May 4, 2025 • 65 mins
In this episode, Dr. Jade Teta interviews Dr. Andrew Bloch, who discusses the intersection of quantum biology, fascia, and pain management. Dr. Bloch emphasizes the importance of understanding pain as a protective mechanism and introduces his unique approach to resetting the nervous system through breathwork. He explains how breath can be a powerful tool in managing pain and highlights the interconnectedness of the body’s systems. The conversation delves into the philosophy of treatment, the role of observation in healing, and practical steps for both practitioners and clients to enhance their understanding and management of pain.
Contact Dr Bloch:
Instagram: @ihatepain.ahps
Get Book: https://a.co/d/ja7zo1C
Chapters:
00:00:00 Episode Introduction and Guest Overview
00:04:00 The Light Bulb vs. Switch Paradigm
00:08:45 The Journey Beyond Traditional Medicine
00:16:05 Pain as Protection: Rethinking Root Causes
00:31:30 True Breath: Accessing the Automatic System
00:44:30 Reflexive Point Therapy and Practical Application
00:58:20 Final Takeaways and Contact Information
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http://nextlevelhuman.com/human-coaching
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Connect with Next Level Human
Website: www.nextlevelhuman.com
support@nextlevelhuman.com
Connect with Dr. Jade Teta
Website: www.jadeteta.com
Instagram: @jadeteta
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome to the show, everybody.
This is the Next Level HumanPodcast.
I am your host, dr Jade Tita,and today I have my guest, dr
Andrew Block.
And am I saying that right,andrew?
Is that Block?
B-l-o-c-h.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Okay, you did it right.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Absolutely Well.
Let me tell them, andrew, how Ifound you and why I was
interested in having thisconversation with you.
So, those of you who don't dopodcasts one of the things that
happens when you have a podcastthat has a viewership you
oftentimes get people sendingyou different people all the
time saying, hey, I have anexpert for you, would you be
interested in interviewing them?
(00:37):
And you can be inundated withthese messages.
One of my things is that I havebeen interested in both for my
own self turning 52, feelingachy and feeling a different way
in my body than I had in thepast and also entering into this
area of quantum biology, orwhat I might call quantum
(00:58):
metabolism, and how the fasciais involved.
In.
That made me sort of peak up myears when I saw Dr Block's
information come across.
Andrew, when I saw you sort ofdoing this work, I was very
interested in having you discusswhat it is you're doing.
Now I know that you do things alittle bit differently.
(01:19):
We were talking just brieflybefore I hit record and I'm
always interested in hearingfrom practitioners in the way
that they see things and the waythat they do things, and I was
telling you that about a thirdof my listenership are other
practitioners and you weresaying that you're definitely
getting into the space whereyou're training other
practitioners so that youpractitioners who are on the
line listening, you may beinterested in getting some of
(01:42):
Andrew's information.
You may be interested in gettingsome of Andrew's information,
but what I would love to getstarted with, I mean I selfishly
, andrew, am very interested infascia and how this might be
contributing to pain and all themagical things about fascia
that we didn't know before.
But I don't want to hijack sortof where you like to start,
because I do know as apractitioner, if you start too
(02:03):
advanced you can lose somepeople.
So what I want you to do isjust maybe tell a little bit
about your story or how you gothere and also just get us
started where you would need usto start to understand the
basics of what you do, and thenyou and I can get to know each
other and have sort of a morein-depth conversation.
But I want you to just startright where you think we need to
(02:24):
begin.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, I appreciate the introduction, Thanks so much
.
And you know the whole I think.
I like to always start by whatI usually say to almost every
client that comes in the doorthat's in pain, because most
people are suffering in painthat come to see me, and I
always say that we've beensomewhat indoctrinated into a
philosophy of how we treat pain.
(02:46):
So if you walked into a roomand the light bulb wasn't on or
wasn't working, you wouldn'tplay with the light bulb, you'd
hit the switch.
But in medicine we've all beentrained to say well, there's a
problem, that there's no light,so it must be at the bulb.
So if you had, say, a neck bulbissue, the doctor would say you
(03:10):
have an itis, tendonitis,bursitis you get a little older,
like me arthritis.
Pt says you're weak or tight,chiropractor says your alignment
is poor, subluxation, and themassage therapist says you have
a bunch of knots or myofascialrestrictions.
And everyone is touching thebulb.
And so for my first I'd say,starting out as my career, I
(03:32):
understood that philosophy as a,as an athletic trainer and as a
physical therapist and as anacupuncturist, say, okay, if
there's a problem at the bulb.
I want to really get good atwhat my specialty was.
So back then it was athletictraining and physical therapy.
So I just became really good atexercise and stretching.
And then I started to realize,well, I really wasn't getting
(03:55):
the results that I wanted.
People are in pain, they wantquick results, just like if
you'd hit a switch.
Quick results, um, just like ifyou'd hit a switch, you know.
And so what I?
I I started to then dive intosaid, well, if my bulb that I
learned isn't my solution is notworking, I better learn other
people's bulbs.
(04:16):
So then I I went on.
I took a whole certification inmanipulation and mobilization,
almost became like I'd say, apseudo chiropractor, because I'm
like, well, they must have theanswer.
Come to find out that, yes, Ibecame more knowledgeable and I
did help more people, but Ireally didn't answer really the
question that I wanted, like howdo I make immediate results?
(04:39):
So I said, okay, it's got to bemore the fascia, it's got to be
more the you know more whatmassage therapist, because
people love when you touch themand when you move them.
People are getting greatresults.
I became a structuralintegration, almost like a
rolfer.
I took a whole certification inthat.
I became very, very good atthat In the meantime I also
(05:01):
understood what doctorsunderstood about surgeries and
tendonitis, tried to understandthat aspect, and what I really
come to realize is that nobodyhit the switches, nobody really
taught me about the switches,and that's why I started to use
(05:23):
those two together, of utilizingEastern as well as Western
medicine to kind of come up witha new paradigm, a new
philosophy, which doesn'texclude whatever you're doing.
So if you're a chiropractor, aPT, massage therapist, I don't
want that to come across likethose aren't great things.
There's a lot of tremendousvalue of doing, say, myofascial
(06:04):
release and that aspect.
But if you really ask questionslike electron microscope, you
start to really wonder like itmust have been incredibly
advanced of how they figured itout and what I believe,
something that is somewhatobvious is that they were really
keen in observation.
(06:25):
They were students of observing, they had the time we don't
really have the time as much now.
We got to do notes, we got todo the whole aspect of it.
So, to be a healer, I reallybelieve a lot really came from
being keen in observation.
And so the goal of when you talkjust about myofascial, the
(06:47):
Chinese, in my opinion, alreadyhave come up with the myofascial
system and it's calledacupuncture meridians.
And you know, I know right nowwe have this big push in Western
medicine because we're kind ofproving things and looking at
different tissue, because wedon't really understand the
eastern velocity of of just heatand cold and chi and blood, the
(07:12):
wave and phlegm and otheraspects of eastern medicine.
But when you really come downto it, almost everything that I
see in the mild fashion worldwe're actually we've already
done in the eastern medicinepractice.
And so again, not to be likeone's better than the other,
because I think we actually canlearn a lot more, you know,
(07:33):
because we have differenttechnologies now we have, you
know, but I don't think we canforget what has already been
kind of taught to us andunfortunately not to all of us
because it's an Easternphilosophy.
So while I'm fascinated what Isee, what's coming out in the
myofascial world, I chuckle alittle bit, you know, as some of
(07:56):
the mentors and gurus that Imet that you know can do that in
minutes.
What takes someone maybe a fewdays or maybe weeks of treatment
, and that always kind of blewmy mind.
So I always searched out forpeople, mentors and gurus.
For me that was always after myfirst, I'd say, 10 years of
(08:17):
practice, of learning about thebold aspect, I started to really
look at it and say okay, okay,like I really wanted to serve
for mentors that I that I wouldsay got the results that I
wasn't getting in traditionalwestern practicing.
And I really came to find threepeople that dramatically
(08:39):
changed my life in, in showingme things that I was.
It was almost like a magictrick, like how did you do that?
How did something becomepainful in one minute and not
painful in another minute?
And that, to me, was like my,was my, um, my road, my journey,
(09:01):
I'd say for the next, I'd say,15 years of of practicing, and
so the whole goal for me is, andwhat I started my journey, I'd
say for the next I'd say 15years of practicing, and so the
whole goal for me is and what Istarted to say is like I only
want to know about the switches,so much so that when I was
developing my stuff, I almostalienate and I didn't do such a
good job because I wasalienating people that were
(09:21):
still on the bold, and that'snot fair either.
I was alienating people thatwere still on the bulb, and
that's not fair either.
There was a lot of great stuffthat's happening at the I call
the bulb level, that I wouldcall more the somatic, more of
the voluntary nervous system.
But really where the magic isis in the involuntary, and
that's why I think the switchescome into play, just like if you
(09:42):
would come in a room and youhit the light switch the light
comes on.
Well, if you knew nothing aboutelectricity, you'd be blown
away.
You'd be like, oh my God, howthe heck did you put that bulb
on?
You know, by not even touchingit you'd be completely blown
away.
And I think that's you know, inmedicine, those are things that
are capable every day, with anew paradigm, a new
(10:04):
understanding of how we cantreat pain.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, I love this and you're freezing up a little bit
on your end, but don't worry,because it's being locally
recorded.
So, regardless if you see me alittle bit hiccup-y, or you're
being recorded on your end, sono worries about that.
Okay, cool, it's not on my end,but thank you okay, but I
followed you, uh, perfectly, andlet me just say a couple things
here, uh.
(10:32):
And now I remember why I wantedto have this conversation with
you.
Because, as a practitioner,like you, I also am obsessed
with a root cause and it soundslike, ultimately, that's what
you also are obsessed with, andalso the fact that you studied
lots and lots of differentplaces and things and arrived at
(10:55):
something that you feel is morefundamental, more root cause
agent than what most people aredoing so to me.
Now I'm remembering why Ireally wanted to have this
conversation with you.
Because, to me, practitionerswho really understand the box
that they're working from arethe only real ones that I feel
(11:17):
like can adequately thinkoutside of the box.
Right, we hear this idea of,like you got to think outside
the box.
Well, if you don't know what'sin the box, I don't know how you
think outside of it.
So I'm always interested inpractitioners who learn their
craft in the way that it'staught in the universities and
everywhere else and then beginfrom that understanding to go
outside and find the real sortof causes or what they believe
(11:41):
are the real causes.
And so what I want to know fromyou is obviously, I'm hearing
that you went all the way aroundon this sort of adventure and
came back to some of the Easternsort of medicine that you had
been studying as well, and Iwant to know what you found Like
.
What do you feel like now, tothe best of of your
(12:03):
understanding, is the actualcause, or the light switch
rather than the bulb to use youranalogy of why people are in
pain, what is actually happening?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
there's a lot to unpack there.
So, and I love, I love the, thequestion in that aspect,
because I think this is where alot of people do converse at
this idea of root cause andsomewhat the holy grail.
And I think in reality, forboth those I would say I don't
necessarily believe in eitherone of those.
(12:36):
And I'll explain a little bitmore of it, and it's not to be
insulting in the sense of theroot aspect, because I do
believe that a lot of timespeople journey for the why.
You know, why am I in pain inthat aspect?
And when you really understandpain from what?
(12:56):
My description, which how Idescribe pain as pain, is your
body's way of expressingprotection.
So pain in and of itself is nota structure, it's a sensation,
it's a feeling just likehappiness, just like fear, just
like courage, just like anyother sensation.
(13:17):
And so if you are smiling andhappy, you're not just happy in
your teeth, right, you're happyeverywhere.
So one big thing I started torealize is that when you're in
pain and protecting and what Icall overprotection, so
(13:38):
everybody in pain is in a stateof overprotection, okay, and
when we look at protection andwe look at it from the fact of
that, the whole body isprotected.
There's no thing of just theneck or the shoulder or just
these muscles or just theseligaments.
The whole body is protectingbecause you are in pain.
(14:00):
So if you're not in pain, thoseareas might be protecting
locally, but once you have thesensation of pain it's
everywhere.
And when you have paineverywhere, it involves both of
your nervous systems yourvoluntary, what is called a
somatic nervous system, andyour're involuntary or what's
(14:24):
called the autonomic.
I call it automatic so thateveryone can kind of understand.
I try to get it so thateveryone can kind of grasp,
because when you get these bigterms in medicine it's almost
like I'm smart and you're not.
I really like to talk withpeople, not at people, so while
we can talk deep on it.
So to me, automatic I don'tknow autonomic why don't they
(14:47):
just call it automatic?
It just seems so.
So the automatic for peoplethat are not as familiar with
the nervous system is all yourorgan system and that system
works 24-7, 365, whether youthink about it or not.
The voluntary or somatic systemthat works when you tell it to
(15:09):
move.
So if you don't tell yourselfto move, you don't move.
The voluntary nervous system iskind of like a nice system.
It's a needed system.
But when you look at bothsystems the involuntary nervous
system, the automatic nervoussystem is magical and if I put
an F-bomb there, that's where Iput it.
It's so miraculous, it'sunbelievable Just one of those
(15:32):
organs that it's working all thetime state of protection or
overprotection and pain.
Both those systems are working.
In our philosophy aschiropractors, pts, massage
therapists, athletic trainers,yoga it doesn't matter if you're
(15:53):
a personal trainer We've beenreally trained really well on
the voluntary and we really haveno idea how to access the
involuntary.
Now there's heart ratevariability and there's other
stuff.
I would tell you those arereally I think they really fail
in comparison of amoment-to-moment aspect.
(16:13):
So when we talk about pain anda root cause, the one thing that
I believe very powerfully is weneed to reset that nervous
system.
We need to decrease thisprotective overprotection that
we have.
So one of the systems Ideveloped is called reflexive
(16:35):
pattern therapy is to identifythese patterns of autonomic
automatic overprotection thataffects the whole body and
resetting those.
But when the cool part about itis because obviously not
everyone can come and see me andand I wanted to kind of when I
developed a system which we cantalk about too.
(16:55):
It's kind of interesting howthat came about.
But is I?
I want you to look.
When I'm resetting theinvoluntary nervous system, I
kind of ask myself a question isokay?
There's in this involuntarynervous system, this automatic
system, there's only one organthat we have voluntary control
(17:17):
of in this involuntary system.
So if you think of how ourcreator made us like, he gave us
an access to this magicalsystem.
So if I said, you know, doc,eat some food and go ahead and
digest that food, you'd be like,well, I can't digest it.
It either works or it doesn't.
(17:37):
Right If I say, okay, now Iwant you to process in the liver
, I want your kidneys to, Ican't do any of that.
But the lungs and breathing wedo have access.
We can breathe a certain way,and that started to lead me to
what people can actually do forthemselves of resetting this
(17:58):
automatic system so that you canactually decrease the
protection which I think isfundamental for your overall
health and well-being is notonly to learn how to control
your breathing, but thefrequency, the duration.
I call the who, what, where,when and then eventually the why
(18:19):
.
So all those other functionswill determine your why's.
And that system, I call, istrue breath.
And if you take away the E, theB, the R, the A, you put those
together, you find your truthand that's the whole idea of
that aspect.
And so when we come back totalking about, the root aspect
for me is, I believe that youhave to take away the pain, you
(18:44):
have to reset the system firstbefore you can start to look at
the whys.
Because when you're suffering,it's not the best time to figure
out why you're broken.
And if I give the example,someone was drowning right and
you have a brother or sister,two brothers and a sister, pick
(19:08):
one of them.
They're out there drowningright.
You're like, oh my god,something's gonna happen.
You swim out there to save them.
They will drown you to savethemselves.
That's an automatic protectiveresponse, not because they don't
love you or anything like that.
It's the same idea as like whenyou're in the state of
(19:30):
overprotection, you're not inthe best state to make decisions
.
It's like you don't really knowwhat to do.
And the reality is, when youlook at protection from pain as
a standpoint of overprotection,there are too many variables, no
matter who you are.
There are too many variables tosay, oh, it's due to your teeth
(19:50):
, it's due to your hormones,it's due to your function.
Those all definitely can playan aspect.
And don't get me wrong, thoseare things that we use every day
and makes tremendous successeswith.
But I'm just talking about thecases that are not making
success.
So I don't want to alienatepeople that are already doing
(20:10):
stuff that is working.
If you're doing stuff that'sworking, keep doing it.
But I know that everybody hascases that they just didn't work
and unfortunately it could be alot or it takes too long.
You know it takes weeks andmonths, sometimes years, for
people to actually get relief.
So, on the two aspects ofunderstanding root cause and
(20:33):
your question about pain is oneis a greater understanding of
the automatic nervous system andthen two, resetting that system
so that you can now investigate.
So now, once you feel better.
Now you went to sleep at nightand say, damn, I woke up in the
morning, I have terrible neckpain.
Okay, maybe it's your mattress,maybe it's the way you sleep,
(20:56):
maybe you're stressed out fromwork and decisions, maybe it's
more of a mental, emotional side, right.
Or now it's like hey, I gotpain when I went to work or I
was lifting boxes.
Okay, now it's maybe more of astructural aspect.
Maybe it's coming and going allthe time.
Maybe now it's an endocrinefunction.
You know it's more of ahormonal aspect, so you can
(21:18):
actually dive in a lot more whenit comes back and usually it
doesn't usually come back thesame way.
If you've done right, it mightnot come back at the same
intensity.
That's the overall goal is tokind of flick the switch so that
you can actually see somethingcompletely different than what
you saw before.
Which is kind of funny becausethe book is called the unseen
(21:40):
science of overcoming stress,because this whole idea is like
for me it's the unseen aspectthat's way more powerful than
the scene, like anyone could see, like you know the scene.
But this unseen aspect, that'swhat I was talking about with
the ancient, you know gurus andmasters, like they saw stuff
that wasn't apparent foreveryone else.
(22:00):
It's like how did you see that?
Wow't apparent for everyoneelse.
It's like, how did you see that?
Wow, now I see it, and nowthat's really cool.
And then things can happen fromthere.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah, tell us the name of the book again, so you
have a book.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
It's called.
It's called the unseen scienceof overcoming stress.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Okay, the unseen science of overcoming stress.
Now, if I'm hearing youcorrectly, Andrew, so it sounds
like a couple of things you saidthere.
Number one is you know youbelieve in this idea of pain as
protection, and you also saidthat it's really about resetting
this automatic nervous systemis where the goal you know, sort
(22:39):
of, is for you, if I'm hearingyou correctly.
And then one of the things thatI heard you say is that there's
one way to access control overthis automatic nervous system
that is oftentimes the cause ormajor contributor to our pain.
And you mentioned breath, andthis is something that I am very
(22:59):
familiar with as well, becauseI do a lot of breath-related
things to get people intodifferent psychological states.
And I have seen, interestinglyenough, without knowing your
work, I have seen people at myretreats go into deep breath
work or some of these deepmeditative responses, and one
(23:21):
person I'm thinking about inparticular who had chronic back
pain.
She had about chronic back painfor close to a decade and after
one deep meditation thatchronic back pain went away.
And it's cases like this, thatand it stayed away.
It's cases like this that havekind of blown my mind with this
whole thing.
I know I'm not saying you'resaying that's what we're talking
(23:43):
about here with breath, but itdid pique my interest because I
certainly have seen some thingsthat I can't medically explain
with some of the work that Ihave done in the psychological
realm, which is also dealingwith beneath the surface of what
we would both call theautomatic nervous system.
So do you want to unpack thatfor us a little bit Like how is
(24:05):
breath getting involved here?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, I think it's awesome and cause obviously
there's a lot of stuff aroundbreath work and and it's all
great stuff, and I kind of kindof developed it with a little
bit different, a different angle, which definitely can explain,
and I wanted to make sure Ianswered your other.
Just remind me after about youhad another question there and I
(24:30):
was thinking of it.
I was waiting for you to stop.
It'll come back to me.
So when we look at breath workand we look at meditation, I
like to look at the analogy ofof the buddha and so when I say
to you you know, buddha, what,what, what representation of
buddha do you think of?
Speaker 1 (24:51):
yeah, basically cross-legged sage sitting
beneath the bodhi tree,basically yeah, and is he thin
and and, uh, you know, like athin presentation uh, normally
the one that you see is not,it's kind of this jolly happy
fat fellow but, like in mythought, I would think he was
thin.
But yeah, we always see theBuddha depicted as this sort of
heavyset jolly fellow.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Well, you know, it's funny, I think you hit on it
exactly right, I think those arethe two images.
So the one image is the thinBuddha there's.
Those are the two images.
So the one image is is the thinbuddha that's sitting under the
tree and he's looking, and bothof them are the ideas to find
enlightenment, and the otherdepiction is the buddha, which
(25:36):
is a 10th century chinese monk.
That is, uh, it is.
Is is also representation ofthe buddha, but they're really
two different ones and a lot ofpeople ever ask like, like, how
come there's two representations?
So for me, I believe that thatit's a really a reflection of
(25:57):
where we are today.
The Buddha, I'd say theoriginal one, that's thin
underneath the tree, is sittingthere for hours and hours and
hours of meditating and silenceand going inside to find
enlightenment.
The Buddha is this big, jolly,heavy set, big features right,
(26:20):
big lips, big ears, big eyes,but what's the biggest is the
belly, and I believe that thebuddha is actually a
representation to findenlightenment, and it's not
necessarily sitting, beingreflective in one position, but
also can be generated byactually breathing through the
(26:42):
belly.
Hmm, and this idea is not onlythrough the belly, but also
being able to what I, what areable to use, what I call
reflexes.
So when you look at ways toinvolve the automatic nervous
system, to involve the automaticnervous system, it's reflexive,
(27:07):
it responds no matter what.
It somewhat bypasses the brain.
It kind of tells the brainwhat's going on.
So for people that know aboutreflexes you've been to the
doctor, you know you hit on areflex.
What happens physiologically isthat that signal goes to the
spinal cord and straight backfrom the spinal cord goes right
back to the muscles that areinvolved.
(27:27):
So one side will contract, theother side will relax.
Then, secondarily, you will getan afferent fiber, a
communication that goes up tothe brain to say, hey, what's
going on down there.
Communication that goes up tothe brain to say, hey, what's
going on down there.
And what I've come to find outis that reflexes is the fastest
(27:48):
way to somewhat bypass the brain, because what we need to do in
resetting is we got to changethe past.
The brain is a big computerthat will only function really
from the past.
It develops it the filingsystem.
So it's saying, okay, I'm goingto keep doing what you're doing
until we make changes.
Now with normal treatment thatcan take a long time.
And how to bypass that quicklyis to use reflexes.
(28:11):
So true breath is all aboutbreathing through the belly,
using what I believe is thesymbolization of the Buddha to
breathe through the belly bellyand then using what I call the
belly brain reflex toimmediately make changes, what I
call moment by moment.
And I took that from a womannamed Diana Faustia, so I'll
(28:33):
give her certainly credit.
She's more of the psychologistthat I learned a lot from,
because what I've come to trulyfind out and this is a truth for
me and it might eventually befor others is there's no such
thing as working on the mentalmotion and working on the
physical.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
When you're in pain.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
they're always together and we cannot separate
them.
Now a lot in the psychologyworld have learned to utilize
what I body, body um responsesuh, I forget peter levine's work
, a lot of different stuff ofwe're actually using, utilizing
the body to heal mental,emotional trauma yeah, somatic
(29:16):
therapy I.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I dealt a lot beautiful work.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Uh, what I believe is kind of missing is more, I
would say, physical medicinepractitioners being able to use
more, I would say, the mental,emotional side.
And I believe my work is kindof like a bridge of being able
to use reflexes, because we'reworking on more of the unseen,
more of the mental, emotionaltrauma as where it's stored.
(29:42):
We're kind of telling the brainkind of forget where that is.
And so I kind of went back andI remember that's the thing I
wanted to talk about is the feelthat pain is really always both
mental and emotional.
But when we talk aboutbreathing a lot of different
stuff, whether it betranscendental meditation or
other deep breathing practices,I think they're all incredible,
(30:06):
but the one thing I think theymiss on is the speed and the
applicability to them.
So if I sit there for 20 minutes, which I do in the morning, I
go try to watch sunrise, I donice meditation, breathing is
beautiful work.
But you know, by the time I gethome I'm thinking about my
podcast and I want to make sureI'm all good and someone's
(30:27):
calling me a client and I got itand all of a sudden I could be
kind of off my meditative stateand true breath is all about a
moment by moment ability toaccess your involuntary nervous
system, to reset it moment bymoment.
So it's a practice that you cando anywhere.
(30:48):
In fact it's encouraged to doit very frequently, but not with
such great duration as youwould do in meditation.
So it's the opposite oftranscendental meditation or the
breath work is that we want theduration to be very, very small
but the frequency to be very,very large.
That's the opposite of usuallywhat we get in medicine.
(31:12):
We always increase the dosage,increase how many times we do it
, how long we do it, but wedecrease the frequency.
So the magic, I believe, isactually the opposite.
And I'll just ask you aquestion Like homeopathy, are
you familiar with homeopathy?
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yeah, and so it's a beautiful practice, 200 years
old.
I mean it's really fascinating.
And I'm a homeopathic physician, but I wouldn't consider myself
.
It's not really where I focusin.
But I've one principle that Ithink is mind-blowing.
It's called the Arndt-Schultzprinciple.
I'm not sure if you're familiarwith that, I'm not.
(31:50):
Yeah, I just asked you, do youknow how they make homeopathic
medication?
They'll say like 6X or 20X or50X.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, it's a diluted substance, sometimes diluted so
much that there's no physicalagent left.
The idea is that the watermemory is essentially holding
the memory of that compound.
And yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Exactly.
So what they do is they take,say, arnica, which is good for
pain.
They'll take one drop of Arnicaand nine drops of distilled
water.
They mix that together 50 timesand they call that Arnica,
which is good for pain.
They'll take one drop of Arnicaand nine drops of distilled
water.
They mix that together 50 timesand they call that Arnica 1X.
Then they take the diluted 1Xwith another nine drops of water
and now it becomes 2X.
They do that six times untilthere's no known properties of
(32:36):
Arnica, just the energeticproperties, and 6X is considered
homeopathic the energeticproperties and 6x is considered
homeopathic.
But what's very interestingabout the arm schultz principle
is that 200x is much more potentthan 6x.
Yeah, and to me that's mindblowing that's mind blowing that
the more you dilute it, themore powerful it becomes.
(32:58):
The small the atom is much morepowerful split than a huge
boulder.
So if that blew my mind so Itake that same principle when I
look at breathing is that themore you do it with the least
duration, the more powerfulbecomes.
It's like your body then learnswhen information comes in
(33:22):
stress, whether it be goodstress or bad stress, you now
develop a new filter foryourself.
So when you start to look atthe root cause, which is kind of
like the first thing we startedtalking about, you start
actually to develop a newfoundation for yourself.
What are potential root causes?
Because maybe now the thingsthat used to bother you don't
(33:44):
really bother you anymore.
Now the physicalness of whatyou're doing doesn't really
bother you anymore becauseyou've actually reset the
nervous system and based offthis philosophy of increase the
frequency, decrease the durationand and it's kind of, it goes,
I guess, in a different paradigmthan what's somewhat being
(34:05):
taught in breathwork, teasing,and again, I love all that stuff
.
If you have time for it, it'sgreat.
If you can be like the Buddhaand you have time for it,
certainly it's incrediblyvaluable, but most of us are
like the Buddha.
We're happy, we just want toenjoy life.
You know life is on the move.
We've got a lot of stuff goingon.
(34:25):
You know life has to fit intome, not the other way around.
So that's kind of like thedifferent paradigm with that.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah, I want to say a couple of things here because I
want to understand how you'redoing this breath work.
But one of the things that Ihave found in my work which I
have dovetailed mainly into moretherapeutic coaching now so I
mainly work in the realm ofpsychology and helping people
beat their stuck patterns inhealth and wealth and
relationships but one of thethings that I have found is
let's take anxiety, for examplewe were often told if you're
(34:57):
feeling anxious to do slowbreathing, exhale focused, right
, so four, seven, eight breathor Bramari breath, where there's
a long exhale and a hummingfocus to get you in the
parasympathetic state and thatcan work.
But one of the things that I'vefound is that people who are
really in a really stronganxious state, that oftentimes I
will use more of a holotropicbreath, which is more inhale
(35:20):
focus, so think double inhale,kind of hyperventilation, to
reset that.
Now I don't know if this iswhat you're saying, but
certainly just a few breaths oneither side of that.
You know 10 breaths of you knowsort of the exhale focused
breath or 10 breaths of theinhale focused breath.
I have seen this make bigchanges in the way people
(35:43):
perceive basically pain,emotional duress, including
anxiety and things like this,and so I've oftentimes seen this
as, like you know, you've heardof exercise snacking.
It's almost like breathsnacking in a sense, and it
sounds like you might be sayingsomething similar to this, where
it's like, rather than sittingdown for a 20 minute, 30 minute,
(36:03):
you know, breath work session,there's this very brief practice
that's done frequentlythroughout the day.
Now, I don't know if you wantto say anything about that, but
I'm curious on this particularpractice and obviously what
we're talking about is somehowthis is resetting the nervous
system.
So how are you doing thisbreath and this infrequent
(36:24):
sounds like?
Perhaps you know breathing, youknow bursts of breathing or
just a particular type ofbreathing.
What are we talking about hereand how is it resetting the
nervous system?
Speaker 2 (36:41):
That's cool, I love.
I love the curiosity and youknow the journey utilizing
reflexes on patients to makeimmediate shifts in their
nervous system, which literallypeople.
And when we look at acuteversus chronic pain, most of us
as clinicians are really reallygood at acute pain because we
(37:04):
can all agree that there's sometype of issue going on.
So when we look at someone thatis in pain, I like to
differentiate between acute andchronic pain and my
differentiation is nottime-based, it's
observation-based.
So acute pain or pain orinflammation is, or signs, which
(37:30):
is swelling, redness,dysformity or pain.
But out of all of those, onlyone of them is subjective, one
you have to tell me.
All the other ones anyone couldobserve.
You don't have to be a doctoror a medical practitioner to
observe someone that hasswelling, dysformity or redness.
So I believe that someone say,sprains their ankle, if they
(37:54):
have no redness, swelling ordysformity, it's chronic and so
there's a miscommunication.
So there's basically a wiringissue.
So pain is a wiring issue.
The signals are not gettingthere right.
So when we look at reflexes,you can't do a reflex on
(38:19):
yourself.
This hand knows it's coming, soit doesn't work.
You say, well, how does it work?
Because you were alreadyprotecting.
We already know, like thereknow, it can't happen, so you
need someone to do that to you.
So when I was working on peopleand I was using reflexive
pattern therapy, I was gettingresults.
I didn't necessarily want themto go back to what they were
(38:41):
doing right away, because thebrain has to kind of catch up,
catch up.
So I I had to go back and say,okay, well, how can I give them
something to do?
That's not necessarily exerciseor stretch based or massage
based, because I I didn't wantto do that just right away.
And so I said, okay, let melook at breath, because I hear
breath so powerful.
(39:01):
And so then I started toinvestigate okay, what you know,
where are we?
Well, the lungs, and again this, this idea of this involuntary
automatic system.
And we start to look and say,ok, now, which is somewhat, we
already said, is where you knowand not to get too technical,
but part of that system is a isa sympathetic and
parasympathetic system isdivided in that in that
(39:23):
automatic system, one is, youknow, fight or flight, one is
more rest, relax and digest.
So obviously, when we're in astate of upregulation, we want
to be in a state of rest, relaxand digest allows our body to
reset itself.
So when we breathe through ourchest which I see a lot of times
(39:48):
people are teaching, whichagain is totally fine in a
setting for 20 or 30 minutes,because eventually your body is
going to learn to say, okay, Ineed to, now, I can't keep doing
this, like running a marathon,you know, after a while you get
tired.
So now you on you, you'llconvert to a parasympathetic
because you have to.
I start to look at it.
(40:09):
Okay, how can we get therequicker?
So everything involved isbreathing through the belly.
And when you look at babies,you don't have to look at a baby
.
You know the babies can'tcommunicate with you, right?
When the baby is breathingthrough their belly, they're not
crying, they're relaxed, right?
What happens when they'rehungry or they got a dirty
(40:30):
diaper or whatever?
Bring breath in through theirsigh and they start crying.
They start to communicate.
So we know that breathingthrough your belly is going to
create a state ofparasympathetic.
It's going to put a state ofrelaxation, no matter what
you're doing.
So you're lying to your bodyLike you're trying to tell your
(40:51):
brain look, you're not drivingthe truck anymore.
I am Like you're not taking methe path.
This moment, right now, nomatter what my brain is saying,
I'm anxious, I'm thinking aboutother stuff.
I want to be in a state ofrelaxation.
So we start by breathing throughthe belly, but we add in a
couple of components.
One is we close the mouthbecause the first immune system
(41:13):
is our nose as babies.
So babies, if their baby isbreathing through their mouth,
they're usually in distress.
A baby that's relaxed is goingto be breathing through their
nose.
So we breathe through the nose.
Close the mouth.
The other thing is tongue onthe roof of your mouth is
because that's also been shown,to reset from not an Eastern
(41:34):
practice but also Western Massis to kind of put.
A state of relaxation Probablyhas to do with swallowing,
because when the tongue is inthe roof of your mouth you can't
swallow.
So you're really justconcentrating on breathing.
And the last component is youreyes are open and the one aspect
I always see in meditation whatmost people do is they close
(41:55):
their eyes immediately.
This goes a little bit in theface of what you're saying.
Well, don't you want to berelaxed?
But it's kind of like lifehappens with your eyes open.
Life happens with your eyesopen.
So when you do close your eyes,believe, even though there is a
state of relaxation, you'realso thinking what's going on
around you, because you have astate of protection.
(42:16):
So when your eyes are open, youcan see.
Which is our greatest defensemechanism is what we see?
Vision is so important, and soI would say life happens with
your eyes open.
And what's crazy is when peoplestart to do true breath,
they'll almost automaticallyclose their eyes.
So you almost have to say no,no, keep your eyes open.
Okay, then you want to take adeep breath through your belly,
(42:38):
no chest at all.
This is something that has tobe practiced a little bit.
Once you get the maximum amountof breath out, there's no more.
You have a physiological changethat's going on in your body.
Oxygen is now converted to CO2.
And the reason that we breatheis not from lack of oxygen, it's
from CO2 buildup.
(42:59):
So once the CO2 builds up, itstarts to tell the brain okay,
good, let's breathe out that CO2because I want to get more
oxygen.
And this is where you say toyour brain I'm in control, it's
my life, I'm taking hold of thewheel.
(43:21):
Again, it's not going to beautomatic, it's going to be when
I choose it and what you do,like a stubborn child, is you
try to get more into the bellyeven though nothing is there.
It's almost like you'redrowning.
It's almost like that last liketry to get that breath in and
nothing is there.
And then you hold it again andthen you breathe out when you
(43:45):
choose to breathe out and you dothat two times and I would
promise you, you know it isincredible the shift.
It's all of a sudden your brainsays, oh man, I've never felt
that Like.
You're taking back what I callthe truth.
(44:05):
Like you know, we develop thesetruths in our lives.
Most of them are lies that wetell ourselves and this probably
goes into a lot of yourcoaching.
You know of people that youknow all the lies that we tell
ourselves, good books about us.
Really, that's nothing new thatI'm saying.
But the whole idea is like, howdo we reset that moment by
moment, because it's not justone time.
(44:26):
I do it, okay, there now, allof a sudden.
So I always tell people to dothat twice.
I always tell people startpracticing lying down, because
it's the easiest way to learn it, and then do it standing and
then sitting.
Sitting is the hardest becauseyou have to distend your belly
and people are not.
It's it seems very easy, butpeople have a lot of time, they
(44:49):
have a lot of problems.
Just you know, becausebreathing through their belly
because of the way that theylook, you know they don't want
to look distended, but also too,is like you'd be very, very
surprised.
We are so, I will say,upregulated as a society that we
rarely breathe through theirbelly.
And so after you do that twotimes, you just want to take
(45:10):
around five or ten breaths, justlike a baby, like old times,
just breathe in through yourbelly.
I always tell you, put yourhand on your navel, just kind of
breathe into your hand, niceand easy, like very, very,
almost like 20 breaths a minute,not fast, but definitely not
slow, so not a meditative breathat all, just more like a
(45:31):
relaxed state.
And I have saying is like youknow, you know how, when and
where you breathe like reallydetermines your life, like it's
really that, it's that powerfulof of the way that you integrate
in life.
And I would say you know a lifelived and I would say you know
a life lived like below thediaphragm is a life worth living
(45:53):
, like that's really what I callthe Garden of Eden.
This is where your Garden ofEden is.
It's almost it's like God madeonly something as magical as
that can be created.
It's like it's so incredible,it's like like.
So it's almost like gettingback to your truth, getting back
to your soul.
(46:13):
You know, it can get reallyphilosophical.
I don't want to get too deep,but it get really philosophical.
But the key is is that you'redoing this moment by moment.
So what you know, like what Itell people when they first do
it, and they'll be like you knowthat 50, 100, 200 times a day,
if you're telling me that you'restill anxious, you're just not
doing it enough.
(46:33):
It works.
It's a system.
It's not a maybe or anything.
It works.
You're just not doing it enoughand that's fine, because
sometimes it takes practice,because it's hard to do
something 200 times in the day,but it dramatically shifts your
(46:54):
state of being.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Yeah, I'm loving this and I think I'm getting the
point now.
So this is talking about areset.
This is resetting the reflexiveautomatic nervous system, and
it's genius.
I get exactly what you're doinghere from a physiological
perspective.
Now we're getting ready to runup on time here, but before I
(47:16):
let you go, let's just brieflytalk about how this connects to
pain, and then we can begin towrap up.
How does this then fit intoyour?
Obviously I'm seeing it.
If you can reset this automaticnervous system, you know, and
pain is a pattern and it's aprotective pattern, perhaps
we're interrupting that patternright away.
(47:36):
Is there anything else to it?
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Well, so there's, there's three systems, and so
two of the systems you know wetalked about.
The other one is the switches,which is what I call reflexive
point therapy, which is thisidea that it, you know, we
talked about.
The other one is the switches,which is what I call reflexive
point therapy, which is thisidea that you know, going back
to the observation of theseancient healers, is that they
understood that everything inthe body is connected.
(48:01):
So when you look at it, from asperm and I call it an
embryological model, you know asperm and egg come together form
one cell.
From there it's two cells, four, then eight, then 16.
But those are all identicalcells, but we're not identical.
So, about into gestation, earlyon, we go through what's called
cell differentiation.
(48:21):
We split, we become a baby.
Our hands split from our feet,five fingers, five toes they're
very similar our ankles and ourwrists, our elbows and our knees
, our hips and our shoulders,just to get an idea that
everything in the body has aconnection.
(48:42):
Everything has a switch and abolt.
So the one key point I wouldalways tell people in pain is
and this is where we could get alittle bit again.
I don't want to alienate anyone.
But I never tell someone toroll out where they're in pain,
massage where they're in pain,adjust where they're in pain,
because you don't know if thatcould make them worse.
(49:07):
So a whole philosophical changeis to actually learn where
these switches are.
And so this is some of the workof reflexive point therapy, of
understanding that you need towork in other areas first before
you actually start working onthe bulb.
And just to give you an idea,like if you had, say, knee pain,
(49:30):
you would find the switches inthe elbow and once you work on
those, you'd make immediateshifts along with breath work.
And then, obviously, if someoneunderstood how to reset your
reflexive pattern therapy, youwould make tremendous
differences.
But the idea for clients outthere, whether they be
(49:52):
practitioners that want to learnsomething I always say it's
kind of like if you're achiropractor, you have all these
tools, whatever you domanipulation, myofascial just
put your tools on the side.
I'm going to give you a newbelt so you can put all those
tools back on.
So I don't want people to thinklike those things aren't
valuable, incredibly valuable.
It's kind of like, but you need, you just want to do this first
(50:14):
so that works much better youradjustments hold, better your
myofascial release will holdbetter your strengthening your
exercise they all hold better.
So the goal for people early onis for clients.
The best way is to actuallyteach them how they can do this
for themselves with true breathit's that powerful.
(50:38):
And by resetting them withoutknowing reflexive point therapy,
or what I call painless dryneedling.
For people that are dryneedlers without knowing that,
they can still do whatever theirtools are, and they will get
much better results because theyare resetting the automatic
nervous system prior to doing it.
(51:00):
And what they might find whichI found is that when you do that
, so if you're looking atsomeone in their myofascial
system, you say, wow, they havea lot of restriction here.
When they do that, for whateverit is, two, three, four minutes,
you go back, you might findthat man, their fascia is not
there anymore.
It's actually better that.
(51:20):
It's actually somewhere else.
It's actually more in the ankle, more in the hip.
It's somewhere else.
And this is what always blew mymind is that what I thought I
knew is not what I come to findout and that was really
mind-blowing to me and what madeit so magical and helpful for
clients that are suffering inpain.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
So does that?
Speaker 2 (51:44):
answer your question.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Yeah, that answers it .
Let's just kind of wrap it up.
If we were going to givesomeone a three-step sort of
process to follow, that goesalong with sort of your
mechanism.
Obviously, get Andrew's book.
Are you the developer ofReflexive Dry Needling?
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yeah, I'm the developer of all those three
systems.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
But if we were going to, if we were going to leave
the, you know, the listener with, you know sort of a one, two,
three step process that theycould do, what would you say are
the major takeaways?
Speaker 2 (52:18):
Well, for for clients out there, the major one, two
and three, is reallyunderstanding breath work.
Like you know, it's because ittakes that much like if you try
to think about something elseyou'll miss really the whole key
for practitioners that areactually treating other clients.
I think there's other thingsthat can be learned.
(52:38):
You know, uh, you know, whichis, like I said, you know,
reflexive pattern therapy,reflexive point therapy and
painless dry needling, and I'mkind of working on those aspects
is, you know, I have courseworkfor you know, to teach other
practitioners.
My email isandrewatihatepainorg, because I
(52:59):
started also a nonprofit to helppeople that can't afford care.
You know, in my mission, youknow people that are, you know,
underserved, that are in pain,so people can reach out to me
there to learn about, I wouldsay, what would be.
Step two and step three isreally learning a different
paradigm of how you treat pain,from an avenue of not treating
(53:23):
the bulb, of really looking atokay, how can I make really
magical differences by treatingthese switches Nice?
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Well, I appreciate you, andrew.
So, just so, just want torepeat where can people find you
?
So it's Andrew at.
I hate painorg.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
This is my email and then I hate painorg is.
Is is my, is, you know, websitethey can look at at, which is
more like a local website.
Uh, also, I have I hate paindot solutions.
Uh, so people can reach out andthen I'll you know from there I
can, I can direct them to uh,to the site for reflexive point
therapy nice, and are you uh onany of the social medias?
(54:02):
I I'm at dr d-o-c-t-o-r andRAndrew Block is my handle for
pretty much everything.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
At Dr.
Spelled out Andrew Block.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Yeah, D-O-C-T-O-R, Andrew Block.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
Well, I appreciate you so much, andrew.
Thank you so much for theeducation.
Do me a favor stay on the linejust so we can kill this and
make sure everything uploads,but really appreciate you being
here and educating all of us andfor all of you listeners.
We'll see you at the next show.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Thank you so much, I appreciate it.
All right, welcome to the show, everybody.
This is the Next Level HumanPodcast.
I am your host, dr Jade Tita,and today I have my guest, dr
Andrew Block.
And am I saying that right,andrew?
Is that Block?
B-l-o-c-h.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Okay, you did it right.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Absolutely Well.
Let me tell them, andrew, how Ifound you and why I was
interested in having thisconversation with you.
So, those of you who don't dopodcasts one of the things that
happens when you have a podcastthat has a viewership you
oftentimes get people sendingyou different people all the
time saying, hey, I have anexpert for you, would you be
interested in interviewing them?
(00:37):
And you can be inundated withthese messages.
One of my things is that I havebeen interested in both for my
own self turning 52, feelingachy and feeling a different way
in my body than I had in thepast and also entering into this
area of quantum biology, orwhat I might call quantum
(00:58):
metabolism, and how the fasciais involved.
In.
That made me sort of peak up myears when I saw Dr Block's
information come across.
Andrew, when I saw you sort ofdoing this work, I was very
interested in having you discusswhat it is you're doing.
Now I know that you do things alittle bit differently.
(01:19):
We were talking just brieflybefore I hit record and I'm
always interested in hearingfrom practitioners in the way
that they see things and the waythat they do things, and I was
telling you that about a thirdof my listenership are other
practitioners and you weresaying that you're definitely
getting into the space whereyou're training other
practitioners so that youpractitioners who are on the
line listening, you may beinterested in getting some of
(01:42):
Andrew's information.
You may be interested in gettingsome of Andrew's information,
but what I would love to getstarted with, I mean I selfishly
, andrew, am very interested infascia and how this might be
contributing to pain and all themagical things about fascia
that we didn't know before.
But I don't want to hijack sortof where you like to start,
because I do know as apractitioner, if you start too
(02:03):
advanced you can lose somepeople.
So what I want you to do isjust maybe tell a little bit
about your story or how you gothere and also just get us
started where you would need usto start to understand the
basics of what you do, and thenyou and I can get to know each
other and have sort of a morein-depth conversation.
But I want you to just startright where you think we need to
(02:24):
begin.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, I appreciate the introduction, Thanks so much
.
And you know the whole I think.
I like to always start by whatI usually say to almost every
client that comes in the doorthat's in pain, because most
people are suffering in painthat come to see me, and I
always say that we've beensomewhat indoctrinated into a
philosophy of how we treat pain.
(02:46):
So if you walked into a roomand the light bulb wasn't on or
wasn't working, you wouldn'tplay with the light bulb, you'd
hit the switch.
But in medicine we've all beentrained to say well, there's a
problem, that there's no light,so it must be at the bulb.
So if you had, say, a neck bulbissue, the doctor would say you
(03:10):
have an itis, tendonitis,bursitis you get a little older,
like me arthritis.
Pt says you're weak or tight,chiropractor says your alignment
is poor, subluxation, and themassage therapist says you have
a bunch of knots or myofascialrestrictions.
And everyone is touching thebulb.
And so for my first I'd say,starting out as my career, I
(03:32):
understood that philosophy as a,as an athletic trainer and as a
physical therapist and as anacupuncturist, say, okay, if
there's a problem at the bulb.
I want to really get good atwhat my specialty was.
So back then it was athletictraining and physical therapy.
So I just became really good atexercise and stretching.
And then I started to realize,well, I really wasn't getting
(03:55):
the results that I wanted.
People are in pain, they wantquick results, just like if
you'd hit a switch.
Quick results, um, just like ifyou'd hit a switch, you know.
And so what I?
I I started to then dive intosaid, well, if my bulb that I
learned isn't my solution is notworking, I better learn other
people's bulbs.
(04:16):
So then I I went on.
I took a whole certification inmanipulation and mobilization,
almost became like I'd say, apseudo chiropractor, because I'm
like, well, they must have theanswer.
Come to find out that, yes, Ibecame more knowledgeable and I
did help more people, but Ireally didn't answer really the
question that I wanted, like howdo I make immediate results?
(04:39):
So I said, okay, it's got to bemore the fascia, it's got to be
more the you know more whatmassage therapist, because
people love when you touch themand when you move them.
People are getting greatresults.
I became a structuralintegration, almost like a
rolfer.
I took a whole certification inthat.
I became very, very good atthat In the meantime I also
(05:01):
understood what doctorsunderstood about surgeries and
tendonitis, tried to understandthat aspect, and what I really
come to realize is that nobodyhit the switches, nobody really
taught me about the switches,and that's why I started to use
(05:23):
those two together, of utilizingEastern as well as Western
medicine to kind of come up witha new paradigm, a new
philosophy, which doesn'texclude whatever you're doing.
So if you're a chiropractor, aPT, massage therapist, I don't
want that to come across likethose aren't great things.
There's a lot of tremendousvalue of doing, say, myofascial
(06:04):
release and that aspect.
But if you really ask questionslike electron microscope, you
start to really wonder like itmust have been incredibly
advanced of how they figured itout and what I believe,
something that is somewhatobvious is that they were really
keen in observation.
(06:25):
They were students of observing, they had the time we don't
really have the time as much now.
We got to do notes, we got todo the whole aspect of it.
So, to be a healer, I reallybelieve a lot really came from
being keen in observation.
And so the goal of when you talkjust about myofascial, the
(06:47):
Chinese, in my opinion, alreadyhave come up with the myofascial
system and it's calledacupuncture meridians.
And you know, I know right nowwe have this big push in Western
medicine because we're kind ofproving things and looking at
different tissue, because wedon't really understand the
eastern velocity of of just heatand cold and chi and blood, the
(07:12):
wave and phlegm and otheraspects of eastern medicine.
But when you really come downto it, almost everything that I
see in the mild fashion worldwe're actually we've already
done in the eastern medicinepractice.
And so again, not to be likeone's better than the other,
because I think we actually canlearn a lot more, you know,
(07:33):
because we have differenttechnologies now we have, you
know, but I don't think we canforget what has already been
kind of taught to us andunfortunately not to all of us
because it's an Easternphilosophy.
So while I'm fascinated what Isee, what's coming out in the
myofascial world, I chuckle alittle bit, you know, as some of
(07:56):
the mentors and gurus that Imet that you know can do that in
minutes.
What takes someone maybe a fewdays or maybe weeks of treatment
, and that always kind of blewmy mind.
So I always searched out forpeople, mentors and gurus.
For me that was always after myfirst, I'd say, 10 years of
(08:17):
practice, of learning about thebold aspect, I started to really
look at it and say okay, okay,like I really wanted to serve
for mentors that I that I wouldsay got the results that I
wasn't getting in traditionalwestern practicing.
And I really came to find threepeople that dramatically
(08:39):
changed my life in, in showingme things that I was.
It was almost like a magictrick, like how did you do that?
How did something becomepainful in one minute and not
painful in another minute?
And that, to me, was like my,was my, um, my road, my journey,
(09:01):
I'd say for the next, I'd say,15 years of of practicing, and
so the whole goal for me is, andwhat I started my journey, I'd
say for the next I'd say 15years of practicing, and so the
whole goal for me is and what Istarted to say is like I only
want to know about the switches,so much so that when I was
developing my stuff, I almostalienate and I didn't do such a
good job because I wasalienating people that were
(09:21):
still on the bold, and that'snot fair either.
I was alienating people thatwere still on the bulb, and
that's not fair either.
There was a lot of great stuffthat's happening at the I call
the bulb level, that I wouldcall more the somatic, more of
the voluntary nervous system.
But really where the magic isis in the involuntary, and
that's why I think the switchescome into play, just like if you
(09:42):
would come in a room and youhit the light switch the light
comes on.
Well, if you knew nothing aboutelectricity, you'd be blown
away.
You'd be like, oh my God, howthe heck did you put that bulb
on?
You know, by not even touchingit you'd be completely blown
away.
And I think that's you know, inmedicine, those are things that
are capable every day, with anew paradigm, a new
(10:04):
understanding of how we cantreat pain.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, I love this and you're freezing up a little bit
on your end, but don't worry,because it's being locally
recorded.
So, regardless if you see me alittle bit hiccup-y, or you're
being recorded on your end, sono worries about that.
Okay, cool, it's not on my end,but thank you okay, but I
followed you, uh, perfectly, andlet me just say a couple things
here, uh.
(10:32):
And now I remember why I wantedto have this conversation with
you.
Because, as a practitioner,like you, I also am obsessed
with a root cause and it soundslike, ultimately, that's what
you also are obsessed with, andalso the fact that you studied
lots and lots of differentplaces and things and arrived at
(10:55):
something that you feel is morefundamental, more root cause
agent than what most people aredoing so to me.
Now I'm remembering why Ireally wanted to have this
conversation with you.
Because, to me, practitionerswho really understand the box
that they're working from arethe only real ones that I feel
(11:17):
like can adequately thinkoutside of the box.
Right, we hear this idea of,like you got to think outside
the box.
Well, if you don't know what'sin the box, I don't know how you
think outside of it.
So I'm always interested inpractitioners who learn their
craft in the way that it'staught in the universities and
everywhere else and then beginfrom that understanding to go
outside and find the real sortof causes or what they believe
(11:41):
are the real causes.
And so what I want to know fromyou is obviously, I'm hearing
that you went all the way aroundon this sort of adventure and
came back to some of the Easternsort of medicine that you had
been studying as well, and Iwant to know what you found Like
.
What do you feel like now, tothe best of of your
(12:03):
understanding, is the actualcause, or the light switch
rather than the bulb to use youranalogy of why people are in
pain, what is actually happening?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
there's a lot to unpack there.
So, and I love, I love the, thequestion in that aspect,
because I think this is where alot of people do converse at
this idea of root cause andsomewhat the holy grail.
And I think in reality, forboth those I would say I don't
necessarily believe in eitherone of those.
(12:36):
And I'll explain a little bitmore of it, and it's not to be
insulting in the sense of theroot aspect, because I do
believe that a lot of timespeople journey for the why.
You know, why am I in pain inthat aspect?
And when you really understandpain from what?
(12:56):
My description, which how Idescribe pain as pain, is your
body's way of expressingprotection.
So pain in and of itself is nota structure, it's a sensation,
it's a feeling just likehappiness, just like fear, just
like courage, just like anyother sensation.
(13:17):
And so if you are smiling andhappy, you're not just happy in
your teeth, right, you're happyeverywhere.
So one big thing I started torealize is that when you're in
pain and protecting and what Icall overprotection, so
(13:38):
everybody in pain is in a stateof overprotection, okay, and
when we look at protection andwe look at it from the fact of
that, the whole body isprotected.
There's no thing of just theneck or the shoulder or just
these muscles or just theseligaments.
The whole body is protectingbecause you are in pain.
(14:00):
So if you're not in pain, thoseareas might be protecting
locally, but once you have thesensation of pain it's
everywhere.
And when you have paineverywhere, it involves both of
your nervous systems yourvoluntary, what is called a
somatic nervous system, andyour're involuntary or what's
(14:24):
called the autonomic.
I call it automatic so thateveryone can kind of understand.
I try to get it so thateveryone can kind of grasp,
because when you get these bigterms in medicine it's almost
like I'm smart and you're not.
I really like to talk withpeople, not at people, so while
we can talk deep on it.
So to me, automatic I don'tknow autonomic why don't they
(14:47):
just call it automatic?
It just seems so.
So the automatic for peoplethat are not as familiar with
the nervous system is all yourorgan system and that system
works 24-7, 365, whether youthink about it or not.
The voluntary or somatic systemthat works when you tell it to
(15:09):
move.
So if you don't tell yourselfto move, you don't move.
The voluntary nervous system iskind of like a nice system.
It's a needed system.
But when you look at bothsystems the involuntary nervous
system, the automatic nervoussystem is magical and if I put
an F-bomb there, that's where Iput it.
It's so miraculous, it'sunbelievable Just one of those
(15:32):
organs that it's working all thetime state of protection or
overprotection and pain.
Both those systems are working.
In our philosophy aschiropractors, pts, massage
therapists, athletic trainers,yoga it doesn't matter if you're
(15:53):
a personal trainer We've beenreally trained really well on
the voluntary and we really haveno idea how to access the
involuntary.
Now there's heart ratevariability and there's other
stuff.
I would tell you those arereally I think they really fail
in comparison of amoment-to-moment aspect.
(16:13):
So when we talk about pain anda root cause, the one thing that
I believe very powerfully is weneed to reset that nervous
system.
We need to decrease thisprotective overprotection that
we have.
So one of the systems Ideveloped is called reflexive
(16:35):
pattern therapy is to identifythese patterns of autonomic
automatic overprotection thataffects the whole body and
resetting those.
But when the cool part about itis because obviously not
everyone can come and see me andand I wanted to kind of when I
developed a system which we cantalk about too.
(16:55):
It's kind of interesting howthat came about.
But is I?
I want you to look.
When I'm resetting theinvoluntary nervous system, I
kind of ask myself a question isokay?
There's in this involuntarynervous system, this automatic
system, there's only one organthat we have voluntary control
(17:17):
of in this involuntary system.
So if you think of how ourcreator made us like, he gave us
an access to this magicalsystem.
So if I said, you know, doc,eat some food and go ahead and
digest that food, you'd be like,well, I can't digest it.
It either works or it doesn't.
(17:37):
Right If I say, okay, now Iwant you to process in the liver
, I want your kidneys to, Ican't do any of that.
But the lungs and breathing wedo have access.
We can breathe a certain way,and that started to lead me to
what people can actually do forthemselves of resetting this
(17:58):
automatic system so that you canactually decrease the
protection which I think isfundamental for your overall
health and well-being is notonly to learn how to control
your breathing, but thefrequency, the duration.
I call the who, what, where,when and then eventually the why
(18:19):
.
So all those other functionswill determine your why's.
And that system, I call, istrue breath.
And if you take away the E, theB, the R, the A, you put those
together, you find your truthand that's the whole idea of
that aspect.
And so when we come back totalking about, the root aspect
for me is, I believe that youhave to take away the pain, you
(18:44):
have to reset the system firstbefore you can start to look at
the whys.
Because when you're suffering,it's not the best time to figure
out why you're broken.
And if I give the example,someone was drowning right and
you have a brother or sister,two brothers and a sister, pick
(19:08):
one of them.
They're out there drowningright.
You're like, oh my god,something's gonna happen.
You swim out there to save them.
They will drown you to savethemselves.
That's an automatic protectiveresponse, not because they don't
love you or anything like that.
It's the same idea as like whenyou're in the state of
(19:30):
overprotection, you're not inthe best state to make decisions
.
It's like you don't really knowwhat to do.
And the reality is, when youlook at protection from pain as
a standpoint of overprotection,there are too many variables, no
matter who you are.
There are too many variables tosay, oh, it's due to your teeth
(19:50):
, it's due to your hormones,it's due to your function.
Those all definitely can playan aspect.
And don't get me wrong, thoseare things that we use every day
and makes tremendous successeswith.
But I'm just talking about thecases that are not making
success.
So I don't want to alienatepeople that are already doing
(20:10):
stuff that is working.
If you're doing stuff that'sworking, keep doing it.
But I know that everybody hascases that they just didn't work
and unfortunately it could be alot or it takes too long.
You know it takes weeks andmonths, sometimes years, for
people to actually get relief.
So, on the two aspects ofunderstanding root cause and
(20:33):
your question about pain is oneis a greater understanding of
the automatic nervous system andthen two, resetting that system
so that you can now investigate.
So now, once you feel better.
Now you went to sleep at nightand say, damn, I woke up in the
morning, I have terrible neckpain.
Okay, maybe it's your mattress,maybe it's the way you sleep,
(20:56):
maybe you're stressed out fromwork and decisions, maybe it's
more of a mental, emotional side, right.
Or now it's like hey, I gotpain when I went to work or I
was lifting boxes.
Okay, now it's maybe more of astructural aspect.
Maybe it's coming and going allthe time.
Maybe now it's an endocrinefunction.
You know it's more of ahormonal aspect, so you can
(21:18):
actually dive in a lot more whenit comes back and usually it
doesn't usually come back thesame way.
If you've done right, it mightnot come back at the same
intensity.
That's the overall goal is tokind of flick the switch so that
you can actually see somethingcompletely different than what
you saw before.
Which is kind of funny becausethe book is called the unseen
(21:40):
science of overcoming stress,because this whole idea is like
for me it's the unseen aspectthat's way more powerful than
the scene, like anyone could see, like you know the scene.
But this unseen aspect, that'swhat I was talking about with
the ancient, you know gurus andmasters, like they saw stuff
that wasn't apparent foreveryone else.
(22:00):
It's like how did you see that?
Wow't apparent for everyoneelse.
It's like, how did you see that?
Wow, now I see it, and nowthat's really cool.
And then things can happen fromthere.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah, tell us the name of the book again, so you
have a book.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
It's called.
It's called the unseen scienceof overcoming stress.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Okay, the unseen science of overcoming stress.
Now, if I'm hearing youcorrectly, Andrew, so it sounds
like a couple of things you saidthere.
Number one is you know youbelieve in this idea of pain as
protection, and you also saidthat it's really about resetting
this automatic nervous systemis where the goal you know, sort
(22:39):
of, is for you, if I'm hearingyou correctly.
And then one of the things thatI heard you say is that there's
one way to access control overthis automatic nervous system
that is oftentimes the cause ormajor contributor to our pain.
And you mentioned breath, andthis is something that I am very
(22:59):
familiar with as well, becauseI do a lot of breath-related
things to get people intodifferent psychological states.
And I have seen, interestinglyenough, without knowing your
work, I have seen people at myretreats go into deep breath
work or some of these deepmeditative responses, and one
(23:21):
person I'm thinking about inparticular who had chronic back
pain.
She had about chronic back painfor close to a decade and after
one deep meditation thatchronic back pain went away.
And it's cases like this, thatand it stayed away.
It's cases like this that havekind of blown my mind with this
whole thing.
I know I'm not saying you'resaying that's what we're talking
(23:43):
about here with breath, but itdid pique my interest because I
certainly have seen some thingsthat I can't medically explain
with some of the work that Ihave done in the psychological
realm, which is also dealingwith beneath the surface of what
we would both call theautomatic nervous system.
So do you want to unpack thatfor us a little bit Like how is
(24:05):
breath getting involved here?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, I think it's awesome and cause obviously
there's a lot of stuff aroundbreath work and and it's all
great stuff, and I kind of kindof developed it with a little
bit different, a different angle, which definitely can explain,
and I wanted to make sure Ianswered your other.
Just remind me after about youhad another question there and I
(24:30):
was thinking of it.
I was waiting for you to stop.
It'll come back to me.
So when we look at breath workand we look at meditation, I
like to look at the analogy ofof the buddha and so when I say
to you you know, buddha, what,what, what representation of
buddha do you think of?
Speaker 1 (24:51):
yeah, basically cross-legged sage sitting
beneath the bodhi tree,basically yeah, and is he thin
and and, uh, you know, like athin presentation uh, normally
the one that you see is not,it's kind of this jolly happy
fat fellow but, like in mythought, I would think he was
thin.
But yeah, we always see theBuddha depicted as this sort of
heavyset jolly fellow.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Well, you know, it's funny, I think you hit on it
exactly right, I think those arethe two images.
So the one image is the thinBuddha there's.
Those are the two images.
So the one image is is the thinbuddha that's sitting under the
tree and he's looking, and bothof them are the ideas to find
enlightenment, and the otherdepiction is the buddha, which
(25:36):
is a 10th century chinese monk.
That is, uh, it is.
Is is also representation ofthe buddha, but they're really
two different ones and a lot ofpeople ever ask like, like, how
come there's two representations?
So for me, I believe that thatit's a really a reflection of
(25:57):
where we are today.
The Buddha, I'd say theoriginal one, that's thin
underneath the tree, is sittingthere for hours and hours and
hours of meditating and silenceand going inside to find
enlightenment.
The Buddha is this big, jolly,heavy set, big features right,
(26:20):
big lips, big ears, big eyes,but what's the biggest is the
belly, and I believe that thebuddha is actually a
representation to findenlightenment, and it's not
necessarily sitting, beingreflective in one position, but
also can be generated byactually breathing through the
(26:42):
belly.
Hmm, and this idea is not onlythrough the belly, but also
being able to what I, what areable to use, what I call
reflexes.
So when you look at ways toinvolve the automatic nervous
system, to involve the automaticnervous system, it's reflexive,
(27:07):
it responds no matter what.
It somewhat bypasses the brain.
It kind of tells the brainwhat's going on.
So for people that know aboutreflexes you've been to the
doctor, you know you hit on areflex.
What happens physiologically isthat that signal goes to the
spinal cord and straight backfrom the spinal cord goes right
back to the muscles that areinvolved.
(27:27):
So one side will contract, theother side will relax.
Then, secondarily, you will getan afferent fiber, a
communication that goes up tothe brain to say, hey, what's
going on down there.
Communication that goes up tothe brain to say, hey, what's
going on down there.
And what I've come to find outis that reflexes is the fastest
(27:48):
way to somewhat bypass the brain, because what we need to do in
resetting is we got to changethe past.
The brain is a big computerthat will only function really
from the past.
It develops it the filingsystem.
So it's saying, okay, I'm goingto keep doing what you're doing
until we make changes.
Now with normal treatment thatcan take a long time.
And how to bypass that quicklyis to use reflexes.
(28:11):
So true breath is all aboutbreathing through the belly,
using what I believe is thesymbolization of the Buddha to
breathe through the belly bellyand then using what I call the
belly brain reflex toimmediately make changes, what I
call moment by moment.
And I took that from a womannamed Diana Faustia, so I'll
(28:33):
give her certainly credit.
She's more of the psychologistthat I learned a lot from,
because what I've come to trulyfind out and this is a truth for
me and it might eventually befor others is there's no such
thing as working on the mentalmotion and working on the
physical.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
When you're in pain.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
they're always together and we cannot separate
them.
Now a lot in the psychologyworld have learned to utilize
what I body, body um responsesuh, I forget peter levine's work
, a lot of different stuff ofwe're actually using, utilizing
the body to heal mental,emotional trauma yeah, somatic
(29:16):
therapy I.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I dealt a lot beautiful work.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Uh, what I believe is kind of missing is more, I
would say, physical medicinepractitioners being able to use
more, I would say, the mental,emotional side.
And I believe my work is kindof like a bridge of being able
to use reflexes, because we'reworking on more of the unseen,
more of the mental, emotionaltrauma as where it's stored.
(29:42):
We're kind of telling the brainkind of forget where that is.
And so I kind of went back andI remember that's the thing I
wanted to talk about is the feelthat pain is really always both
mental and emotional.
But when we talk aboutbreathing a lot of different
stuff, whether it betranscendental meditation or
other deep breathing practices,I think they're all incredible,
(30:06):
but the one thing I think theymiss on is the speed and the
applicability to them.
So if I sit there for 20 minutes, which I do in the morning, I
go try to watch sunrise, I donice meditation, breathing is
beautiful work.
But you know, by the time I gethome I'm thinking about my
podcast and I want to make sureI'm all good and someone's
(30:27):
calling me a client and I got itand all of a sudden I could be
kind of off my meditative stateand true breath is all about a
moment by moment ability toaccess your involuntary nervous
system, to reset it moment bymoment.
So it's a practice that you cando anywhere.
(30:48):
In fact it's encouraged to doit very frequently, but not with
such great duration as youwould do in meditation.
So it's the opposite oftranscendental meditation or the
breath work is that we want theduration to be very, very small
but the frequency to be very,very large.
That's the opposite of usuallywhat we get in medicine.
(31:12):
We always increase the dosage,increase how many times we do it
, how long we do it, but wedecrease the frequency.
So the magic, I believe, isactually the opposite.
And I'll just ask you aquestion Like homeopathy, are
you familiar with homeopathy?
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah, I am.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yeah, and so it's a beautiful practice, 200 years
old.
I mean it's really fascinating.
And I'm a homeopathic physician, but I wouldn't consider myself
.
It's not really where I focusin.
But I've one principle that Ithink is mind-blowing.
It's called the Arndt-Schultzprinciple.
I'm not sure if you're familiarwith that, I'm not.
(31:50):
Yeah, I just asked you, do youknow how they make homeopathic
medication?
They'll say like 6X or 20X or50X.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, it's a diluted substance, sometimes diluted so
much that there's no physicalagent left.
The idea is that the watermemory is essentially holding
the memory of that compound.
And yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Exactly.
So what they do is they take,say, arnica, which is good for
pain.
They'll take one drop of Arnicaand nine drops of distilled
water.
They mix that together 50 timesand they call that Arnica,
which is good for pain.
They'll take one drop of Arnicaand nine drops of distilled
water.
They mix that together 50 timesand they call that Arnica 1X.
Then they take the diluted 1Xwith another nine drops of water
and now it becomes 2X.
They do that six times untilthere's no known properties of
(32:36):
Arnica, just the energeticproperties, and 6X is considered
homeopathic the energeticproperties and 6x is considered
homeopathic.
But what's very interestingabout the arm schultz principle
is that 200x is much more potentthan 6x.
Yeah, and to me that's mindblowing that's mind blowing that
the more you dilute it, themore powerful it becomes.
(32:58):
The small the atom is much morepowerful split than a huge
boulder.
So if that blew my mind so Itake that same principle when I
look at breathing is that themore you do it with the least
duration, the more powerfulbecomes.
It's like your body then learnswhen information comes in
(33:22):
stress, whether it be goodstress or bad stress, you now
develop a new filter foryourself.
So when you start to look atthe root cause, which is kind of
like the first thing we startedtalking about, you start
actually to develop a newfoundation for yourself.
What are potential root causes?
Because maybe now the thingsthat used to bother you don't
(33:44):
really bother you anymore.
Now the physicalness of whatyou're doing doesn't really
bother you anymore becauseyou've actually reset the
nervous system and based offthis philosophy of increase the
frequency, decrease the durationand and it's kind of, it goes,
I guess, in a different paradigmthan what's somewhat being
(34:05):
taught in breathwork, teasing,and again, I love all that stuff
.
If you have time for it, it'sgreat.
If you can be like the Buddhaand you have time for it,
certainly it's incrediblyvaluable, but most of us are
like the Buddha.
We're happy, we just want toenjoy life.
You know life is on the move.
We've got a lot of stuff goingon.
(34:25):
You know life has to fit intome, not the other way around.
So that's kind of like thedifferent paradigm with that.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah, I want to say a couple of things here because I
want to understand how you'redoing this breath work.
But one of the things that Ihave found in my work which I
have dovetailed mainly into moretherapeutic coaching now so I
mainly work in the realm ofpsychology and helping people
beat their stuck patterns inhealth and wealth and
relationships but one of thethings that I have found is
let's take anxiety, for examplewe were often told if you're
(34:57):
feeling anxious to do slowbreathing, exhale focused, right
, so four, seven, eight breathor Bramari breath, where there's
a long exhale and a hummingfocus to get you in the
parasympathetic state and thatcan work.
But one of the things that I'vefound is that people who are
really in a really stronganxious state, that oftentimes I
will use more of a holotropicbreath, which is more inhale
(35:20):
focus, so think double inhale,kind of hyperventilation, to
reset that.
Now I don't know if this iswhat you're saying, but
certainly just a few breaths oneither side of that.
You know 10 breaths of you knowsort of the exhale focused
breath or 10 breaths of theinhale focused breath.
I have seen this make bigchanges in the way people
(35:43):
perceive basically pain,emotional duress, including
anxiety and things like this,and so I've oftentimes seen this
as, like you know, you've heardof exercise snacking.
It's almost like breathsnacking in a sense, and it
sounds like you might be sayingsomething similar to this, where
it's like, rather than sittingdown for a 20 minute, 30 minute,
(36:03):
you know, breath work session,there's this very brief practice
that's done frequentlythroughout the day.
Now, I don't know if you wantto say anything about that, but
I'm curious on this particularpractice and obviously what
we're talking about is somehowthis is resetting the nervous
system.
So how are you doing thisbreath and this infrequent
(36:24):
sounds like?
Perhaps you know breathing, youknow bursts of breathing or
just a particular type ofbreathing.
What are we talking about hereand how is it resetting the
nervous system?
Speaker 2 (36:41):
That's cool, I love.
I love the curiosity and youknow the journey utilizing
reflexes on patients to makeimmediate shifts in their
nervous system, which literallypeople.
And when we look at acuteversus chronic pain, most of us
as clinicians are really reallygood at acute pain because we
(37:04):
can all agree that there's sometype of issue going on.
So when we look at someone thatis in pain, I like to
differentiate between acute andchronic pain and my
differentiation is nottime-based, it's
observation-based.
So acute pain or pain orinflammation is, or signs, which
(37:30):
is swelling, redness,dysformity or pain.
But out of all of those, onlyone of them is subjective, one
you have to tell me.
All the other ones anyone couldobserve.
You don't have to be a doctoror a medical practitioner to
observe someone that hasswelling, dysformity or redness.
So I believe that someone say,sprains their ankle, if they
(37:54):
have no redness, swelling ordysformity, it's chronic and so
there's a miscommunication.
So there's basically a wiringissue.
So pain is a wiring issue.
The signals are not gettingthere right.
So when we look at reflexes,you can't do a reflex on
(38:19):
yourself.
This hand knows it's coming, soit doesn't work.
You say, well, how does it work?
Because you were alreadyprotecting.
We already know, like thereknow, it can't happen, so you
need someone to do that to you.
So when I was working on peopleand I was using reflexive
pattern therapy, I was gettingresults.
I didn't necessarily want themto go back to what they were
(38:41):
doing right away, because thebrain has to kind of catch up,
catch up.
So I I had to go back and say,okay, well, how can I give them
something to do?
That's not necessarily exerciseor stretch based or massage
based, because I I didn't wantto do that just right away.
And so I said, okay, let melook at breath, because I hear
breath so powerful.
(39:01):
And so then I started toinvestigate okay, what you know,
where are we?
Well, the lungs, and again this, this idea of this involuntary
automatic system.
And we start to look and say,ok, now, which is somewhat, we
already said, is where you knowand not to get too technical,
but part of that system is a isa sympathetic and
parasympathetic system isdivided in that in that
(39:23):
automatic system, one is, youknow, fight or flight, one is
more rest, relax and digest.
So obviously, when we're in astate of upregulation, we want
to be in a state of rest, relaxand digest allows our body to
reset itself.
So when we breathe through ourchest which I see a lot of times
(39:48):
people are teaching, whichagain is totally fine in a
setting for 20 or 30 minutes,because eventually your body is
going to learn to say, okay, Ineed to, now, I can't keep doing
this, like running a marathon,you know, after a while you get
tired.
So now you on you, you'llconvert to a parasympathetic
because you have to.
I start to look at it.
(40:09):
Okay, how can we get therequicker?
So everything involved isbreathing through the belly.
And when you look at babies,you don't have to look at a baby
.
You know the babies can'tcommunicate with you, right?
When the baby is breathingthrough their belly, they're not
crying, they're relaxed, right?
What happens when they'rehungry or they got a dirty
(40:30):
diaper or whatever?
Bring breath in through theirsigh and they start crying.
They start to communicate.
So we know that breathingthrough your belly is going to
create a state ofparasympathetic.
It's going to put a state ofrelaxation, no matter what
you're doing.
So you're lying to your bodyLike you're trying to tell your
(40:51):
brain look, you're not drivingthe truck anymore.
I am Like you're not taking methe path.
This moment, right now, nomatter what my brain is saying,
I'm anxious, I'm thinking aboutother stuff.
I want to be in a state ofrelaxation.
So we start by breathing throughthe belly, but we add in a
couple of components.
One is we close the mouthbecause the first immune system
(41:13):
is our nose as babies.
So babies, if their baby isbreathing through their mouth,
they're usually in distress.
A baby that's relaxed is goingto be breathing through their
nose.
So we breathe through the nose.
Close the mouth.
The other thing is tongue onthe roof of your mouth is
because that's also been shown,to reset from not an Eastern
(41:34):
practice but also Western Massis to kind of put.
A state of relaxation Probablyhas to do with swallowing,
because when the tongue is inthe roof of your mouth you can't
swallow.
So you're really justconcentrating on breathing.
And the last component is youreyes are open and the one aspect
I always see in meditation whatmost people do is they close
(41:55):
their eyes immediately.
This goes a little bit in theface of what you're saying.
Well, don't you want to berelaxed?
But it's kind of like lifehappens with your eyes open.
Life happens with your eyesopen.
So when you do close your eyes,believe, even though there is a
state of relaxation, you'realso thinking what's going on
around you, because you have astate of protection.
(42:16):
So when your eyes are open, youcan see.
Which is our greatest defensemechanism is what we see?
Vision is so important, and soI would say life happens with
your eyes open.
And what's crazy is when peoplestart to do true breath,
they'll almost automaticallyclose their eyes.
So you almost have to say no,no, keep your eyes open.
Okay, then you want to take adeep breath through your belly,
(42:38):
no chest at all.
This is something that has tobe practiced a little bit.
Once you get the maximum amountof breath out, there's no more.
You have a physiological changethat's going on in your body.
Oxygen is now converted to CO2.
And the reason that we breatheis not from lack of oxygen, it's
from CO2 buildup.
(42:59):
So once the CO2 builds up, itstarts to tell the brain okay,
good, let's breathe out that CO2because I want to get more
oxygen.
And this is where you say toyour brain I'm in control, it's
my life, I'm taking hold of thewheel.
(43:21):
Again, it's not going to beautomatic, it's going to be when
I choose it and what you do,like a stubborn child, is you
try to get more into the bellyeven though nothing is there.
It's almost like you'redrowning.
It's almost like that last liketry to get that breath in and
nothing is there.
And then you hold it again andthen you breathe out when you
(43:45):
choose to breathe out and you dothat two times and I would
promise you, you know it isincredible the shift.
It's all of a sudden your brainsays, oh man, I've never felt
that Like.
You're taking back what I callthe truth.
(44:05):
Like you know, we develop thesetruths in our lives.
Most of them are lies that wetell ourselves and this probably
goes into a lot of yourcoaching.
You know of people that youknow all the lies that we tell
ourselves, good books about us.
Really, that's nothing new thatI'm saying.
But the whole idea is like, howdo we reset that moment by
moment, because it's not justone time.
(44:26):
I do it, okay, there now, allof a sudden.
So I always tell people to dothat twice.
I always tell people startpracticing lying down, because
it's the easiest way to learn it, and then do it standing and
then sitting.
Sitting is the hardest becauseyou have to distend your belly
and people are not.
It's it seems very easy, butpeople have a lot of time, they
(44:49):
have a lot of problems.
Just you know, becausebreathing through their belly
because of the way that theylook, you know they don't want
to look distended, but also too,is like you'd be very, very
surprised.
We are so, I will say,upregulated as a society that we
rarely breathe through theirbelly.
And so after you do that twotimes, you just want to take
(45:10):
around five or ten breaths, justlike a baby, like old times,
just breathe in through yourbelly.
I always tell you, put yourhand on your navel, just kind of
breathe into your hand, niceand easy, like very, very,
almost like 20 breaths a minute,not fast, but definitely not
slow, so not a meditative breathat all, just more like a
(45:31):
relaxed state.
And I have saying is like youknow, you know how, when and
where you breathe like reallydetermines your life, like it's
really that, it's that powerfulof of the way that you integrate
in life.
And I would say you know a lifelived and I would say you know
a life lived like below thediaphragm is a life worth living
(45:53):
, like that's really what I callthe Garden of Eden.
This is where your Garden ofEden is.
It's almost it's like God madeonly something as magical as
that can be created.
It's like it's so incredible,it's like like.
So it's almost like gettingback to your truth, getting back
to your soul.
(46:13):
You know, it can get reallyphilosophical.
I don't want to get too deep,but it get really philosophical.
But the key is is that you'redoing this moment by moment.
So what you know, like what Itell people when they first do
it, and they'll be like you knowthat 50, 100, 200 times a day,
if you're telling me that you'restill anxious, you're just not
doing it enough.
(46:33):
It works.
It's a system.
It's not a maybe or anything.
It works.
You're just not doing it enoughand that's fine, because
sometimes it takes practice,because it's hard to do
something 200 times in the day,but it dramatically shifts your
(46:54):
state of being.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Yeah, I'm loving this and I think I'm getting the
point now.
So this is talking about areset.
This is resetting the reflexiveautomatic nervous system, and
it's genius.
I get exactly what you're doinghere from a physiological
perspective.
Now we're getting ready to runup on time here, but before I
(47:16):
let you go, let's just brieflytalk about how this connects to
pain, and then we can begin towrap up.
How does this then fit intoyour?
Obviously I'm seeing it.
If you can reset this automaticnervous system, you know, and
pain is a pattern and it's aprotective pattern, perhaps
we're interrupting that patternright away.
(47:36):
Is there anything else to it?
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Well, so there's, there's three systems, and so
two of the systems you know wetalked about.
The other one is the switches,which is what I call reflexive
point therapy, which is thisidea that it, you know, we
talked about.
The other one is the switches,which is what I call reflexive
point therapy, which is thisidea that you know, going back
to the observation of theseancient healers, is that they
understood that everything inthe body is connected.
(48:01):
So when you look at it, from asperm and I call it an
embryological model, you know asperm and egg come together form
one cell.
From there it's two cells, four, then eight, then 16.
But those are all identicalcells, but we're not identical.
So, about into gestation, earlyon, we go through what's called
cell differentiation.
(48:21):
We split, we become a baby.
Our hands split from our feet,five fingers, five toes they're
very similar our ankles and ourwrists, our elbows and our knees
, our hips and our shoulders,just to get an idea that
everything in the body has aconnection.
(48:42):
Everything has a switch and abolt.
So the one key point I wouldalways tell people in pain is
and this is where we could get alittle bit again.
I don't want to alienate anyone.
But I never tell someone toroll out where they're in pain,
massage where they're in pain,adjust where they're in pain,
because you don't know if thatcould make them worse.
(49:07):
So a whole philosophical changeis to actually learn where
these switches are.
And so this is some of the workof reflexive point therapy, of
understanding that you need towork in other areas first before
you actually start working onthe bulb.
And just to give you an idea,like if you had, say, knee pain,
(49:30):
you would find the switches inthe elbow and once you work on
those, you'd make immediateshifts along with breath work.
And then, obviously, if someoneunderstood how to reset your
reflexive pattern therapy, youwould make tremendous
differences.
But the idea for clients outthere, whether they be
(49:52):
practitioners that want to learnsomething I always say it's
kind of like if you're achiropractor, you have all these
tools, whatever you domanipulation, myofascial just
put your tools on the side.
I'm going to give you a newbelt so you can put all those
tools back on.
So I don't want people to thinklike those things aren't
valuable, incredibly valuable.
It's kind of like, but you need, you just want to do this first
(50:14):
so that works much better youradjustments hold, better your
myofascial release will holdbetter your strengthening your
exercise they all hold better.
So the goal for people early onis for clients.
The best way is to actuallyteach them how they can do this
for themselves with true breathit's that powerful.
(50:38):
And by resetting them withoutknowing reflexive point therapy,
or what I call painless dryneedling.
For people that are dryneedlers without knowing that,
they can still do whatever theirtools are, and they will get
much better results because theyare resetting the automatic
nervous system prior to doing it.
(51:00):
And what they might find whichI found is that when you do that
, so if you're looking atsomeone in their myofascial
system, you say, wow, they havea lot of restriction here.
When they do that, for whateverit is, two, three, four minutes,
you go back, you might findthat man, their fascia is not
there anymore.
It's actually better that.
(51:20):
It's actually somewhere else.
It's actually more in the ankle, more in the hip.
It's somewhere else.
And this is what always blew mymind is that what I thought I
knew is not what I come to findout and that was really
mind-blowing to me and what madeit so magical and helpful for
clients that are suffering inpain.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
So does that?
Speaker 2 (51:44):
answer your question.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Yeah, that answers it .
Let's just kind of wrap it up.
If we were going to givesomeone a three-step sort of
process to follow, that goesalong with sort of your
mechanism.
Obviously, get Andrew's book.
Are you the developer ofReflexive Dry Needling?
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yeah, I'm the developer of all those three
systems.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
But if we were going to, if we were going to leave
the, you know, the listener with, you know sort of a one, two,
three step process that theycould do, what would you say are
the major takeaways?
Speaker 2 (52:18):
Well, for for clients out there, the major one, two
and three, is reallyunderstanding breath work.
Like you know, it's because ittakes that much like if you try
to think about something elseyou'll miss really the whole key
for practitioners that areactually treating other clients.
I think there's other thingsthat can be learned.
(52:38):
You know, uh, you know, whichis, like I said, you know,
reflexive pattern therapy,reflexive point therapy and
painless dry needling, and I'mkind of working on those aspects
is, you know, I have courseworkfor you know, to teach other
practitioners.
My email isandrewatihatepainorg, because I
(52:59):
started also a nonprofit to helppeople that can't afford care.
You know, in my mission, youknow people that are, you know,
underserved, that are in pain,so people can reach out to me
there to learn about, I wouldsay, what would be.
Step two and step three isreally learning a different
paradigm of how you treat pain,from an avenue of not treating
(53:23):
the bulb, of really looking atokay, how can I make really
magical differences by treatingthese switches Nice?
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Well, I appreciate you, andrew.
So, just so, just want torepeat where can people find you
?
So it's Andrew at.
I hate painorg.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
This is my email and then I hate painorg is.
Is is my, is, you know, websitethey can look at at, which is
more like a local website.
Uh, also, I have I hate paindot solutions.
Uh, so people can reach out andthen I'll you know from there I
can, I can direct them to uh,to the site for reflexive point
therapy nice, and are you uh onany of the social medias?
(54:02):
I I'm at dr d-o-c-t-o-r andRAndrew Block is my handle for
pretty much everything.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
At Dr.
Spelled out Andrew Block.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Yeah, D-O-C-T-O-R, Andrew Block.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
Well, I appreciate you so much, andrew.
Thank you so much for theeducation.
Do me a favor stay on the linejust so we can kill this and
make sure everything uploads,but really appreciate you being
here and educating all of us andfor all of you listeners.
We'll see you at the next show.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Thank you so much, I appreciate it.
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