Concussion Protocol

Concussions can have a negative lasting effect on quality of life. Brain fog, headaches, memory loss, fatigue, blurry vision - these are but a few of the long-term effects that can linger for months, years and for some, even a lifetime. However, concussions are an injury like every other injury, and when you address the areas intentionally, you can have a real impact on the symptoms, even those that have been around for many years.

With any injury, the most important thing to do is address the breath. Pain, fear and stress cause you to reactively hold your breath, and if not corrected in the moment, the diaphragm goes into a freeze response, changing the course of aging from that moment in time. This changes the alignment of the ribcage and everything up the chain, puts extreme pressure into the gut, as well, diminishes the body’s ability to pull in oxygen, and to remove toxins and waste. For all injuries, no matter where or how severe, this is the first step needed to heal and regain balance in the body.

For concussions, whether an old injury or recent, other areas of major concern are the limbs. This is true for all injuries, but also for concussions because of the way the fascia manipulates the alignment in these areas. As the limbs are the furthest from the diaphragm, this is where the holding pattern is most prevalent in how it affects the alignment of the body as a whole. Each step that is taken will cause the body to be pulled into the past alignment of the calves and feet if not addressed, and similarly the alignment of the forearms and hands affects what goes on in the shoulders and neck, and therefore the ribcage – everything is connected.

The entire body needs to be addressed when dealing with any injury, however, with concussions, an added area that is crucial to heal are the eyes. When you have an impact to the head, the eyes get jolted. As everyone already has a dominant eye, and therefore an overall alignment of the head and neck that isn’t perfect, this jolting creates an exaggeration to this. Now, your body needs to adapt to this newly impaired vision by shifting your overall alignment to keep you from falling. Your body will do this unconsciously so you may not even be aware of the changes that are happening. To see how this can impact you, walk around your house with one eye closed. Notice how your body adapts to keep you balanced and upright.

I am in the middle of doing a concussion protocol with a group of people from our Block Therapy community. We met 2 times a week for 3 weeks, and in this time, I had them do a daily blocking protocol, along with alignment training as per usual for any issue of concern. However, each day, we added an exercise to address the alignment and health of the eyes. This has truly been a fascinating experiment and the results are very exciting.

We started by adding gentle pressure directly into the eyes, in the morning before getting out of bed, and in the evening once back in bed -- not rubbing, just pressure like we do with our Fascia Decompression techniques. I let them know their vision may be temporarily blurry as they would be pulling toxins from the eyes, as well as creating a new alignment. We did this for 4 days, then changed the area of focus, using the same principles but focusing on the tops, bottoms, corners and lastly deep between the orbit and the eyeballs.

This was a 3 week adventure, and many had incredible changes. There have been improvements in vision, reduction in brain fog and anxiety, improved memory, better sleep and improvement with energy, reduction in headaches and migraines - there have even been some interesting things like when washing hair, someone who used to dye it black but hasn’t for years, noticed the water was black after shampooing her hair, and immediately felt clearer in her mind.

As I am writing this, we are just finishing with the 3 week protocol and I will continue to work with and monitor the changes, and once I feel confident with this protocol, I will add it into our Block Therapy Membership. I also plan to interview some of the willing participants so they can share firsthand their experience. Overall, this has so far been a huge success and I am thrilled to soon be able to share with others who have been struggling with symptoms from concussion, so that they too can regain quality of life.

I will do a follow up to this soon to provide an update on the progress. I want to send a huge thank you to those who participated and trusted the process. Stay tuned for more to come!

Listen to this week's episode of The Fascia Masters below.