to tip off?

Balance is effected as the fascia will grip and adhere to everything in its path to create that stability and it will grip and adhere to bone. With up to a 2000 pound per square inch force, which is just hard to grasp, to think that there is this incredible internal force that we don't even really recognize. Some people will recognize it as being a lack of mobility in a certain joint, or some people might not have the ability to kind of glide through life. They might feel burdened and heavy, but we don't really grasp what this internal force is doing to us. It is in part here to protect us, to keep us upright but what it's also doing is blocking blood and oxygen flow to cells, as well as it's preventing the cells from being clean.

Now our system doesn't have optimal flow and it starts to become sluggish. The goal of Block Therapy is to get to these adhesions, to melt them, and then, through the process of Blocking, we also teach proper diaphragmatic breathing which pumps blood and oxygen into spaces that we just opened from Block Therapy.

We also teach people how to support proper postural foundation through understanding how to support the body when standing, sitting, sleeping and moving in general. Block Therapy has three parts:

• Creating space that we've lost over time from gravity and unconscious posture
• Inflating that space with proper diaphragmatic breathing
• Maintaining that space with proper postural foundations and how to strengthen our body's incorrect alignment so that all cells can stay and be pulled back into their rightful place. 

It's really quite profound because you start diving in through the layers to get a sense of what has happened to your body over time. Most people are only really conscious of the more superficial layers. Our brain can only handle so much incoming information. Our bodies are full of pain and tension all the way from the most superficial layer to the deepest part inside because we're not aligned. Because those cells have been pulled away from correct alignment, it's kind of homesick.

All of the cells are a little bit homesick, some to a greater degree than others, depending on what life has brought. However, the goal is that we pull the body back to correct alignment so all cells can be in that communication system through the fascia as well as be supported with that optimal space through the absorption and the elimination of toxins that is part of this whole fascia system.”

Wow! We know that Deanna is ever grateful for the amazing insight she has been given into how our bodies were created, and we hope you are as blessed by the resources provided, not only in this article, but through investigating all of Block Therapy’s online offerings as well as our Be Well classes. We’ve chosen our first in a series of Be Well classes for moms to be about the topic of diaphragmatic breathing and are using Block Therapy’s tips as the foundation for the class. We believe that breathing is God’s most exceptional gift to us, He made us by breathing LIFE into us and has a plan for how we take each and every breath in our life. 

We’re excited to bridge that connection and to arm you with a more powerful way to breathe, which we hope leads to a more calm, peaceful, and rewarding homeschool day.

Links for more investigation:

• Block Therapy’s Blog
• Check out Block Therapy’s YouTube channel Full of more free resources. We’ve linked a video here wherein they show a position to help you locate, activate and strengthen your diaphragm. It will help you pull in more and increase oxygen absorption, remove toxins from your lungs and tissue as well to decompress your core improving flow to your abdominal organs to improve digestion and elimination.
• The Homeschool Well Podcast episode #13 “Take Care of You, Homeschool Mama!”
  

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