Solving Anxiety, Bloating & Chronic Pain using Self-Massage & Breath – with Jill Miller

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

On this episode of The resetter podcast, I bring you Jill Miller. So I hope you all know that part of my passion is giving you lifestyle tools, especially highlighting what we need to do as women after 40. What how do we adapt to all the neurochemical changes that are going on in our body? This conversation with Jill Miller is literally going to blow your mind. It blew my mind because I never realized that as estrogen went down, we see dramatic changes in our fascial system. Now you’re going to hear in this conversation, Jill is going to talk about exactly what fascia is. It is one of the most abundant tissues in our body, it connects every muscle, every ligament at a to every organ, we are completely wrapped in this fascia. And check this out. Our queen or I like to call her our diva hormone estradiol stimulates flexibility of fascia. And when Astra dial goes away, there is a massive shift to the fascial system. It could be as simple as it makes us feel more stiff or as complicated as it contributes to bloating with this is really interesting all we had a whole conversation at the back end about bloating and what we can do through touch and not only self massage through we talked a lot about using tune up balls and different types of balls to reactivate the fascia so that not only are you less injury prone, not only are you less stiff, but it’ll take the bloating down that so many of us experience. This conversation blew me away and I think you all are going to absolutely find so many things in here that are going to help improve not only your health today, but set you up for loving the body that you live in as you age. Now a couple things about Jill is she is a fashion expert. She has 30 years of corrective movement expertise. She is big in the yoga movement. She has created what she calls self care fitness programs. Have you heard of the yoga tuneup balls or the role model is one of her books. These were created by Jill this woman is a powerhouse, she has not only brought us to huge resources, the role model and body by breath, we will link both of those in there. But she also has a very specific idea about how to use different types of balls. To be able to release fascia. You’ll you’ll see I talked to her about the foam rollers Not a fan they hurt so much. She’ll explain why that is not as beneficial as using some of these softer balls. Either way you look at this, this conversation I’m not sure has ever been had around hormone changes and fascia and I am so excited to bring it to you. So Jill Miller, what do you need to know about fascia as you go through the menopausal years, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And again, as always, if you love this, send this out into the world because so many women are struggling with the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause. And this conversation needs to be heard by those women. So as always, enjoy. Welcome to the resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself. Again, if you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back. This is the podcast for you.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So let me let me just start by welcoming you. I’m so excited to have this conversation with you.

Jill Miller  

Likewise, I’ve been a fan for a long time. And this is really an excellent opportunity for me to talk with you about things I’m interested in into.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

I love this idea that there is a hormonal connection to fascia. I had you know, I’ve looked at hormones from every angle I possibly can. I’ve never looked at it from a fascia angle. So could we start just with so that we fill everybody in what is fascia? And why is it so damn important because I feel like it’s this one part of the body that does not get enough credit for its impact on our physical and mental health. So let’s start with unpack Getting fascia.

Jill Miller  

Yes, we will be here all day unpacking fascia because facet is essentially what packs you together. Fascia is your seam system. Fascia is a fibrous and fluid network that strings every cell of your body together. It suspends every muscle cell and binds them together. It’s what helps your organs to be in float within your body. There are there are so many different components that comprise fascia, but I like to simply say it’s your seam system. It’s the stitches that hold everything together. But it also gives you your form and shape. And it impacts every single system of the body. It runs through every system of the body, it contains every system of the body. And so there are many different aspects that we can dive into. I think some of the more famous aspects of fascia are its mechanical aspects. So folks like Tom Meyers, or the Rolf Institute, you know, Anatomy Trains have brought into focus how this fascia essentially the stitching fabric, links muscles together from end to end. And so it’s really been able to translate well into performance and to functional movement. But you know, fascia is also a hormonal tissue. I’m just I’ll just tease that. And it’s also a, a bed for nerve tissue. It houses more sensory nerve endings than your skin, or your eyes. Yeah, so we can look at fascia. Once you look at fascia, you have to look at every area of the body and get really interested in this connecting tissue that kind of houses all those things. So where do you want to start? Yeah, you

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

know what, you know, what it reminds me of is 10 years ago, I became obsessed with detoxing, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, I can see how toxins accumulate in the body. As you get older. I read some really interesting research on how when your hormones go through a massive change, like they do during perimenopause, that certain heavy metals like lead start to leach out into your circulatory system, they go up into your brain affect your brain. So I was like, if we were having this conversation, 10 years ago, I would have been like all about detox. And then I realized something really important, which was that the lymph system has to be flowing well, in order for the detox organs to do their job. I feel like the same thing about fascia. We get so clued in on like, Oh, I got to eat certain foods to improve my liver or I need to repair my gut. But we organs don’t work in isolation. They work with these connective tissues, lymph being one nervous system being one circulatory system being one and fascia being the other one. And I don’t understand why we don’t talk about it enough. Because yes, I hear what you’re saying. It holds everything together. But there’s also a communication that happens. And when scars happen and injuries happen and the fascia tightens, it affects everything in the body. So can you talk about how fascia is this communication system in our body? Yeah,

Jill Miller  

so I think we can start really great. So I already talked about the big the big span of the tissue, right from cell to skin and everything in between. But your fascia is comprised of a number of different cells. A number of them reside in fascia, and a number of different cells traffic through your fascia, but the resident cells, the primary residence cells are called fibroblasts. And these fibroblasts are like little miniature spiders, that tendon mend the fibers of your net of this fascial net, what are the what are the fibers, the fibers are collagen, many different types of collagen, reticulum, elastin, so there are many different elastic or tensional fibers that comprise this fascia. And so for example, when we have a wound or an injury or surgery, in order for blood vessels and nerves to get back to the site of injury, the fascia sites migrate to the area and they start spitting out collagen and elastin in order to build bridges from the from one side of the wound to the other side of the wound. And so they ended up getting the scaffolding that allows them blood vessels to get in there for all the macrophages to come in and do the cleanup. And then eventually, for nerve endings, to be able to supply the whatever is needed there, whether it’s musculoskeletal activity or or circulation, circulation improvements via the the nervous system network. So we have these fibroblasts. And by the way, the fibroblasts are going to be very interesting to you, but cuz they’re the ones that are sensitive to estrogen, they have estrogen receptors all over them. And we also have this other cell called fascia sites. vashist sites were located where they were discovered just around 10 years ago by a researcher in Italy and Dr. Carlos, Seco and amazing researcher, your people should look into her. And these fascia sites are the cells that spit out the correct chemistry for the fluid environment of fascia. So just like your joints have synovial fluid, right synovial fluid is a really popular known substance that even most people know have heard about synovial fluid that grease for the joints? Well, your fascia has grease to and that grease is how you learn on. And so the fascia sites spit out the right quantities of high learn on to allow your tissues to move around each other. Because when if your tissues don’t belied within themselves, they get sticky, they get stiff, they get stuck, they limit movement, they hurt. And this is what propagates movement dysfunction, this word propagates stiffness, this helps to contribute to sell that to sarcopenia, and so many other things. So these fascia sites are really important. There are also do you want to ask or No, you go?

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

I have a question about estrogen. But go Yeah,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

I wonder I know. He’s got a question about it. I know, I have a lot of questions on that. But you really

Jill Miller  

asked about a communication, right? You asked about, oh, this communication. So the communication, I think we can probably think about the nervous systems load in the fascial tissue. So there are 250 million sensory neurons that end in your fascial tissues. So this is a gigantic feedback loop. And this is happening, you know, within within muscles, and in the muscle spindles are these stretch receptors, but they’re also happening Golgi tendon organs, but they’re also happening at the tendon. They’re also happening in many different layers, we have these root Fini endings, for example, that are sensory neurons that are living inside your fatty layer, they’re living inside a layer of fascia within the fatty tissue of your body, called the superficial fashion membrane. And so we have a propensity of sensory neurons, over our body within our joint capsules, these are the Chinian core muscles. So it gets really interesting when we start to like dive into these smaller and smaller bits of the greater

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

whole, it’s like its own ecosystem, is what is

Jill Miller  

your ecosystem? I know you’re just living in the fascia world. Ah,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

oh my gosh, okay. So let’s go back to estrogen. Because this is one thing that I’ve been deeply thinking about is when estradiol goes away, all the things that estradiol supported great brain health, cardiovascular health, it’s more than just releasing an egg every month, that there are these requirements of different tissues in our body for estradiol. So once estradiol is gone, because she’s supposed to go away throughout menopause, what we’re left with these parts of our body that don’t function as well, because it doesn’t have the chemistry to be able to perform the way it’s supposed to. So what happens with fascia when you go through menopause, if, if there’s an estrogen receptor site in there, and now I’m not giving it estrogen, what happens to fascia?

Jill Miller  

Yeah, so let me describe what what happens on a monthly basis prior to menopause prior to perimenopause, and then I think it’ll get really clear what happens due to menopause and this withdrawal of best estrogen from your body. So the this research was done by Carlos Deko, who I mentioned before, and Contadina, Fei this whole group and Padwa. And they presented this research at the Fashion research Congress, I’m a real fashion nerd. So I go to these congresses. And in 2021, when she started talking about female fascia, and the relationship to estrogen, progesterone, the the room was just I don’t think anybody breathed for, you know, the 20 minutes of her presentation because we couldn’t believe that somebody was presenting research that validated this the bizarre, you know, experience of living in a female body and how many changes occur all the time, but here’s its impact on fascia. So we become, we have these fat these estrogen receptors on the fibroblast. And when we have our estrogen peaks, there’s two estrogen peaks in the cycle, right? You have peak one like between 10 and 14 days and you have second peak between 2024 days, when we have these estrogen peaks. The fibroblasts start to create more type three collagen, no, I’m sorry, there are dozens of types of collagen and this is not even something I could give you a lecture on, but the type three collagen Is the looser, more elastic collagen. And it starts to get rid of or eat away type one collagen type one is the firmer, stronger, tighter, more rigid collagen. So as you start to peek at these 10 to 14 during ovulation, your fascial body becomes looser, it becomes more open, it becomes more flexible, you are less rigid. And so in that looseness that might sound really good if you’re like a stiff person, but it makes you accident and injury prone. Especially, you know, if you’re like a female soccer player, and you know, your this is when we’re at higher risk of having these connective tissue or ligament strains. And then the second peak at that 20 to 24. day mark, again, there’s an increase in estrogen in the system, we become, again, hyper flexible in our connective tissues. And this is like a not an overnight thing. This is like a progressive thing. And then it wanes again, and you become you become those looser connective tissues are then cannibalized by the fibroblasts, and they replace them with type one. So we have this constant shifting of loose, loose, stiff, and it’s helpful to know, especially if you’re extra estrogen sensitive, especially if you’re somebody who suffers great pains, you know, right before period at that second surge, I think it’s really helpful to know, well, maybe I shouldn’t be lifting super heavy on those days, you know, I can lift I can walk, but I may not want to try my PR during those days just because of that extra extensibility of the tissues.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So one thing that I’ve looked at when we look at working out for the cycle, is I think there’s a there’s a lot of conversation right now about how important building muscle is for wellness general but especially for women as they go through menopause or perimenopause. So let’s use perimenopause as an example, if I’m in ovulation, yes, I’m more flexible, according to the theory that you just gave. But maybe then I could do higher weights in a slower motion, I’m thinking more like hit training where you’re jumping, that or you’re doing very quick reps, that actually is going to be more challenging during these peaks of estrogen. So would you say given what that that if you become more flexible, that a workout just needs to be slower, and not not jeopardizing your ability to have a quick turn of the ankle or, or a quick pull of the tendon? Because you are more flexible during that time? Yeah,

Jill Miller  

I mean, I would say that during those times, doing long held static stretches, like within a yoga class, that is where you might actually be at more risk, because you’re so extra stretchy, that you could end up deforming those connective tissue junctions, because you’re so extra stretchy. So. So it’s like, I like what you’re saying about the weight training. And you know, I do weight training myself, I’m not a personal trainer, I come from the yoga space. But I, I personally am extremely mobile and on the hyper mobile spectrum, so I tend to concentrate on like exactly what you’re describing. But I don’t I don’t necessarily blanket statement that for all bodies, because I think the number one thing that you said there was slow. And to me, that means I’m going to be really investing my awareness in these movements. So nothing, nothing when we are at our most Flexi or at our most naturally fragile, I don’t think calling phoning it in is a good idea, I think we have to be extremely mindful, or I like to one of the things that I talked about in my new book, body by breath is my body thinks in fields that you really want to dial into both your proprioception, the feedback you’re getting from your body, as well as the interoception the feeling of your physiology, the perception of your physiology, and pay attention. Very, very good attention to all aspects of your movement so that you don’t increase your risk of injury or harm. So, you know, it’s I think it’s really because I talk to trainers about about like, the science is the science. So your interpretation of that and how you implement it. Yeah, it’s really, you know, I think there’s so many different possibilities. But I think the best thing that we can do is increase our awareness. Like to know that that is a you know, probable that our fascial tissues are more elastic during this time. So make make of it what you will, depending on your primary body type in the first place. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Okay. So go ahead. Yeah. So if you are going to customize and I know again, I think it’s, yeah, you’re not a personal trainer, but you have this great yoga background. If you were to customize a change of workout when when estrogen peaks, what would you tell us to do? I would tell you to engage in in some lower, more mindful movements, I wouldn’t necessarily decrease the load, but I would not go for max reps. And I would not go for prs. Okay. So and then, because the other problem that I think a lot of women have, especially athletic women, is we’ve learned to override pain in our body when we’re working out. So I’m envisioning, when I was a menstruating woman I was envisioning, like, what I have the intuitive sense to know this isn’t good for my joints, because when you’re lifting weights, it hurts. It’s not fun. At least, you know, and if you’re pushing it, it’s hard. So how do you know what’s good pushing and what’s dangerous pushing during those times?

Jill Miller  

Yeah, and unfortunately, you don’t always know until tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, right because of because of delayed onset, which by the way, is not happening in the muscle delayed onset. delayed onset muscle soreness is actually delayed onset fascia soreness, this is the sensory neurons within the fascia tissues, because the muscles repair very quickly, they have a 24 hour cycle, but fascia has a 48 to 72 hour repair cycle. So some of that inflammation, the inflammation that we’re experiencing this engorgement is being is that the time that for the fascial repair is taking longer than the muscle. And so you may not know if you’ve overdone it. I mean, frequently, we don’t know that we’ve ever done until the next day anyway. But you know, by this by the third day, you’re still unable to go down the stairs, you probably overdid it. And then what do you do with that of your cycle is that

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

so that’s really interesting, because one of the things I noticed as I went through perimenopause was extreme soreness. And I didn’t know again, I’ve been an athlete my whole life. I was a competitive tennis player in my college years. Like, I was shocked that the workouts I had been doing on a semi regular basis, all of a sudden, now were giving me three to four days soreness. Yeah, so that I never could figure that out. I was like, is it testosterone decrease what’s causing the soreness? What I’m hearing you say is it was probably too much strain on the fascia which would make sense during the peri menopausal years because estrogen goes Scott goes really high and then she goes really low, you know all the time like a roller coaster ride. So we can use the how long soreness is hanging out to help us understand if we are now injuring fashion, not not building muscle?

Jill Miller  

Absolutely, I think that is a that is your code. And your it’s your body’s way of speaking to you and so the one of the ways we address it in the work that I do is through self myofascial release, so we will use gentle friction, what using soft, pliable tools to induce the fascia sites, I’d mentioned these cells to spurt out hyaluronan to increase glide where Glide is now Galani are agglomerated due to the repair process or just frankly, from from tearing and scarring and getting matted down. So and then not even addressing the autonomic nervous system benefits of doing that. But also, here’s another thought for you. Which is that pyramid perimenopause is so challenging, I’m in perimenopause right now and it’s like, Oh, two months, no period, and then oh, my gosh, I’m hemorrhaging for a week. This is really fascinating. It’s, it’s yeah, there’s no there. It’s so unpredictable. But we’re talking about the, the sensitivity of fibroblasts to estrogen. What happens when that the estrogen starts to recede is your fibroblasts aren’t being sensitized and not being told estrogen is around. And so they’re not creating the more elastic collagen, they start over producing type one collagen and stiffening down. So they start making your whole body stiffer. And this is one of the chief complaints of postmenopausal women who have gone through perimenopause and are now in menopause is that their joints feel stiff, they feel achy, they don’t have as much mobility anymore. And that is that one of the reasons is because that type one collagen is now the dominant fiber that is helping hold them together. You know,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

because you don’t have because you’re not getting estradiol. So your estrogen your estrogen has gone down. So and so now stiffness has kicked in. So what do we do for that woman and how do we help that woman?

Jill Miller  

Well, first thing you know, definitely consider. I’m not I’m not a prescriber, but I definitely am staying in touch with my medical team, because I really believe in my hormone patch has been extremely helpful for me, especially with my cognitive function. But my my plan is to maintain some level of estrogen as well as a lot of movement. I work with plenty of people much more advanced age than I am, who use In this work the work that I teach the self myofascial release strategies, the stress reduction strategies via the body via the breath to stay mobile to produce high learn on when that is starting to decline as well. So we want to make sure that we massage the tissues we address the joints, we create friction, very specific friction in different zones, so that your, your muscles can continue to contract as much as they can and lengthen as much as they can. Because they live inside your fascia. If your fascia is stiff, if it’s agglomerated, if it’s congested, if it’s bound up, your muscles aren’t going to get any stronger, they’re just going to be get the squeeze by your stiffening connective tissue. So it’s important that we stay mobile. And I

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

also want to point out that even if we do the patch, or we do bioidenticals, you’re still not getting the same amount of estrogen you got at 25. So you know, I love right now that we’re at least revisiting some of the bioidenticals and some of the HRT like I think it’s a personal path. But I also feel like we’re losing in that conversation, the fact that you’re still not getting back what you had at 25, because that’s not appropriate for your age, you’re not trying to release eggs as much. So with with that in mind, what I just heard is outside of movement, and and muscle building, I got to think about my fascial system, especially as a postmenopausal woman, and I fear that what you’re gonna say is that is foam rolling, which is the most horrific way ever to approach my body. So tell me how, as a 54 year old, postmenopausal woman who works out a ton, what do I do for my fascia?

Jill Miller  

So I wrote I’ve written two books on self myofascial release, and I’ve written a chapter in the medical textbook called fascia function in medical applications on self myofascial release. So unfortunately, you are going to hear about rolling. Maybe that foam rolling because I don’t I’m not a foam roller person. I like a smaller profile tool. I like a bushy pliable tool that mimics human hands rather than feels like you’re being, you know, flogged by a bat. Yes, or by PVC pipe, because texture matters and hardness members. And this is a I think, a really interesting thing to look at. Many people have a recoil when they hear foam rolling, because it freaking hurts, it hurts. Why does it hurt? It hurts because when something is too hard for your nervous system for your stretch tolerance for your pressure tolerance, your sympathetic nervous system says no go there, protect, defend. And that’s called your muscle bracing response. So when you get on a foam roller, and you put it on a body part that is extremely tight and rigid, the roller touches it, your nervous system says this woman is trying to harm me. So I’m going to stiffen in order to not let this implement go into my body. And so you’re just rolling against your own tension. You’re you’re at war, literally at war with your tissues and your nervous system. This is not a therapeutic response. So what we want to try to do is emulate as carefully as we can tender touch that this arms this stress response, because it’s really hard to relax, let go receive therapy when you’re at odds with with the with the therapy, right. So I use I’ll just show you I have a fleet of balls called the role model balls. This is a small and this is a yoga tuna ball, but they’re they’re gushy and they’re grippy. And what that means is when they roll against soft tissues, like muscle bellies, or they roll up and against bony junctions, like your spine or your shoulder or even your face or your foot, there’s a yielding. So the bony prominences, don’t just pinch and annoy and get bruised by like a lacrosse ball or a foam roller. But there’s a compliance of your soft tissue and the tool. And so you can adjust your autonomic nervous system, your stress response, you can enter into a relaxation response. And then it really feels like you’re getting massaged by a pro but it’s you doing it yourself, which is very empowering. And so returning to our talk about the fascia sites, and the fibroblasts, it’s because estradiol is waning is removed, we don’t have the see that we’re swimming in him anymore. Instead of relying on chemicals. To touch the cells, we now rely on pressure to touch the cells this is called Makino transduction. So these the pressure from the rolling can stimulate the fibroblasts to do the right thing to maintain elasticity in our tissue because if you’re giving a signal to these cells, that they need to maintain elasticity they will, but if you if if you you’ll maintain stiffness by staying stiff you’ll mean Pain elasticity by introducing movement by introducing elasticity to the tissues via compression via shear. There’s there’s many different applications that I go over in my work.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So you know what it reminds me of one of the research articles that really shocked me that I found at the beginning of 2023 was a real in depth look at how estrogen and progesterone stimulate a lot of neurotransmitters. So if we just stay on the estrogen path, okay, estrogen, estrogen stimulates estradiol specifically stimulates dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, oxytocin, BDNF, I mean, so when she goes away, you’re losing all these other neurotransmitters. And so there needs to be a lifestyle that backs fills in, to be able to support each one of those neurotransmitters. So like serotonin, really interesting thing about serotonin is actually eating carbs. If you eat if you eat poultry, specifically, something that’s high in tryptophan, and then you follow that up a couple of hours later with carbohydrates, you actually use the carbohydrate to convert tryptophan into serotonin is another study that I found. Okay, so how many women as they go through menopause understand, oh, I may not be happy right now, because I’ve lost estrogen that has decreased serotonin. So I need to look at what I can do. And hack in strategies like I just gave you to bring up serotonin, what I just learned is that if we are getting that same response in the fascia, then we need to backfill in with something like the yoga tune up balls, to be able to stimulate the fascia in a manner in which Esther dial was doing but she’s now gone. Right.

Jill Miller  

And so we’re using we’re using pressure to do that right pressure here, that deep touch and novel touch because your brain really, you know, you’re you’re a sensory thing my body thinks and feels, to her, this really helps excite your brain about these new sensations from within your body. And I mean, we use the balls all over I use, I have a special one, this, this one called the gorgeous spot, this is all over the trunk. And so you can pressurize your your ribcage, your lungs, your heart, your all these deep core muscles, your organs, your viscera, manipulating was very helpful for digestion, I know that’s something that’s really important to your listeners, also mobilizing the colon and so on. But the you know, the one of the I have, I have a menu of five, it’s called the five P’s of the parasympathetic nervous system that I think is very easy for people to create for themselves to induce this relaxation response. And, and rolling is included. But I think that to back up like what you’re saying to back up an A mechanical in a mechanical way. This is I call this the five P’s of the parasympathetic nervous system. And so the first P is perspective. So perspective means you introduce a mindset that makes you aware that you are trying to become aware of the experience of your body. And so one of the peas that I work with all the time, because I actually live with a lot of high anxiety a lot. childhood history that’s brought me to this point in life. But I I like to say to myself, all of me is welcome here. All of me is welcome here so that I allow for the experience of my body to speak whatever it might need to. As I’m going through this process. And so perspective another simple perspective could just be I’m a student of my body, or I embody my body just don’t just to welcome the feelings to come. And whatever the feelings are, sometimes their emotion, sometimes their feelings of eroticism, sometimes their feelings of ally, sometimes their feeling of pain, sometimes their their memories. So that’s the first B, the second P is place in order for your body to enter into the relaxation response to therapeutic response, the environment that you’re in is very critical. And ideally, you’re in a place that’s safe to you a place that’s quiet and even maybe a little dark, or, you know, relaxing. So it’s a relaxing environment where you feel safe. So we have our perspective, we have our place the third P is position. And position takes into account how blood pressure is calculated by your body. And so the easiest position is recline. Get down on this. Yeah, yeah, if you if you lay down or you lounge back, you’re typically typically going to have a more relaxed experiencing physically, physiologically because your diaphragm is offloaded from its pastoral care. opponent, your heart rate will slow down, your breath rate will slow down. And then from where I come from, if you’re really want to induce the relaxation response, you might even raise your pelvis higher than your heart higher than your head, like by putting your pelvis up on a yoga block or a stack of books or, you know, put it on the cordless ball. And that way, you’re in this gentle slope. And that takes advantage of something called the barrow receptor reflex. But anyway, that ignites the vagus nerve, your your major parasympathetic nerve to really slow down the heart rate to really slow down the breath, right? Okay, so those are, those are some organizing principles, we’ve got perspective placed position, the fourth P is pace of breath. Breathing is free breath. Breathing comes with no bells and whistles. I mean, except whistling, you can always manipulate the pace of your breath, to adjust state. Now it’s easy for me to say, it’s not always easy to do, especially if you are in the throes of a panic attack. But typically, we can induce a relaxation response by extending our exhalation is just making them a little longer than the inhale that we breathe prior. So if you can consider that trying to blow out, get the wind out, get the candles on the cake out, making that happen longer than inhale, there’s so many I mean, I wrote a 480 page book about different breathing, breathing, I can do that, that Yes, like that, that or that also, especially for people who have what I would, what I call breath induced anxiety. So some people when they’re told to breathe, that actually spikes their threat response. And so sometimes we have to take breath off the table and go right to the fifth P, which is palpation. And palpation, is what we’ve been talking about. It’s inducing pressure into your body in novel ways that delight the brain or confuses the brain and allows these pressures to help also cascade you through relaxation response. And in in my most recent work, I there are these portals that pressurize mechanical places where your vagus nerve is available, and that can hasten even more relaxation. So these five pieces of the parasympathetic nervous system when you compound them, it is like your inner medicine chest. So it’s not like taking Klonopin or whatever, you’re actually creating an internal environment for your physiology, where you are crafting this calming response. And you’re getting bodywork done in the meantime. So it the IPS again, it’s perspective. Place, position, pace of breath palpation.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So if I’m a 47 year old woman, I’m, I’m having a panic attack, I’m starting to learn how to live with anxiety for the first time because of loss of hormones. I could use those five P’s as a way to guide myself into a calmer state. Could you could you talk a little bit about like, so what I lay on the ground with my hips up, get one of the balls, I guess, give us some action of how that might look in a in a momentary panic attack.

Jill Miller  

Yeah, in a momentary panic attack, because I have them sometimes when I travel, what I actually like to do is, is because it’s usually like in public, like on an airplane, I’ll put the ball actually in my gut. Can’t see you. Right, so I’ll press it in my gutter on my ribs, and I’ll bend over. And this gives biofeedback so you have something a tool that you can actually breathe against. And that really helps because it’s, it’s it mimics the bear hug, right? So you know, when your kids your toddlers are having a temper tantrum and their faces are turning the read that if you can get them to a place where you can give them a good solid pressure hug that can help them to finally switch gears and then start to ramp back up into a more homeostatic place of communication and interaction. So I give myself that bear hug using the tool and I mean, I carry this around with me it just deflates in my backpack and really specifically thinking about a misconnection that happened recently where I was like, Okay, I can’t even move my legs. I was in such a panic attack. But as soon as I was able to get to the gate, I started using my tools right away, help palpation head below heart extended exhalations, and then the perspective telling myself that, that I’m okay. It’s a safe place. My brother’s safe, my brother’s home, just whatever I could.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

I think what’s really important about that story and what I’m trying to educate women on is that it would be Easy this is again, sort of the the world we live in where you would see somebody do like, Oh, you’re having a packet panic attack, grab the ball, put it around your stomach, exhale out more than you inhale. And and we tend to think of that as woowoo. Like, oh, that’s kind of a weird, I think culturally, I know you don’t, I don’t. But what I want the listeners to hear is that it may seem, let’s say insignificant, that may seem like an insignificant approach to anxiety. But if you back it up to what we talked about before, which is you’re in your mid 40s, you’re losing estrogen. Fascia is tightening, it’s going to be easier. You don’t have progesterone helping you make GABA, these panic attacks, this anxiety is going to appear because you are neuro chemically changing. So what you just described is science showing us how to adapt to that change. That’s my point. And making that so that we don’t, I think what you said was brilliant, and I want to make sure that the listeners don’t disregard that. That that was a phenomenal, easy way that we can all lean into where my brain goes. Next is what about bloating, can that help with bloating?

Jill Miller  

So I will share this with you so I am a recovered anorexic, and I’m also a recovered bulimia. And I try to stay away, I totally stay away from any nutritional advice to people. So I always go to the mechanical side of things. I obviously I listened to nutritional advice, but I, I never engage in that conversation because I’m just not an expert on it. And I’m not good with managing other people’s nutritional or their body shape expectations, right. But Bloating is extremely uncomfortable. And it’s really problematic for a lot of the tissues that I love to talk about, namely the respiratory diaphragm. So when there is excess gas in your viscera, your diaphragm, which lives inside of your ribcage has really hard time to ascending. It has a really hard time moving and bouncing your viscera up and down, which would maybe make it more helpful to move gas along Yeah, is to have this wonderful rhythm, right the gas the pressure is just rising and rising, it’s making your diaphragm rise up. And if your diaphragm can’t descend, and then return to its place, it’s really hard to be in a calm state. In body by breath I talked about three zones of respiration. And in Zone One respiration we’re breathing in a way that our diaphragm descends our organs distend, cooperatively our pelvic floor distends our lumbar region the fascia of the lumbar, called the Braco, lumbar and roasts we have the 360 expansion, and then all of that funnels right back in when the diaphragm goes back home into its ribcage. So we have this wonderful collaborative thing. And that is one of our easiest ways to know that we’re in a calm state. calm state breathing happens in Zone One, if I’m not in Zone One, because I have pressure within my organs that aren’t allowing the diaphragm to set to descend, I default into what’s called zone two breathing. In zone two breathing, I’m relying on my intercostals these are muscles that line the ribs. If you’ve ever eaten ribs, you’ve eaten intercostals as well as the diaphragm to move the ribs up and down. As I breathe now zone to breathing is not a legal you use this when you’re running, you use this when you’re pushing weights, you you need this when you’re moving a sofa across the floor, right we have to brace our core, we have to brace our abdomen, we have to stiffen our abdomen and our back so that we don’t injure our low back or our pelvis. So we have to breathe somewhere we breathe in zone two. But if you’re breathing in zone two all the time, because you’re bloated or because you have scar tissue in your abdomen that doesn’t allow your diaphragm to descend. Or maybe you breathe in zone two all the time because you want to look skinny. So you’re pulling your abdomen in, it’s going to create a overall more sympathetic tone in your body, you’re going to be more upregulated you’re going to be more height, you’re going to be more agitated. And then what often happens in zone two, as if we’re chronically in zone two because we’re bloated, we’re gonna stay bloated. Because we’re not entering our into our rest and digest. We can’t get into the calm state. And then that will often throw us into what I call zone three breathing, which is our in case of emergency breathing. And that’s when breathing happens with face, neck, shoulder jaw where you’ll end up killing. Yes, you’ll hear you’ll hoist air into the upper portion of your airway. And we do this in the case of shock or fright or fear. Or it’s not always diabolical. You also do this in orgasm. You know, you’ll have these sudden rapturous breaths, but it’s usually very short lived. And so this is very high stress. So if we’re in a blend of kind of zone three zone two breathing It’s very difficult to then have healthy digestion because we are literally running the car. It’s out of gas, but it’s still running. I mean, you’re full of gas. Yeah. Yeah, right. Didn’t work. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So how do we fix that? I think that’s I can tell, there are so many women, let me just put this, so many women that complain about bloating during their Perriman. So how that logic of what you just explained, I feel like every woman is like, Yep, that’s me. How do we fix it? Yes.

Jill Miller  

So I wanted to go through that, so that I can then talk you through an application. So if you don’t have something like a gorgeous ball, you don’t need a gorgeous ball, you can use a pillow, you can use a roll up yoga mat. And what I would do is lay yourself on your side as its lay specifically on your left side, and place an object that’s comfortable. So whatever object you use, you don’t want it shouldn’t be for, it shouldn’t feel like you’re punching yourself with an object. So a gentle thing like I mean, if you’re just starting off with this, a pillow is great. And actually let your abdomen rest on it, I have an exercise in the book called gut baby, Mindy, oh, I can send you I can send you a photo of God babies. So you can see what I’m talking about. And allow the organs which are gassy and having difficulty contracting? Well, the smooth muscle, actually let the organs rest on the ball, or let it rest on the object. And then you take your top hand. So you picture yourself, you’re laying on your side, probably up something underneath your head so that your head is supported. And then you it’s like pregnant belly, you allow these organs to traction away from their roots, the root is in the mesentery. So this gets into some anatomy, but that all the blood that serves your intestines is is like a giant dog in the back of your abdomen. And so what we’re doing is we’re tractioning these organs away, letting the letting the vasculature have some stretch, we’re stretching loads of fascia, by the way, we’re stretching loads of muscle, all your core muscles are being stretched here. And then you just want to very quietly breathe into the gut, you want to try to allow the diaphragm to descend, and relax. So it’s just a very slow meditation. And then you take your top hand and rests on your top side of your abdomen. And you just keep coaxing the ABS out. Now I know it seems crazy like wait, I’m going to try to get rid of the bloat, I’m going to squish that the gas out I want to press in no no actually allow the gesture to complete allow fluff to come into your you’re essentially fluffing the organs, that is going to allow stretch to come into the colon into the small intestine allow the smooth muscle to then come back online because we’re getting our zone one breath in there. And that’s when your smooth muscles within the the organs will start to contract will start to move stuff along, you start on your left side. So you can let the gas that stuck along the sigmoid colon get out first. Otherwise, you’ll have even more visceral pain. And after about three to five minutes, then you can switch to the other side and you’ll start to heal the burger regmi you’ll hear like those whale sounds in the gut, as gas is starting to move along finally, from where it’s been congested, congested within your organs.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So and what what kind of breathing techniques should we do the in in for like four out for six, like should the exhale be longer than the inhale to just kind of calm the nervous system

Jill Miller  

if you’re able to do that. So sometimes a paste breath. So as I mentioned before, pace of breath is really critical, longer exhales than inhales in general. But the introduction of this pressure into the gut and this sort of this odd traction of the gut can be so discombobulating for son, that sometimes I’ll just tell people just watch your body breathe. Watch your body breathing. Don’t try to control it. Because we’re trying to control everything right? Right, just let your body breathe. And then within a few minutes, what happens typically to those people is all of a sudden they’ll yawn they’ll have an involuntary side just like all of a sudden they’ll have a state shift and that’s when you can then start pacing out the breath. So sometimes I just want the body to be I want to all my all the fields are welcome here. My body thinks and feels. My breath is home, my organs are home and not try to over control them. Just let them rest on the ball and be with them. Okay, so

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

so just so I’m clear you’re you roll up a yoga mat or a pillow. You’re starting on your left side. You’re laying on your left side, you’re letting your abdomen just kind of hang that like you said, what do you call it the gut baby, where people where’s the ball

Jill Miller  

is that I’m going to show you I’m going to show you the picture in the But oh, it’s in the bucks. So okay, great. So that because there’s a listen, you know what, there’s even I have this online I have a free video of God baby with no, I have a QR code. So can you see how I’m how my abs are kind of like? Yep loaded on there.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So you’re using the pressure of the mechanical receptors of the fascia of the gut, which actually is really interesting. You have me thinking now because bloating I’ve always thought of as for the perimenopause and menopausal woman is it’s a trouble clearing estrogen. It’s like, you know, really, for the woman who still still has a cycle, it’s often that post ovulation bloat, because the body can’t clear the estrogen. But then now you’re really giving me insight on how to use mechanical receptors to tap into this estrogen system. So, you know, I hope every woman who still has a cycle, one real important place you would use this would be post ovulation, don’t you think?

Jill Miller  

Yes, and one of the things that that I want to make sure that your listeners know is that your organs are comprised of collagen. Mm hmm. Right. So these are fascial structures to right our organs are surrounded by fascia but as I’m sorry, my this morning, this I had turned this off, but it’s coming in. The motility slowing is also due to elastic changes throughout throughout your body collagen is not the fascia is not just where the college and the collagen you fascia is a structure that that comprises your colon and your small intestines to so we have these college and changes and estrogen changes all over. Interesting, really interesting. It’s

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

like a part of the hormone conversation I literally have never had so you have my brain totally geeked out on this. So if if I’m a perimenopause or menopausal woman Bloating is a big issue. I know it’s caught collagen changes. Could I do a daily routine? Like could I take a yoga tuneup ball and just go along the large intestine go I you know, I used to do this in my clinic all the time for when kids had colic babies had colic, I would show the parents how to do an upside down you on the on the belly with their hand. I’m feeling like we need to do that with the ball. When we go through these Peri menopausal years.

Jill Miller  

Yeah, so I so the cordless ball, I mean, you can inflate it to the density you you like and it does take it takes a little bit to get used to it. That’s why start people generally on their side so that they can acclimate to their own pain pressure threshold, and also gets familiar with the feeling of their viscera, right with these visceral pressures, because it is very, very odd. But ultimately Domina massage self abdominal massage, is I think, just critical to digestive health, but also to mobilize gut sensitized lymph to move it to the thoracic duct, I mean, it’s very helpful for your immune system. It’s also very helpful for your core mechanics, right? Because like you said, the mechanical sensors, so we’re, we’re stretching and we’re pressuring and we’re sharing these different muscles with the core. So ultimately, this can help back pain, change your relationship to back pain, and be able to make these muscles more functional. And this is to say nothing of what it’s also doing for help of the respiratory diaphragm and then the ribcage. They’re higher than that, because we also do the same type of work on the ribcage.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

It’s fascinating to me, I literally like I’ve thought a lot I love anatomy when you’re like, I’m not to geek out on a mat anatomy, I’m like, yes, let’s geek out on anatomy, I love anatomy, but I had never thought of the mechanical receptors and the power of stimulating those through the menopausal process. And to me, through the menopausal process means 40 Anything after 40 We start to see these hormonal shifts. And I in my clinic all the time, I saw so many extreme athletes at the end of their 40s injured themselves, and they were not recovering. What I’m currently seeing is so many women that are dealing with bloating, you know, throughout their 40s and they’re, it’s just driving them crazy. And what you just taught me was we got to go think about these mechanical receptors, and and stimulating them so that we are adapting for the changes in hormones.

Jill Miller  

Yes, and I mean, there, there’s so much to talk about, because I mean, there are also some really other important areas of the body that I think athletes need to really make sure that they’re rolling on a regular basis to because of this, this changeover of type three to type one collagen. So the the ankles are really, really important, especially because of the prevalence of Achilles tears, that starts to ramp up with aging. And it’s just really puzzling how people are like, I had no clue that I was about to rupture, like set with the sudden ruptures and I’m specifically thinking about one of my clients. She was playing pickleball pickleball pickleball injuries anyone? Yeah, 59 years old. And she was simply walking backwards on the court. So her ankle was in dorsi flexion. That means, you know, that’s the position that your ankle is in when your knee is ahead of your toes. And the calf is greatly stretched. And she’s just walking backwards, it was no shuffle backwards was a walk backwards, and the Achilles popped. And this is healthy woman. I mean, she has been a student of mine for decades, and is just super healthy. And I just could not figure out how she didn’t get feedback from her calf that she was beyond range or beyond a safe range, or that there was no signal. Yeah, no signal ever. And so the same researcher, Carla stucco at the most recent faster research Congress, which was 20 mediums at the same conference that she did this other lecture on, on aging. And what she described just gets real, real anatomical. So let me just describe to the listeners, you have fascia wrapping around every single muscle cell of your body, right. So like, if you imagine an orange, everybody can picture the orange analogy, if you like you pick, you open up the orange, and then you get your segments. But then you segment the segment. And when you pull the set the skin of a segment apart, you see all these beautiful, glistening kryptonite looking juice things inside of a little cellulose packet, right? And you can just pop it and all of a sudden you have this clear see through cellulose. Really cool, right? Yep, your muscle cells are the same way every muscle cell is surrounded by fascia, and the surrounding fascia at that point at the level of the muscle cells called the endo Museum, then you have these muscle cells that come together. And they this bundle of muscle cells is called a fast sickle. We can also call that a fascicle. I think that’s probably the correct pronunciation in my head, it’s fascicle. And the fascia there is called the Perry museum. And then when you have bunches of clumps of these fascicles together, then we have a muscle. It’s wrapped in more fashion called the epi Museum. But these this fascia continuous, like this is like spun and spun and spun and spun. So the stretch sensor in a muscle is called the muscle spindle. And it has a capsule and the capsule of the muscles. So muscle spindle senses pull on the muscle. And this is how we send stretch, we send stretch because there’s there’s pooling occurring. And then your brain is like oh, there’s feeling stretch, I’m going to stop stretching because it’s too much. But that it’s it’s a yanking actually on the fascial capsule in this spindle. And the capsule was made up of endo Museum, Perry Museum and epi museum. So just stay with me here. If my type three collagen is being steadily replaced with type one collagen, I may not necessarily be feeling stretch, where I used to feel stretch anymore. Because because the stiffening is so profound. And I’m at a loss of sensory loss, I start to lose sensory I get like sensory amnesia because of this over stiffening. And I’m not even aware that it’s happening because you’re just not aware of it. And I think that that’s probably part of the mechanism that led to my friend rupturing, because she had no sensation of stretch. And so it’s this. And so I think, you know, she wasn’t rolling her ankle, she wasn’t doing stimulation with the therapy balls in specific ways at all, if at all. So what do I think that there are certain areas or body risks fingers, hands, feet, ankles, that are very high charged zones of movement of differential movement that we need this differential movement. And, you know, we see these incidents of ruptures and then of course of surgeries for carpal tunnel, these are these are due to fascial narrowing, not just, yeah, this this is age related changes to fascia. So I think that to go back to let’s keep stimulating our connective tissues, the friction, especially with this recession of estrogen in

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

your book, do you have like a daily protocol? That’s what I just learned as I was listening to you on that I thought, well, there needs to be a daily protocol, if we’re not going to have a sense that the stiffness could leave it. I mean, I killed my husband had an Achilles tendon rupture, and it changed him forever, forever. For all the wrong you know, his fitness level and he couldn’t play soccer anymore. It was a big deal. So how do we make sure that we don’t do that? Do you have like a pro like a two minute five minute protocol in your book that people could reference Just make sure you’re hitting body. Yeah,

Jill Miller  

body by breath is really concerned about the body wide impacts of respiration. My first book, The role model, which I always have a copy of right here. Great. This book goes through every body part, and teaches you how to roll. And so I think that, you know, I don’t necessarily say like, this is exactly how you have to roll every time because I think people should use their their scent their own sensibility, but it’d be a good idea to get some good rolling friction around your ankle and throughout your feet. And I have an online classroom where I take people through so many different possibilities of rolling for so many different reasons. But yes, most of the people that work with me do some rolling every day. I mean, including myself and my husband, who’s my partner in business, but Yeah, amazing. It’s a lifestyle. Yeah, no,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

and but that this has been like my, my plea to the world is that there is a lifestyle change that needs to happen for women after 40 End of story, your hormones are going away, you’re losing neurotransmitters, you’ve got to learn how to build a life that adapts to that loss, we can put a patch on it that can help but we still have this lifestyle. And what I’m hearing now is stimulating the mechanical receptors is part of that adaptation breath is part of that adaptation. And so I love that you’ve put these manuals together for us, so that we can lean into both those books and we’ll leave links for your books to sort of show us how where we can can get a door in what one of my curiosities in and something I’ve been thinking a lot about this year is the memory that fascia has of trauma. And you know, if you look at the old theories around Rolfing, you mentioned earlier on that there’s emotion stored in our fascia as well. So talk to us a little bit about what we need to know just about emotional stuff that might come up. As we start to roll and breathe into fascia. Have you seen people have emotions come up and out of them?

Jill Miller  

Yeah, so I would probably frame the frame the question or frame the response around, you know, you know, I’ve dissected a number of bodies, and when I’m in there, I don’t see the emotion, I just write the fat. That’s just what to say, like, I think that, you know, we, you know, there’s, there’s some old myths in the yoga space, like, oh, well, your dad’s and your left hip, mom’s and your right hip, and I don’t really subscribe to that that’s a truth. What I do know is that with these 250 million sins, sensory nerve endings in your fascial tissues, when you’re rolling, you’re not just increasing range of motion, but you will be rolling and experiencing a range of emotion. And you don’t necessarily know why, where for how are what the is emerging from you. But it’s very important to honor the responses that your body has, as you contact the places within yourself that you might not let other people touch. And I think that’s just so highly valuable to be able to track yourself to treat yourself and to sense yourself. So that you are in total ownership of the experience of the being the giver and the receiver of this sensitive touch, light touch, deep touch, whatever it is that that that that pleases you. And that feeds your interest, your curiosity. So yes, I see it all the time. And that is a honestly the one of the biggest motivations for writing body by Brett when I wrote the role model. And I started writing this. Oh, my God. 2000 you Bucha Okay, so this book is 10 years old. I started writing it 12 years ago, the role model. And I put a call to action out to my students all over the world, hey, how has rolling helped your body or your life? And I expected people to send in answers like, oh, it helped me recover from my knee surgery or it prevented my back surgery or, you know, I used it during chemo and it was very, you know, helpful for this and that I really expected a lot of these sort of clinical answers. Every story I gotten this, this book is loaded with testimonies. Every story I got had a huge emotional component, huge self regulation component. And, and I know that was true for me, because I came to rolling because of my own eating disorders. I started doing abdominal massage, because I was bulimic and I couldn’t feel my abs. And when I was in Pilates and I needed to figure out a way to connect the dots to connect in this hemisphere of you know, this part of my life which was my brain trying to control everything. And then this body underneath that was just struggling and following urges. And so for me, the self massage was the thing that brought me into a sense of wholeness with myself. And I really wanted to know, why was that? Why is the self touch so emotionally regulating. And so body by breath was partly born at that investigation of why were so many people using these as a soothing mechanism as a coping mechanism, not just to help with their neck pain, or why were they helping their neck pain, and all the sudden, they started to cry, and they started to process things. And so when you say the Body Keeps the Score, this is very much in line with the the touch therapy, the somatic psychotherapy space of realizing that the body does hold a motion, the body thinks and feels it’s not just that we have all these stories in our head, our body tells the story, that it’s sometimes it’s very difficult for an individual to be able to hear their own story to process their own story. And this work, I think, gives you a framework for creating the time and the space to be able to do that for yourself. And then if you need to seek additional help, if you need a counselor or a therapist, or group, I encourage you in the book, I have resources of you know, you know, people in the somatic psych space that can help you process this range of emotion that is suddenly showing itself to you.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Yeah, that’s so so beautifully said, Okay, where do people find these books? I’m like, I’m creating Christmas lists in my head as you’re talking. I’m like, okay, this person I know needs it. Where do they find the books? And where do they find the balls? Because I think you’ve referred to the balls a couple of times. Yes. So we’ll leave links for everything but just verbally how do we how do we get to your resources? Yeah,

Jill Miller  

I have a big website, tune up. fitness.com So my company has tuned up fitness and I teach online classes once a week. I also have a mentor program where we get together we discuss all this, all this work. There’s a number of trainings that are available on the site Brock was on your staff knows Katie Bowman. I’ve done a program with her called Walking Well, I referenced Tom Meyers earlier we have a program called Rolling along the Anatomy Trains. My friend Kelly Starrett who wrote the foreword to the role model we have a program called treat while you train. I even have a hit Program funny either with a physical therapist friend of mine, Dr. Jennifer brony called rollin to hit so the books are those those are available all those programs and balls are on Tune Up fitness.com role models available into nothingness.com body by breath is not available on our website because it is so heavy. This is yeah

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

got sent to me it was really heavy. Yes. So it’s a

Jill Miller  

hardback. And so you can the best price that that can be done as on Amazon, so we can’t beat Amazon’s prices so we don’t carry it. And you can also find it Barnes and Noble target Walmart and then all over the world. Can’t remember the European websites. But there are certainly available all over the world through I think Blackwell’s dot UK.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Yeah, beautiful. Well, this was fascinating. So thank you for taking a hormonal perspective with me in this conversation. You know, I’m really trying to give women over 40 solutions, and and really understanding our body and wow. So you know, the changes to our fascial system, I did not expect to hear what you presented to us today. So thank you for that. Well,

Jill Miller  

you’re amazing to bounce this stuff off of and I just I’m so excited by what I learned from you today, too. So I promise I’m gonna keep going down thistrack. And hopefully I’ll discover and learn more, and then we can do a share, you know, do it a year from now, or so, you know,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

I think the question that I have keep coming back to is if estradiol stimulated every organ system, what do we need to do to backfill in and and we can still put the patch on, we can still take the creams, but we still have to have this conversation about lifestyle and it’s intricate. And what I’m hoping everybody hears is that a lot of the symptoms that show up for us, we put in the category of a gene, or or we are so troublesome they affect our life. And we don’t understand why. And what I’m trying to do is help people understand why because the body doesn’t do anything by mistake. When you are bloating. It wasn’t like all of a sudden, you know the powers that be was like I’m gonna give you a distended abdomen today. It’s it there’s something that the body is trying to tell us and you just gave me a whole nother piece of that so I really appreciate it. I got to finish with my favorite question. I love knowing people’s superpower. Do you what’s your superpower? Do you think that you bring to the world?

Jill Miller  

Oh my goodness. playfulness.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Yay. Amazing. We need more of that we need and how does that show up for you because a large team Do you see me play with my balls Mindy? Sometimes my kids, my grandkids are 23 and 21. They’ll be like, Mom, you’re like, you’re like a grown kid. And I’m like, Yeah, I there’s like this little kid in me sometimes that doesn’t want to work, doesn’t want to do anything. He just wants to goof around. So I’m trying to learn how to bring her out more because the adult life made her quite serious. So I love hearing that you have that playfulness as your superpower. That’s beautiful. Well, thank you and I will send everybody to tune up fitness.com and get your books and I’m several people listening to this probably already received a present from me. So appreciate you, Joe. Thank you, Mindy. Keep up the good work.

Jill Miller  

Thank you. You too.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.