Unlocking Better Sleep: Craniosacral Therapy, Airway Health, and Structural Balance

Welcome back to Breathing for Better Sleep. I’m Dr. Fred Eck, and today we’re delving into a fascinating, often misunderstood topic within the world of sleep and health- craniosacral therapy. Many people think of sleep issues like snoring, sleep apnea, and airway problems as purely medical, but there’s a growing awareness that the structures of our skull and nervous system play a critical role as well.

Joining me is Dr. James Cima, a seasoned expert in cranial structural dynamics and author of Achieving Unlimited Health. Together, we explore how the movement of cranial bones, flow of cerebrospinal fluid, and balance of the autonomic nervous system can influence sleep quality and even broader aspects of health like TMJ, headaches, and sinus issues. Whether you’re a patient struggling with insomnia or a healthcare provider curious about integrating new therapeutic approaches, this episode will shed light on the pivotal connections between structure, breathing, and deep restorative sleep. Stay tuned for an enlightening conversation that might just reshape how you think about sleep and overall well-being.

00:00 Discovering Cranial Work's Importance

03:54 Getting involved with TMJ work

08:21 Cerebral spinal fluid explained

10:58 Balancing the nervous systems

14:18 Understanding Insomnia and Misdiagnosis

19:02 The importance of proper breathing

20:26 Addressing sleep apnea challenges

25:26 Impact of TMJ work on balance

27:45 Cranial sacral therapy benefits

32:03 Cranial sacral therapy explained

35:42 Patient recovery timeline and advice

38:11 Addressing early disease detection

Podcast Website - https://breathingforbettersleep.com/

Dr. Fred Eck - Website - https://sleeptreatmentdirect.com/dr-fred-eck/

Podcast Media Partner: TopHealth - https://www.tophealth.care/

“Disclaimer: Informational only. Not medical advice. Consult your doctor for guidance.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

You see a child who's got chronic ear issues, so that you need to put ear tubes in a child.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

If anybody tells you that the cranium moves, they're crazy. But it it was just basically a physiologic structure.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Someone will come in and say, Oh, I have insomnia. Well, by definition, if you have insomnia, you're not sleeping, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Parapractic was only dealing with 20% of the nervous system, 80% of your nervous systems in the cranium.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

They have a lot of correlation between people with airway issues, TMJ stuff, and the vertigo, as you mentioned. I mean, it starts with the ear issues, it starts with the hip. Hello, and welcome back to Breathing for Better Sleep. I'm Dr. Fred Eck, your host, and as always, we're exploring the root causes of sleep apnea, snoring, and airway-related sleep issues. Today's conversation is a little different. We're stepping slightly outside of the traditional sleep medicine to explore a topic that many patients are curious about but don't fully understand craniosacral therapy. As someone who focuses on airway and breathing, I'm always interested in how structure, the nervous system, and function all connect, especially when it comes to sleep. So today, I'm joined by Dr. James Sima, who has spent decades studying cranial structural dynamics, cerebral spinal fluid movement, and how these systems may influence overall health. He's also the author of Achieving Unlimited Health and has written extensively on the cranial concept. Dr. Sima, welcome. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today. Welcome, Doc. Thank you. This is something that has just come to my attention more recently in the last year or so, this concept of cranial sacral therapy, um, and how it can be used in the world of airways, sleep, snoring. Um, and we have a lot of our patients who are focused on overall health and dementia and Alzheimer's prevention and all kinds of stuff. So be curious to get your take on a lot of this stuff today.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

No, it'd be great. It would be great, yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Before we get into the clinical side of things, can you share a bit about your background and what led you to focus on cranial structural work?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

That well, you know, that kind of goes back when I first started chiropractic school. That was one of the first classes, and one of the doctors that was up there, he was teaching osteology and and anatomy, and he he said something and it kind of like just took me by surprise, and I didn't even know why he said it. He goes, If anybody tells you that the cranium moves, they're crazy. And instead of like turning me off to that, it kind of made me wonder, like, you know, why would he even say something like that? So as I was going through chiropractic school, I was learning a lot about different techniques, and there was one technique, procedures called sacroacceptable technique, and he discussed the cranial psychomechanism. And it was like an incredible eye-opening experience because I looked at the cranium not just as a just one solid piece of bone, but it it was just basically a physiologic structure that went through motions and movements and changes throughout your your life. And so I started to really get interested in it because there were many reasons for for us to even get involved in, because number one, chiropractic was only dealing with 20% of the nervous system, whereas when you start utilizing cranial, there's 80% of your nervous systems in the cranial. And you also have all your master ones, your endocrine glands, your pituitary, hypothalamus, and pymeal, that's also involved with a lot of different aspects of your overall health, whether it's going to be sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, etc. And also they have your 12 pairs of cranial nerves, they even have the base of the skull, which basically allow you to experience, smell, taste, touch, etc., etc. So it was kind of like uh an eye-opening experience. And when they were talking about cranial motion, it was like, well, how does the cranium move? And why would it move? Because most people don't even think it's movable. So that really got my attention, and I just started to study cranial work. I started to go these seminars outside of school because they weren't teaching us then up in school. And um, you know, I got to a point where I said, this is what I want to practice for the rest of my life. Um it happened that one doctor who was down here, he was working with two or three different dentists on the TMJ web. And uh he had said to me, he goes, No, I'm looking for another doctor that was in craniopathy and to help work with, you know, with these dentists because they really love what I do, but I don't even have the time to work with. So I spoke to him, he said, Why don't you come down the solid and walk? So I spent a relationship. Well, it did come down, they really didn't work out, but it got me down here and met a whole bunch of different doctors that were really interested in 2MJ. Not only that, but a lot of the uh legal profession was getting involved with TMJ World 2 because uh they realized a lot of accidents besides griplash, there was a pandemic to MJ. And 2MJ, as you know, has a lot of influence on the cranium, but also like people you're speaking about breeding and everything else that that's involved with it. So those are some of the reasons why I did get involved with cranium directly and was like this and I opened experience. And I realized had I not done that, it would have really impacted my own and the health of my family too, as well. And I always told, you know, like when I speak to doctors about cranial, because I do I still teach it. Um I'll always ask them, I have like maybe 50, 75, 80 doctors, they'll I'll say, how many two candy I want? I can very few raise their hands. And the reality is that the few that raise their hands, the majority don't even know what they're doing anyway. But it it's it's a phenomenal field, and I know it can help with sleep apnea and things like that. We'll dive into that as we go on with the show. But that's pretty much my my my agenda, how I got involved in.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Uh so yeah, this I'm I'm amazed that when I speak to doctors, and what we do when we treat airway is we're doing a lot of epigenetics, which is stimulation among the stem cells in the um cranial sutures, um, all of them, including the palate and everywhere else, and um we can improve cranial strain a little bit through doing this and help with some skeletal asymmetries. And when we have um physicians um among patients, you know, reach up to us and tell us that what we could do can't work, yet the skull's fused and they have no concept, then these structures are are pretty much not fused all the way until about death. And and in fact, they have simple area and then actually moves when you breathe. So yeah, that's amazing. And there's so much science out there that at this point, when somebody wants to argue with me about it, I just send them a couple papers, um Stanford and a number of other people. That that departments have done a lot of research on this, so I don't need to try to convince them, but yeah, it's a it's uh important thing, and I think it's gonna be something that can help because we have a lot of sleep patients that their root cause can be so multifactorial, and I think this whole kind of posture and skeletal issue is just something that's missed by most people. Uh, one of the ideas that you've written about is that the skull isn't completely rigid, there may be subtle motion with the cranial system. That that also talk about cerebral spinal fluid as a dynamic system rather than a static one. Why is this important when we think about overall health?

SPEAKER_00 8:03

That that well the cerebral spinal fluid is what battery acid is to a battery, and we we constantly produce it and it flows out, you know, from the the what they call the lateral ventricles in the brain, and it goes all the way out down the spinal cord, out through the spinal nerves, embeds the spinal nerves and the peripheral nerves all the way to the very end, and then they're re-in it's reinvent uh uh reinvested into the uh lymphatic system and then just flush out of the body. But the cerebral spinal fluid, as long as it keeps on being produced and keeps on flowing properly from the brain down to the sacrum and back from the sacrum, back up to the brain, and all the all the pathways going out for all your cranial nerves, everything is fine, then the nerves will fire and everything will be fine. So it's not, you know, again, with the chiropractic, it was always like, you know, bone on nerve. But that's not the that's not the the gist of the problem. Gist of the problem is the lack of cerebral spinal fluid flow going out of that nerve route, affecting whatever organ it is, whatever muscle it is, or whatever else it's going to be, you know, it's gonna be your skin, it doesn't really matter, circulatory system. But the reality is that that's what really creates a lot of the neurological issues in the body. And if you don't have this proper, you know, let's say flow of cerebral spinal fluid, which is basically, you know, really produced by cranial motion and move through cranial motion. And without the cranial motion, CSF can't flow. It's just an impossibility.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

From a sleep perspective, we often talk about the nervous system, especially the balance between being in a stressed, you know, heightened uh fight or flight or sympathetic nervous system mode versus a relaxed state, right? When we sleep we're supposed to be in parasympathetic mode, how do you see the cranial work influencing that balance?

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Are there certain No, that's perfect because you know you see it now. It's kind of funny. I mean, I've been doing this for five decades, but now all of a sudden it's like, oh, the vagus nerve, the vagus nerve, the vagus nerve, everything's the vagus nerve now. And it's as we've been working with the vagus nerve for 50 years. And the vagus nerve is is basically part of what you call your autonomic nervous system, which controls the fight or flight mechanism. Because if you don't have a proper balance of sympathetic and parasympathetic outflow to the body, you can't, you it's a tug of walk. And if you have one overpowering the other, you're going to be in that, you know, like you said, a fight or flight mode. And even when you're laying down at night, you think you're sleeping. You're not sleeping. Your body's on full tilt. And it's because of this, the dynamic of the autonomic nervous system being really impinged, you know, from lack of cranial motion, because the vagus nerve comes right out of what they call the accepulomastoid suture, which is right at the base of the skull, along with uh along with the uh your most important, let's say, outflow of blood from the cranium, your jugular foramen, which is your jugular vein, are there 60% of the blood flow out of the cranium? It gets all locked up in that area. Well, you irritate the vagus nerve and you stimulate the parasympathetic outflow pattern, you're gonna cause problems with your heart, you're gonna cause problems with your breathing, you're gonna cause problems with everything. So our goal way back when was the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system to have to be balanced. And one of the ways you do that is with the cranial sacral mechanism. There's other ways that we work with that, but that was the key because you got to work with the vagus nerve, you gotta work with the parasympathetic outflow pattern and the what they call the sacral plexus, and you gotta work with the sympathetic outflow pattern from you know the thoracic spine down to the lumbar spine. And they have to be balanced. If they're not balanced, I don't care who you are, what you are, what you eat, because everything in in it today is like, you know, you turn on TV, it's diet. It's medication, it's diet, it's medications. They never talk about this whole physical thing, Doctor. What we're discussing. I mean, this is like this is like science that most people don't even realize is around. But this is the this is the gist of it. And if you create that balance, you know, you'll be fine, you'll be able to sleep a lot better based on you know autonomic nervous system control where you kind of control that. And also today in today's world, it's very difficult because you just stimulate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You turn on the TV, it's just like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just like everybody's yelling at everybody, it just gets crazy, and you just never stop. You know, they were talking about who just passed in the um what was his name? Ted Turner. Oh, he was the one that started 24 hour news. Yeah. And I mean, he lived to a ripe old age, thank God for him. But it's kind of like, you know, we're in this mode now. It's like we're just, you know, instead of being chased by the lion like every once in a while back in the olden days, now you're chased by the lion needle when you're sleeping. You just bomb, it's just after you, just after you. So it really plays, you know, havoc with that. And then you throw in, like, you know, you're talking about with the breathing stuff. I watch most people breathe, Doc. They don't breathe no. They don't even breathe. They can't be. I mean, cranial work is basically a balance between inhalation, exhalation. The first thing you do when you're born, you inhale, less than you do when you die is you exhale. And life should be a balance between both of those. And that's what cranial motion is all about. It brings you into what they call an inhalation phase and exhalation phase. If you're locked in one of those phases, you're going to be locked up in a situation where it's going to affect all the neural neurological output, you know, from the brain to the rest of the body.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

So we see we see we see one of the most common sleep disorders outside of even sleep apnea is insomnia, you know, and people uh not being able to sleep, stay asleep, or even if they sleep, somebody will come in and say, Oh, I have insomnia. Well, by definition, if you have insomnia, you're not sleeping, right? But these people will do a sleep test and they slept six and a half hours. So they don't have true insomnia because they're sleeping, but they feel like they're not sleeping because this balance is just not there between the fight and the parasympathetic. And I see the what you just mentioned is very important. People are not breathing properly, and and how we're supposed to breathe, and one of the techniques then we utilize a couple providers that do a lot of myofunctional therapy to try to retrain proper breathing. Slow down our breathing. Most people are just breathing too much, they're breathing too fast.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

No, you're right. Get that slowed down. When you're stressed out of your mind, what that's all you're doing. You were just chased down the block by a tiger. You're just like, oh my god. It's like, what are you breathing for? You're not doing anything. Yeah, it's funny, but that's the truth.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Now, um, before I move on to this this next question, it's it's funny because I see these uh people and these yoga instructors, and they're teaching people to breathe, breathe, breathe. Like they're their yoga instructors are supposed to be teaching them relaxation and they're teaching them how to breathe completely wrong. Like to breathe more, you know, to breathe better, we have to breathe less, actually. Slow it down, you know. Oh, you're right. That's that's exactly what you're supposed to do. Do you see a connection between structural tension in the head and the neck and the spine, and how well someone is able to achieve a deep restorative sleep?

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Oh yeah. No, it it's if you can break a lot of the fixations up within the neck and the shoulder and the upper thoracic spine and just do a lot of deep, what they call deep tissue work. And even with the pectorals and things like that, they just break up a lot of reflexes to the lungs. Uh, people they'll walk out of my office and I don't care what time of the day it is, they'll walk out. If you break all those reflex patterns up, they want to go to bed, they don't want to go to work. They're just like, okay, I'll feel nice and relaxed now. Because you did take a lot of tension and stress off the sympathetic as well as the parasympathetic portions of the other number of nervous system. And you to answer your question, yes, these people's sleeping habits, they'll the the best way to sleep is on your back. Most people too can't sleep on their back, okay, for various reasons, but you know, part of it has to do with what what we're discussing too. You can't you know you can't breathe. So you kind of turn to the side, and a lot of times, depending on the structure of your spine and and the pillows and all the rest, you can't breathe that way, so you flip to the other side. And some people get really bad, they just sleep on their bellies and really throw their neck and their upper back totally out of alignment. So it's if you can get people to start breathing, and and also that there was a nice relaxation technique, and you'll breathe in for a count of five, exhale for a count of ten, like you were just talking about, and now just slow everything down. And within like you know, doing that for maybe 10 to 15 respirations, you automatically feel yourself calming down. So, but yeah, that that's a that's a big issue because you can't if you can't get, you know, if you can't get comfortable and you can't breathe properly, you're gonna be tossing and turning. And then, like you said, they can be in the sleep, but they're not getting into that real deep, you know, deep sleep where they can, you know, get their bodies to really repair. This is what I see a lot a lot. I'll I'll talk to patients and I'll I'll tell them because when I'm doing a lot of training at work, we we have them assist by breathing. I'll have them breathe and I'll say, Okay, what I want you to do is you ever taught how to breathe? People who dance, they'll say, Oh yeah, I breathe into my belly. And then the the people in the yoga they'll say, Well, you're you're supposed to breathe in your nose and you exhale out of your mouth. No, no, no, you're not supposed to do that. You and you're not supposed to fill up your belly with oxygen or air, which is you know God made your nose to breathe, he made your mouth to eat and talk. You don't eat and talk through your nose, and you don't breathe through your mouth. And so when you breathe, the purpose of breathing is to get the cranium to move until we talk about flexion and exhalation, is bringing it into extension. And how that's basically achieved is through proper breathing habits. And let's put it this way I mean, it doesn't cost you any money to breathe right now. I mean, I think our government's gonna eventually charge us for the oxygen. Yeah, but now it's still free. So to breathe is is one of the best things you can do to help improve overall health and like breathing techniques, like you were just discussed, for overall health would be you know ten times better than going on a lot of these crazy kind of diets or exercise programs that people go on. So, and I would just watch people, I say, now I want you to breathe. And when they breathe, they don't even expand their chest, Doc. They're like their stomach sticks out, and they don't even and they're taking a deep breath. And I'm saying, no, breathe into your chest. You got to get the oxygen up into your lungs. You can't have it in your belly, it's gotta be up over here. And they go, okay. And then they start to realize, oh, I can get air up there. So they're not even getting oxygen to their into their lungs, not even to fill their lungs, to just to just to when they're in a relaxed state. Forget about if they're in a a state of uh you know exercise or you know, pushing themselves.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

So one the one thing uh uh you remember what I was gonna say, uh the you made the point about we're designed to breathe as far as our cranium goes and our nervous system, we are designed to breathe better on our back and sleep on our back. But you know, for somebody who treats airway problems, uh and we do a sleep test, many of our patients are actually worse and they get more breathing disorders, uh, more breathing events when they're on their back. So oftentimes we teach people to get a positional pillow to keep them off their back so that their apnea events are less. So they're kind of those two things go against each other. So I guess we gotta start focusing on finding a way that we can get them to sleep on their back and get rid of those apnea events, you know, on their back. One of the things I always preach about is treating sleep disorders and not just managing the symptoms, right? You're managing a symptom, you're not actually fixing a problem once you get them off their back. So yeah, that's that's very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Well, you know, I also too as as I'll tell them, I'll say, look, I have to sleep on my side. So I said, well, start on your back. And I said, and then get yourself comfortable, get pillows underneath your knees, get a nice comfortable pillow behind your neck, and to support your neck and your upper back, and start that way. If within like half hour, an hour I can't do it anymore, then like we I'll have we I have a body pillow myself, and I'll have that on my side. So when I go in my side, whether it's the left or the right, I'll get into a position where I feel like, okay, my pelvis is balanced, my spine is balanced as much as possible, and my head and neck feel comfortable. And so I I do that too as well. I educate the patients as far as that goes, too. But I also educate them too, as far as like, okay, yeah, I want you to make sure if they're having a lot of neck stiffness and upper back, yeah, that's gonna be natural. be hard for them to sleep on their back. It's going to be hard for them to sleep in a lot of different positions. But that would be something that would kind of help them, you know, feel a lot better. And a lot of times the exercises that a lot of people do, they're traumatizing themselves way too much, way too much. You know, and and it's they're hurting themselves and they think that they're helping, but they're not.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Yeah, when people are they do a lot of exercising you know late in the day or in the evening, you know, I always tell them that that that's going to affect their sleep. You know, they're they're they're they're off to walk out earlier in the day, not right before you go to sleep.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

No, no. I I used to try to do that every once in a while. Back in the day I would basically okay train at night and I come home and I say well I train I'll eat good and I'll go to sleep. Wrong. You stay up until like one o'clock in the morning go what am I doing? I'll go back to training in the morning. I'd love to train the whole day anyway.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Most of most of what we do is revolves around reading disorders and a lot of snoring complaints. But we do also in as a relationship there's a big comorbidity between jaw problems, headaches, TMJ, and sleep disorders. So I spend a lot of time looking at jaw position, bite, and airway space. It's a combination. How do you see the relationship? How do you see the relationship between dental structure that I'm speaking of in the cranial system?

SPEAKER_00 23:28

No, it's it's it's part of the whole thing. You know it it's the one of the first places besides the cervical spine, I'll check the TMJ right away. I'll check the massetus I'll I'll check the temporals I'll check the condyles I'll check and see if it they're coming off the disc. Because the minute they they they affect the TMJ, MaxL is going to be affected, the zygomas are going to be impacted, and then you get you're not going to have you know the ethmoid process is going to be impacted too as well. And so all your sinus congestion will just start right then and there. And if you don't break a lot of that stuff up and realign the the uh the especially the TMJ you know get that into a normal position there's no way it's just going to constantly pull on on the on the uh on the uh cranium constantly and usually in most people are unilateral chewers and so they'll tend to chew on one side and they'll tend to lock up that portion of the cranium. And as soon as I palpate that side and the majority of times it's on the left side. But as soon as I palpate whether it's going to be the temporalism sphenoid or it's going to be the the frontal bone and the zygoma I can just palpate the different sutures and see where it's locked up. And then from there we start to free things up. After more we realign the jaw and and the whole cranial facial structure all of a sudden the pains go away the neuralgias go away the the you know if they have Bell's palsy that clears up a lot quicker. Especially in today's world people have a ton of problems with hearing and as well as balance in their 60s, 70s and 80s. By doing TMJ work and the temporal work, you can really have a big impact, especially on their balance, which is really important because you know that's what causes people as they get older until they get up and they fall down. And then when they fall they break things and and when they get concerned about being able to balance and stay in a balanced state. A lot of that happens with problems with cranium from the day they were born.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

I see a lot of correlation between people with airway issues, TMJ stuff and the vertigo as you mentioned and and ear issues. I mean it starts with the ear issues it starts with the kids you know when you see a child who's got chronic ear issues as soon as you need to put ear tubes in a child we've got to start looking at airway space you know the eustacean tube finishes from the outside of the ear and then finishes in the posterior nasal space. So when there's room there and the midphase is not developed right then the the the eustacean tube can't drain itself properly release pressure properly and they've got chronic ear issues.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

So I see a miscorrelation with the ear stuff and the vertigo with a yeah my uh my daughter and son are chiropractic physicians too as well my daughter deals with pediatrics and obstetrics and and she deals with a lot of children and a lot of them have ear issues and she works on them and say them going in and and uh you know getting antibiotics or whatever they they come the hood get the treatment and the ears drain.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

For patients dealing with sleep apnea or breathing related sleep issues how do you see cranial sacral work fitting into that bigger picture?

SPEAKER_00 27:03

That that no it would definitely it would help it would help the majority of the patients it have to. Because if if you have any kind of cranial sacral problem which you you you have to have there's no doubt in my mind and the longer you're on this planet guarantee there's there's going to be cranial sacral issues you have to get them treated. And if you don't get them treated things just progressively get worse. But how long what kind of quality do you want in your life? And so when you're getting up into your later years of life you know the things that do that concern you are things that are related to the cranial sacromechanism. A lot of it's got to do with the cranium the whole cranial sacral mechanism the more it becomes calcified and ossified and doesn't move the way it's supposed to the greater the chance of you developing you know some kind of dementia or or whatever you want to call it senility way before your time. And that's what's happening with a lot of people so a lot of it's nutritional don't get me wrong there's a lot of chemical stuff that's also causing that but nobody's even looking at the cranial stuff. Not that I mean not at all. You're one of the few doctors that I that I I've met that that's like kind of like saying oh yeah this whole thing makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Well it just you know for somebody who's treated TMJ and headaches and and airway for so long and and you start doing the normal stuff and it's not working for this person or that person, you know you got to start looking for answers. And I just found this to be a big a big part of it for those for those patients. Are there certain types of patients that you feel are more likely to benefit from this kind of approach? So if I'm treating an airway a TMJ patient uh this year um are there some people that or is there something you can look for to see if this would benefit somebody more than another person?

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Are there certain are there certain if if they're complaining of headaches, you know, and they're they're complaining of let's say TMJ or a lot of tightness around the base of their skull are there certain typical size there's going to be a whole cranial thing. Are there certain they have numbness or they have most of the time and also allergies. Are there certain these people have tons of allergies because you know the when the cranium can't move are there certain are there certain certainly the flow is real spinal fluid and circulation is impacted which your sinus is going to drain. Are there certainly just fill up and they fill up and then eventually you get bacteria and carbon and stuff like that and then you'd wind up with an infection. Are there certainly start doing the cranial work you get all the sinuses and you'll know exactly how to drain the sinus coming from is the diagramatic sinuses, the frontal sinuses, you know whatever it is is it was it the the anterior cerebral train, myal chain, posterior chain we get an idea of where and how to drain the sinuses would just flush a lot clicker. And then you can get over all that kind of you know infection and things like that. So you don't need to go out and you know a lot of times because a lot of people have a lot of sinus problems, it's hard for them to breathe. How they they they can't breathe. You know it's like I can't I need to and then if I have to take any kind of a steroid or some kind of you know nasal decongeston that's going to play more havoc with my sinus and but down the line. Yeah it's even breathe a little bit better but that's not going to help my problem at all.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

I tell patients that when they when they need uh to take something every day for allergies or sinuses uh you know that's a sign that all you're doing again is masking.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

And the question was um how would that how would you determine you know if a person that's doing cranium work is going to help benefit that patient?

SPEAKER_02 31:08

I'm saying is when how does a patient know what to expect? So when I say to a patient hey I'm gonna refer you for a craniosacral evaluation what does craniosacral treatment mean to them? They're gonna ask me what is that? What are they gonna do to me?

SPEAKER_00 31:24

What does it look like? That's a very good question. And the question it's it's it's based on when they come in it's gonna be an explanation it's gonna be a a a combination of show and tell and the question so I explain to them I'll say they'll we'll go through a complete case history and the question they'll usually come in they'll usually have either x-rays MRIs or or a CAT scan or what have you as far as imaging goes and they'll they'll they'll sit back and I'll do an examination on them. As I'm doing the examination I explained to them how it's impacting this part of the neck and that part of the cranium and then told them about how the cranium moves. And I was explaining I say when you when you breathe in the cranium moves one way and when you exhale the cranium moves another way and so they'll say well how do you know if it's moving or it's not moving well again now now this is comes where it's it's a palpatory skill that you develop over time. So it's like as soon as I touch their cranium they know it's like this is painful. This shouldn't be like that. And then I explain to them you know with with pitches or you know with you know anatomical shots exactly how it's impacting their problem and I explained to officer and I explained if I can get rid of the pain in those areas cranium will respond and your symptoms will get much better. And and it's it's basically a nice simple procedure it's like within an hour you have a really good understanding of what's causing your problem why it wasn't going away in the past and what we're going to do to correct it how long and how much. And the question that's pretty much what they want to know. So I got the question that I have about uh the cranial sacral therapy is this something that's typically done in an appointment over a series of appointments and the question and the question it would it would it would usually be uh I always tell patients I say you know it's very difficult to know how fast you're gonna get well you can get a good idea but I'll I'll usually go through twelve visits in the question in the course of a four to six week time frame and within that time frame you'd you would notice a vast improvement. Not that you're perfect but a vast improvement as to what's going on. But more importantly too doc is that I explained to them things that they can do in the question to improve their overall breathing or whatever it is their cranial stuff and starting from okay look you know what you want to do is calm yourself down. Don't get stressed out when you're eating you know if you have a TMJ problem you know watch how you're chewing chew slow chew you know little bites you don't go in there and grab a big bagel and just chomp away at it and just all these just just basic general things that pertain specifically to them. So they get they get a good understanding that every time they come in they can ask as many questions as they want as I'm working on. Because the more educated that they are the more they're gonna be able to do what I what they need to do. And it's a two-way street that that's the one thing when when I'm working with patients it's like it's not my body it's yours. You got to take care of it. I got enough problems taking care of my own. I'll show you what to do but I can't do it for you. So and and so it it takes a good amount of responsibility on their part whether it's going to be with exercise diet you know or you know mental emotional improvement in their overall ability to deal with the the stresses of their life and so they'll learn how to cope with it and deal with it.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

That's like you know most things and even what we do with the uh airway stuff there's you know when it comes to malfunctional therapy and breathing exercises the patients always got a part to do as well in that yeah that's that's that's the key.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Yep. If I have if I have a patient that's you know willing to you know do their bit then it the the job is done. It just takes some time for them to educate or be educated on what it is that they have to do and their part in this whole thing and and then they go from there.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

And the question What is one thing you wish more healthcare providers including those working with Sleep and Airway understood about this approach that they probably don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

And the question would it would dramatically help a lot of people because they just see it all the time. I I see a lot of uh you know again in in the medical establishment right now you know you're either in what they call in a pathological state where they've got to see a tumor or something growing in your body to do something about it and they're they're just ignoring this portion where you're going from the normal physiology into abnormal physiology and these things don't show up as tumors yet. They will eventually you know they'll show up as you know Alzheimer's or yeah you'll you have some kind of a tumor here or you have some kind of a problem there and you have some brain damage there or circulatory problems with it. So I I like you know I our our office right now is is a is a combination of functional medicine and also traditional medicine. So we have the you know the project of trying to get a proper blend of everything. So you know we have the option to go medical you have the option to go stem cell you have the option to go functional medicine exercise nutrition chiropractic care cranial work. So it's it's it's it's nice so it's it's kind of interwoven which is the way I feel medicine should be today. It should not be just all one way it should be a combination of both. And let the patient choose I tell every patient wants to go go for the surgery go for the surgery. But you're gonna have to do functional medicine after surgery you're still gonna have to go through rehab and you have to do a lot more work and you're gonna have to do it.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

So either way it's gonna be you I I I tell all our patients that we treat that pretty much this is always a multidisciplinary thing. You know if any one person says they're gonna fix everything about your sleep or whatever it it's usually a combination of two to three different doctors or therapists in order to absolutely somebody agree this has been it's nice if you paige this has been a really interesting conversation and a great reminder that the body works as an integrated system. While airway structure and breathing remain central to sleep health exploring how the nervous system and structural dynamics contribute can open up new perspectives for patients. If you found this episode helpful share it with someone interested in a more integrated approach to sleep and health to learn more about airway focused sleep care visit sleeptreatmentdirect dot com better breathing, better sleep better life thank you doc it's been very interesting