Depression, Anxiety and Fascia: What One Self‑Myofascial Release Session Changed | Jason Van Blerk | Be Well Moments

Watch the FULL podcast here: https://youtu.be/HQepDqbCIyI

Could releasing tight fascia really shift mood and reduce anxiety? I’m exploring research and real‑world practice linking fascia tension with depression and stress, including a randomized controlled trial with a small sample (around 67 participants) that found people with depression had stiffer fascia in the neck and upper back, and that one session of self myofascial release reduced negative memory bias and improved mood.

This clip explores how daily movement and gentle rotations may help ease tension, the idea that restricting the ribcage (including tight bras) can drive a stress response, and why working on the body can influence how we feel and think. I’m taking a closer look at a three‑part approach my guest suggests: addressing the body, emotions, and thoughts together rather than focusing on only one. You’ll also hear a simple seated rotation drill for the shoulder and upper back that can be done in a meeting to help unwind tension. As a nutritionist and health communicator, I’m interested in how evidence and practical tools meet, especially when it comes to mood, anxiety and day‑to‑day wellbeing.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Live Well Be Well, a show to help high performers
improve their health and well-being.
SO1 paper that we I want to talkabout was a randomised
controlled trial. So it was a very good scientific
paper where they found that people with depression had
stiffer, less elastic fascia, especially in the neck and upper

(00:25):
back. And in just one session of self
myofascial release, if I said that correctly, reduced their
negative memory bias and improved their mood.
That blew my mind. That's one of the papers that
you sent me. I think that was, I mean, it's
still a small sample size. I think it was around 60-7
people they had in, in each set.But still, you know, still in

(00:45):
RCT, it's still something that can definitely not be dismissed.
I found that really interesting that obviously we're talking
about emotion depression, anxiety is is hugely on the rise
and we can sometimes think aboutit just as in our minds, it just
kind of lodged in this kind of upper part of us, but we forget
that it can be so connected to our bodies.

(01:06):
And you know, I am a big fan of Doctor Gabo Mattis work and he
talks a lot about, you know, back pain is connected to
emotion. So This is why I find this so
fascinating. So if people are suffering with,
you know, stress, poor mood, depression, how should they be
thinking about daily movement inrelation to their fascia?
If the body is not able to move,it stagnates and we're not able

(01:33):
to produce the feel good hormones anymore.
And one of the other things is like, if I squeeze your rib cage
really tight, if I squeeze it, you're going to start getting
anxious because your body feels threatened.
I'm threatening your ability to breathe.
Well. What are bras doing?
Squeezing the rib cage slightly,which drives a stress response.

(01:55):
And so if we can reduce the tension on the body, then the
body starts to calm down. If the body calms down, the
brain calms down. Because if I'm in stress, my
body will take all of its resources, all of its energy to
try and solve the problem. But if we can just give the body

(02:16):
more space, reduce the tension, reduce the stress, then all of a
sudden the thoughts calm down. Like when people do this
practice, they say I don't have any thoughts.
Like they go complete it. It completely empties their
mind. And it's because if the body's
in stress, it drives thoughts. We're trying to solve depression
through the brain. It doesn't work that way.
It's not a chemical issue. It's an issue with the body.

(02:38):
The body's not able to flow. We're blocking the body's
ability to perform. And if we can get the body
moving, it will start to heal. And then our thoughts calm down.
Stress calms down. Anxiety calms down.
Yeah, I think somatic work has been massive for my own kind of
self experience. This is obviously completely
anecdotal, but for me, when I felt the most disconnected to my

(03:00):
body, it's not talking therapy that helps me, it's not
journaling my thoughts down. It's actually a connection back
to, to my body and, and my emotions, I guess because I
think we can all live in a worldwhere we're very disconnected
from that. We're kind of drawn away from
our body. And also I do think if we can
have a flux of emotions in our body, I mean, we quite like the

(03:22):
happiness ones and the excited ones, but they're also very
related to fear. The excitement and emotion is
also very related to the the fear emotions.
It's very similar chemicals. Really similar chemicals, but I
don't think we're taught to, I guess, feel comfortable with
them. Well, look, I was a guy growing
up in the world as an athlete, everything I've been taught is

(03:42):
to suppress emotions. So for me it was like anger,
maybe a little bit of happiness with my friends, but I didn't
really have the different flavours of emotions.
It took me a long time to becomeemotionally aware.
And what I realized when it comes to really helping the
human body is there's three paths.
One is talking, which we just talked about.

(04:04):
The other one is the emotions and the other one is the body
We're talking or thoughts. Let's, let's put it that way.
And when we're helping somebody,you know, I, I work with a lot
of people and they say, you know, I've tried everything.
I, I've done talk therapy, I've whatever.
It's because their body's not moving.
So we get the body moving. All of a sudden, the emotions
and the mind change as a result.So if we want to access and help

(04:27):
the body or help somebody transform their life, you have
to hit all three. You can't just hit one.
When you work on the body, the emotions come up.
When the emotions come up, now you can change your narrative,
your thoughts, or your story about it.
You have to hit all three levels.
Otherwise you're not completing the loop.
So people will do emotion therapy, but they're not
changing the way that they see the situation.

(04:48):
They're not moving their bodies,so it's incomplete.
You have to hit all three in order to really help somebody.
So for people who are like, OK, so it's rotation, it's movement.
I mean I know you gave us one exercise already in the pre
interview, but to give people anunderstanding of these
rotations, can you just give us some examples?
You want to do 1. Yeah.
Can I do it? I mean, like for anyone who's

(05:09):
watching this, I literally have hills and a black long skirt on.
Can I do it like this? Yeah.
Absolutely. Is this the most?
Is this the most interesting dress sense that someone's come
to you in? You know, it's, it's funny
because you can really do this anywhere at any time where so
it's. Accessible for anyone?
Yes. OK, great.
I sometimes do it when I'm in the middle of a meeting.
Nobody even knows I'm doing it. I can do it right now on this

(05:30):
podcast and nobody would even know that I was doing it.
And there's different movements based on different scenarios.
So let's do an easy 1. So if you take your your right,
your left hand and place it on your trap and your right hand,
just grab your elbow and you're going to twist the elbow
outwards. And normally you would bring it
above your head, but just keep it here for a moment and twist

(05:53):
as much as you can out and lock it in place and just hold it
there. And we're going to hold this for
about a minute. What we're doing here is we're
taking the bone and we're torquing the bone outwards.
As you do that, it creates almost like a vortex or torsion
pattern in the fascia that we saw there, and it starts to

(06:13):
unwind the tension deep around the bone all the way into the
shoulder joint. So somebody's dealing with
shoulder pain if they do something like this while
they're sitting in a meeting, while they're sitting in
traffic, while they're waiting for something.
You do this for a minute, we'll unwind the tension.
Thanks so much for listening to hear the full episode.
There's a link. In the description.