Episode 6

Myofunctional Therapy: How It Can Improve Your Breathing, Sleep, Relieve Migraines, and More with Dana Tasche

Dana Tasche is an Orofacial Myofunctional Therapist based in Bellevue Washington. 

Dana started her career as a dental hygienist and later earned her Masters of Science in order to become a professor of dental hygiene.

Seeing the benefits of myofunctional therapy on her own sleep and migraine issues, Dana shifted gears and became certified in myofunctional therapy. It is now her passion to help others find the root cause of their sleep issues, fatigue and tension.  

Simply put, orofacial myofunctional therapy is physical therapy for the muscles of the face and mouth, including the tongue and some of the neck muscles. Problems with these muscles can cause migraines, sleep issues, digestive issues, even ADHD symptoms.

Today we talk about how orofacial myofunctional therapy can help relieve these issues in children and adults, to improve sleep, reduce pain, and help you live a fuller life.

Where to find Dana:

Dana Tasche RDH, MSDH

Dana@upwardmyo.com

www.upwardmyo.com

Resources & Products Mentioned:

Dana’s Recommended Books:

  • "Breath" by James Nestor
  • "Breathe, Sleep, Thrive" by Dr. Shereen Lim
  • "The Oxygen Advantage" by Patrick McKeown 
  • “The Dental Diet” by Dr. Steven Lin

References:

Interested in working with Jeannie one on one? Schedule a 30-minute Coffee Talk here.

Connect with me on Instagram @joliverwellness and learn more about my practice here.

Music credit: Funk’d Up by Reaktor Productions

A Podcast Launch Bestie production

Transcript
Jeannie Oliver:

And Dana started her career as a dental

Jeannie Oliver:

hygienist, which is how I met her.

Jeannie Oliver:

She later earned her master's of science in order to become

Jeannie Oliver:

a professor of dental hygiene.

Jeannie Oliver:

Along her path to professorship.

Jeannie Oliver:

Dana stumbled into the myofunctional world after taking a continuing

Jeannie Oliver:

education course, which discussed oral myofunctional disorders.

Jeannie Oliver:

During this course, she realized that her longstanding tension migraines were

Jeannie Oliver:

not just from stress or her vocation alone, but stemmed from her dysfunctional

Jeannie Oliver:

facial and tongue muscles, seeing the benefits of myofunctional therapy on

Jeannie Oliver:

her own sleep and migraine issues.

Jeannie Oliver:

Dana shifted gears and became certified in myofunctional therapy.

Jeannie Oliver:

It is now her passion to help others find the root cause of their sleep issues.

Jeannie Oliver:

Fatigue.

Jeannie Oliver:

And tension.

Jeannie Oliver:

I am really excited for this interview for you to hear this

Jeannie Oliver:

episode because I learned a ton, and I know you're gonna learn a lot too.

Jeannie Oliver:

If you're someone who has struggled with migraines or ongoing tension, headaches,

Jeannie Oliver:

sleep issues, um, A D H D man, this is gonna be a fascinating episode for you.

Jeannie Oliver:

So without further ado, let's jump in.

Jeannie Oliver:

Hey everybody.

Jeannie Oliver:

Welcome back.

Jeannie Oliver:

Today on the nutrition edit.

Jeannie Oliver:

I am gonna be talking with Dana Tasha.

Jeannie Oliver:

Dana is an Orofacial Myofunctional therapist based in Bellevue, Washington.

Jeannie Oliver:

Hi.

Jeannie Oliver:

Welcome back to the Nutrition Edit, everybody.

Jeannie Oliver:

Today my guest is the fabulous Dana

Dana Tasche:

Tasha, welcome Dana.

Dana Tasche:

Thank you for having me.

Dana Tasche:

I'm, I am really excited to be here.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

I'm so excited to have you you know, we've been talking through this whole journey

Jeannie Oliver:

of yours through your master's program.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

And everything.

Jeannie Oliver:

I'm so fascinated by the work you do, and I'm really excited

Jeannie Oliver:

for you to share it with.

Jeannie Oliver:

Our listeners today.

Jeannie Oliver:

So thank you everybody.

Jeannie Oliver:

I'll give you a little bit of, history.

Jeannie Oliver:

So Dana has been my dental hygienist

Dana Tasche:

for That's right.

Dana Tasche:

What, like 10 years?

Dana Tasche:

Something like that?

Dana Tasche:

That at least, at least 10 years.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah, for sure.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

we've been, friends for at least a decade, intimately a while.

Dana Tasche:

I know your teeth.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Great teeth by the way.

Dana Tasche:

Everybody's listening.

Dana Tasche:

Just immaculate.

Dana Tasche:

Immaculate Home care.

Dana Tasche:

I, I'm always surprised.

Dana Tasche:

Oh, well, thank you.

Jeannie Oliver:

Thank you, thank you.

Jeannie Oliver:

I finally got the water pick

Dana Tasche:

thing going.

Dana Tasche:

Yes.

Dana Tasche:

So, um, you'd be proud of me.

Dana Tasche:

Hey, like, health starts in the, the oral environment, so there you go.

Jeannie Oliver:

Absolutely.

Jeannie Oliver:

Maybe one day we'll do a whole episode on the oral microbiome.

Jeannie Oliver:

I think

Dana Tasche:

that could be really, I can talk on that for hours.

Jeannie Oliver:

Fabulous.

Jeannie Oliver:

All right, great.

Jeannie Oliver:

We've got it on the books then.

Jeannie Oliver:

So, What we're talking about today is your new career, your new undertaking.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

and tell us a little bit about what myofunctional therapy is.

Jeannie Oliver:

Okay.

Jeannie Oliver:

give us a little history of how you got into this, how you discovered it.

Jeannie Oliver:

Et cetera.

Dana Tasche:

Well, there are several names for myofunctional therapy.

Dana Tasche:

Like the longest name is oral facial myofunctional therapy.

Dana Tasche:

So oral is, you know, mouth facials face, and then myo is right.

Dana Tasche:

So it's really physical therapy for the muscles of the face and the mouth.

Dana Tasche:

So including like the tongue and even some of the neck muscles.

Dana Tasche:

Um, so we call it like that.

Dana Tasche:

The oral facial complex is essentially what I'm working with.

Dana Tasche:

so essentially I'm helping people with sleep issues with tongue thrust.

Dana Tasche:

So a tongue thrust is when you swallow, when your tongue pushes forward on your

Dana Tasche:

front teeth, and that can cause lots of crowding and facial growth issues.

Dana Tasche:

Um, I'm helping people with digestive issues, A D H D symptoms or just.

Dana Tasche:

There's kind of a plethora of things because if you think about it,

Dana Tasche:

the muscles of your face and your tongue really dictate how you grow

Dana Tasche:

and develop when you're a child.

Dana Tasche:

And then depending on that growth and that habit, whatever has been habituated,

Dana Tasche:

when you're a kid that goes into adulthood now you still have that oral dysfunction.

Dana Tasche:

So you're either have what we call low tongue posture, which is your tongue is.

Dana Tasche:

Sitting low in your mouth all the time, which is actually not healthy.

Dana Tasche:

That's not how we should properly function.

Dana Tasche:

or you're having constant mouth breathing.

Dana Tasche:

So I actually help people stop that habit.

Dana Tasche:

and I help them work on nasal breathing.

Dana Tasche:

So you're really working on these muscles of the face, in the mouth,

Dana Tasche:

in the neck to come back to normal function another dysfunction.

Dana Tasche:

How I ended up getting into it was I was having.

Dana Tasche:

Incredible tension migraines.

Dana Tasche:

So I think if you think of like a dental hygienist, you know, we're bending

Dana Tasche:

over people all day and like my neck is cranked and my arms are up in this

Dana Tasche:

weird like chicken wing position, right?

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

So for years, cuz I've been doing dental hygiene for 13 years, I, I

Dana Tasche:

just thought, well, it's my job.

Dana Tasche:

You know, like no matter what, how many, I mean, I am a chronic massage person.

Dana Tasche:

I was going to massage therapist, like physical therapy, roling.

Dana Tasche:

I don't know if you know, like they work with fascia.

Dana Tasche:

Yes.

Dana Tasche:

I've had a lot of roling.

Dana Tasche:

So I was like deep into this like, like body working world cuz I was having

Dana Tasche:

so many tension migraines like Every time I would stop working, I would wake

Dana Tasche:

up and I would just have this crazy tension migraine starting from the nap

Dana Tasche:

of my neck, like where the occipital region is and like wrap around and like

Dana Tasche:

be in one eye and I would be nauseous.

Dana Tasche:

I can't think clearly, like, and you're just kind of in

Dana Tasche:

this weird, ugh, all the time.

Dana Tasche:

So for me, I'm like, oh, it's my job.

Dana Tasche:

Dental hygiene's just difficult.

Dana Tasche:

And I was talking to a friend who took a CE course, in myofunctional therapy and

Dana Tasche:

I'm like, well, this sounds intriguing.

Dana Tasche:

I'll do it too.

Dana Tasche:

So, During this course as I'm like learning all of these dysfunctional

Dana Tasche:

patterns and like, what are the signs and symptoms we call 'em

Dana Tasche:

MDs, oral Myofunctional Disorders.

Dana Tasche:

I'm thinking about myself and I'm like, this, literally

Dana Tasche:

I'm checking like every box.

Dana Tasche:

I'm like, yeah, um, my tongue's low.

Dana Tasche:

Didn't even know that it was supposed to be in the roof of my mouth.

Dana Tasche:

Like, what's that all about?

Dana Tasche:

Um, tension headaches.

Dana Tasche:

Shoulder, neck tension, all of the above.

Dana Tasche:

Like poor sleep.

Dana Tasche:

I thought I was just getting old.

Dana Tasche:

I'm 37 and, I thought it was stressed from, right, my master's program, so

Dana Tasche:

I was like, I have poor sleep because I'm getting old and I'm stressed

Dana Tasche:

out and I have a, a physical job and learning about myofunctional therapy

Dana Tasche:

and how it actually helps people with.

Dana Tasche:

Breathing, and oral function.

Dana Tasche:

I was like, that's me.

Dana Tasche:

And that was me as a kid, like total mouth breather, snort as a kid.

Dana Tasche:

had to have double upper and lower expansion cuz my palate was so narrow

Dana Tasche:

from mouth breathing for years.

Dana Tasche:

And that turned into migraines as an adult and poor sleep quality.

Dana Tasche:

So I started taking courses and getting certified in it and testing on myself.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Cause that's what we all do as scientists, right?

Dana Tasche:

Guinea pigs.

Dana Tasche:

Oh, I'm the same way.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Oh yeah.

Dana Tasche:

I'm like, I'll, I'll see if this is a bunch of crap.

Dana Tasche:

And, it took a lot of work and a lot of awareness and just, it was

Dana Tasche:

difficult at first because you have to just constantly be thinking about it.

Dana Tasche:

but it was wonderful for me, like now a year.

Dana Tasche:

Over a year later, I'm like at two years.

Dana Tasche:

my sleep is way different and just, just learning and like, we'll talk about like

Dana Tasche:

other things that we work with people in.

Dana Tasche:

it's changed my sleep quality.

Dana Tasche:

I don't get migraines anymore, which is unbelievable.

Dana Tasche:

I've, I've not had braces since, I haven't like changed anything like physically in

Dana Tasche:

my mouth other than like doing exercises and, and changing my breathing patterns.

Dana Tasche:

But, Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

And I'm still like, I'm still a hygienist.

Dana Tasche:

Right.

Dana Tasche:

I still work.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Crazy amount of hours.

Dana Tasche:

So it's, it's fantastic.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

And I'm like, everybody needs to know about this.

Dana Tasche:

This is an important thing to tell children and adults.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

It's incredible.

Jeannie Oliver:

I have so many clients that struggle with migraines.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

It's really common and

Dana Tasche:

often.

Jeannie Oliver:

They only have the symptoms addressed.

Jeannie Oliver:

Right?

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

Just the migraine, like people are treating the symptom without looking at

Jeannie Oliver:

what could be the root causes of this.

Jeannie Oliver:

Totally.

Jeannie Oliver:

And you know, sure.

Jeannie Oliver:

I'm, I'm sure that there are other possible root causes of migraines

Jeannie Oliver:

besides this, but, um, Speak in a little bit to, what are some of the other

Jeannie Oliver:

common conditions, so if people have migraines, that's definitely a big one.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

you mentioned sleep.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

Talk a little bit about, I know you had mentioned tongue ties.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

And where your, your tongue is sitting low.

Jeannie Oliver:

Uhhuh.

Jeannie Oliver:

Talk a little bit more about that.

Jeannie Oliver:

I'm fascinated because you told me that I have a small tongue

Jeannie Oliver:

tie and I was like, oh, okay.

Jeannie Oliver:

And I tend to be a mouth breather when I sleep.

Jeannie Oliver:

Uhhuh, know, had braces, had terrible crooked teeth as a kid.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

I did have migraines actually all the way through.

Jeannie Oliver:

not super frequently, but I would say,

Dana Tasche:

Maybe halfway

Jeannie Oliver:

through high school.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

I think they probably stopped when I was about 15 or 16.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

But it was often triggered by low blood sugar for me.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

Because I would just.

Jeannie Oliver:

Be out, running around and forget to eat and mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

Whatever.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

Active kid.

Jeannie Oliver:

But I would get that awful, you know, what they call the aura, aura

Jeannie Oliver:

kinda thing and lose my vision.

Jeannie Oliver:

And, I would just have to sleep it off.

Jeannie Oliver:

I couldn't be in lights.

Jeannie Oliver:

Um, I'd have to go into a dark room and it was pretty debilitating.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

And I'm so grateful they didn't happen frequently, but many of the people that

Jeannie Oliver:

I, I know who do suffer from migraines that can take them out for days at a time.

Jeannie Oliver:

Oh yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

Anyway, so talk a little bit more about that, because I'm really

Jeannie Oliver:

fascinated by the idea of the tongue position and the mouth breathing.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yes.

Dana Tasche:

So, okay, let, I'm curious to know how that works.

Dana Tasche:

I'm gonna slowly unravel that because Okay.

Dana Tasche:

There's layers to this.

Dana Tasche:

So let's start with proper tongue position.

Dana Tasche:

Okay.

Dana Tasche:

So, I'm a visual person.

Dana Tasche:

I'll show you something, but I'll be explaining what it looks like.

Dana Tasche:

So this is a, this is a mouth, so our mouth is a U shape, right?

Dana Tasche:

Like the, let's just say, so we call this like my, your upper palette or

Dana Tasche:

the roof of your mouth is a U shape.

Dana Tasche:

Okay?

Dana Tasche:

Your tongue is actually an organ.

Dana Tasche:

It is four paired muscles.

Dana Tasche:

it's a hydrostat, so a muscular hydrostat, which is kind of like, if you think

Dana Tasche:

about like an octopus's limb, you know?

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

There's no bony structure yet.

Dana Tasche:

It can do like dynamic movements, which is pretty fantastic.

Dana Tasche:

Or like, an elephant's trunk, which is pretty crazy.

Dana Tasche:

Okay.

Dana Tasche:

Okay, sure.

Dana Tasche:

So it will fill any space, kind of like pancake batter.

Dana Tasche:

now it should be, Up in the roof of your mouth and we, we

Dana Tasche:

call it lingual palatal section.

Dana Tasche:

So it should be suctioned to the roof of your mouth creating

Dana Tasche:

this, like vacuum intraorally, like in your mouth cavity, right?

Dana Tasche:

Sure.

Dana Tasche:

The reason for that is step against the of your mouth if

Dana Tasche:

it's not up here all the time.

Dana Tasche:

So let's say when you're a child and it's not suction to the roof of your mouth,

Dana Tasche:

your cheeks are always pressing in.

Dana Tasche:

And as your little cranium develops, this nice U-shape becomes more of a V-shape.

Dana Tasche:

So we call it like a very narrow palette.

Dana Tasche:

So now look at your tongue space is now restricted, so the more your mouth

Dana Tasche:

breathing or your tongue is low, it's not up in your palate like a natural.

Dana Tasche:

Retainer.

Dana Tasche:

your jaw starts to develop improperly and then the space kind of keeps

Dana Tasche:

on continuing to get smaller and smaller, and now that suction

Dana Tasche:

becomes harder and harder to achieve.

Dana Tasche:

Okay.

Dana Tasche:

Okay.

Dana Tasche:

So that's why you see little kids going into expanders.

Dana Tasche:

the reason why this is so important to breathing is a

Dana Tasche:

mouth breathing is just terrible.

Dana Tasche:

You know, there's much research on it nowadays.

Dana Tasche:

And James Nestor has a great book called Breath, which everybody should read just

Dana Tasche:

to like, have, it's a good introduction to why nasal breathing is important.

Dana Tasche:

He has some things I don't agree with, but like that's a great book to start with.

Dana Tasche:

Okay.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah, and I will, I'll give you that link too.

Dana Tasche:

the other thing, so now we've got the tongue up there.

Dana Tasche:

The tongue should be there during the day, so for you right now, like

Dana Tasche:

suction your tongue to the roof of your mouth, you make that light.

Dana Tasche:

TikTok sound and make it really sticky in your palette.

Dana Tasche:

You can't breathe through your mouth when it's suctioned.

Dana Tasche:

Okay.

Dana Tasche:

So it gives you a little lift of the chin Sure.

Dana Tasche:

It looks up and nice.

Jeannie Oliver:

that kind of double

Dana Tasche:

chin effect is what you're saying?

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

When your tongue is low, you have more of a double chin effect because you

Dana Tasche:

have all that big, giant, massive tissue just floating at the base of your mouth.

Dana Tasche:

So, Tongue up in the palate is good for nasal breathing.

Dana Tasche:

And the reason why we wanted nasal breath is because when you nasal

Dana Tasche:

breathe this up in your paranasal sinuses, up in that passage, that's

Dana Tasche:

where nitric oxide is produced.

Dana Tasche:

Uh, nitric oxide is so important for it transports Oxygen into the lungs

Dana Tasche:

via co2, like you need carbon dioxide.

Dana Tasche:

It's actually an important element.

Dana Tasche:

Mm-hmm.

Dana Tasche:

But when you nasal breathe, you get a, a deeper breath to your, and

Dana Tasche:

down into the depths of your lungs.

Dana Tasche:

So slower, deeper breath.

Dana Tasche:

You bring that nitric oxide down in there and it helps the CO2 bind with the oxygen

Dana Tasche:

molecule and co2 when it binds with the oxygen molecule, that's what's pushing it

Dana Tasche:

into your vessels and into your organs.

Dana Tasche:

So without oxygen binding with the co2, like you don't have oxygen.

Dana Tasche:

So kind of to go back to that is if you don't have proper oral rest

Dana Tasche:

posture, which is the tongue suctioned up into your palate, You get the poor

Dana Tasche:

facial growth because you don't have the tongue supporting all the boney

Dana Tasche:

structures when you're developing.

Dana Tasche:

Mm-hmm.

Dana Tasche:

Um, and therefore you can't maintain that suction and mouth

Dana Tasche:

breathing, ensues mouth breathing.

Dana Tasche:

It also triggers the sympathetic nervous system.

Dana Tasche:

So fight or flight.

Dana Tasche:

Yes.

Dana Tasche:

So you're kind of in this constant panic when your mouth breathing without

Dana Tasche:

knowing it, you have that upper chest all breathing, which is really bad.

Dana Tasche:

Right.

Dana Tasche:

In, you know, in contrast, nasal breathing, you're in the parasympathetic.

Dana Tasche:

Nervous system.

Dana Tasche:

So it's telling your body, rest and digest like, you're safe,

Dana Tasche:

you're calm, you're good to go.

Dana Tasche:

So the whole kind of migraine connection is really deep because if we have

Dana Tasche:

poor breathing in the day, You're gonna have poor breathing at night.

Dana Tasche:

So if you are kind of not oxygen, you can be oxygen deprived when you're sleeping.

Dana Tasche:

But let's say that that tongue that should be suctioned in your palate now is, is low

Dana Tasche:

and falling to the back of your throat.

Dana Tasche:

You're gonna have interrupted sleep.

Dana Tasche:

You're not gonna have that deep, beautiful restorative sleep, you know, to like stage

Dana Tasche:

three and then also right stage sleep.

Dana Tasche:

Which we need to repair our muscles and our bones and, and our brain

Dana Tasche:

connects and our memory is actually improved in that, those stages as well.

Dana Tasche:

So you are constantly woken up in those stages in migraines can happen from that.

Dana Tasche:

And that's when we normally see clenching and grinding.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

And it's that bruxism is what we call, it's the bruxism.

Dana Tasche:

I'm raising my

Jeannie Oliver:

hand because I tend to clench and grind.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

So it's just, that's your body's way of saying like, I can't breathe, or

Dana Tasche:

it's also saying like, your teeth are not fitting properly together, so.

Dana Tasche:

it's also clenching and grinding, so we can't just say

Dana Tasche:

it's just because of breathing.

Dana Tasche:

There's so many factors in that.

Jeannie Oliver:

okay, so Dana, you were just talking about

Jeannie Oliver:

the, what did you call it?

Jeannie Oliver:

Lip tide.

Dana Tasche:

Mm-hmm.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah, tell us little about that.

Dana Tasche:

There can be lip ties or tongue ties.

Dana Tasche:

Um, if you have a, like an upper lip tie, if it's really tight, which mine

Dana Tasche:

is, uh, when you smile, and this is what happens to me when I smile, my

Dana Tasche:

upper lip kind of disappears and you can see more of like a gummy appearance.

Dana Tasche:

If you are, we call it the freedom.

Dana Tasche:

If the freedom or the tie is tight enough, we can have that clipped,

Dana Tasche:

well, they can use a laser.

Dana Tasche:

Super simple.

Dana Tasche:

Really fast and it changes your smile dynamic.

Dana Tasche:

So when I smile after I get mine done, my upper lip will have more fullness to it

Dana Tasche:

and I won't have as much of a gummy smile.

Dana Tasche:

So it can be a cosmetic thing for me.

Dana Tasche:

It's more because I can't really, I have trouble closing my lips without

Dana Tasche:

my muscles having to compensate.

Dana Tasche:

Mm-hmm.

Dana Tasche:

Because it's, restricted from that movement.

Dana Tasche:

the tongue tie and why that's important is we talk about

Dana Tasche:

suctioning to the palate, right?

Dana Tasche:

Like, I want that tongue to function properly in the palate and, and always

Dana Tasche:

be there so you can breathe better.

Dana Tasche:

Opens the airway, brings the tongue out of the throat.

Dana Tasche:

If you are tongue is restricted by that little.

Dana Tasche:

Lingual freedom or the lingual tie, like it's really short or it's really like far

Dana Tasche:

back or right to the tip of the tongue.

Dana Tasche:

If it's restricting the tongue from going up and suctioning to your

Dana Tasche:

palette, then your tongue's always gonna wanna be dropping lower.

Jeannie Oliver:

And that's the little kind of thing underneath fleshy

Jeannie Oliver:

kind of vertical uhhuh thing that

Dana Tasche:

connects your tongue to your face, your mouth.

Dana Tasche:

We all have a tongue tie.

Dana Tasche:

we really only want to clip them or do surgery on them if

Dana Tasche:

you're not functioning properly.

Dana Tasche:

So a lot of my functional therapists have gotten the wrap of like,

Dana Tasche:

we're just gonna clip everybody's tongue ties, cuz that's what we do.

Dana Tasche:

Not really, we don't wanna do that unless you're, if it's impeding you

Dana Tasche:

from functioning and you're actually getting a lot of tension from your

Dana Tasche:

tie because that the freedom that tongue tie is made out of fascia.

Dana Tasche:

So your body has bone and around the bone is muscle, and around

Dana Tasche:

that muscle is the fascia.

Dana Tasche:

It's like a very like thin sheet of like plastic.

Dana Tasche:

It looks like plastic wrapped around your muscles, When that's

Dana Tasche:

really tight, you have all that like tightness underneath your chin.

Dana Tasche:

And you have musculature down there.

Dana Tasche:

So when you're swallowing 900 times a day and that fascia is really tight on

Dana Tasche:

that tongue, you're pulling, pulling, pulling these muscles on the side of the

Dana Tasche:

neck, pull to the back of that occipital region of the neck, base of the skull.

Dana Tasche:

This is why I was getting migraines.

Dana Tasche:

so every time I was swallowing, I was thrusting and my tongue wasn't

Dana Tasche:

functioning properly cuz I didn't know how to swallow properly.

Dana Tasche:

I know that sounds insane to say, but you're swallowing the tip of

Dana Tasche:

your tongue should always be right behind your front teeth on the

Dana Tasche:

tissue where that little bump is.

Dana Tasche:

I dunno if you can feel it with the tip of your tongue.

Dana Tasche:

There's like a little tiny bump, like right on the gums behind your

Dana Tasche:

two front teeth and the upper.

Dana Tasche:

That's the spot in the middle of your tongue should always be in contact

Dana Tasche:

with the palate as well as like far as back as you can go with the tongue.

Dana Tasche:

Okay.

Dana Tasche:

And then when you swallow, you should have like a wave-like pattern starting

Dana Tasche:

from the tip of the tongue, like going waving to the back of the throat.

Dana Tasche:

You should be able to swallow without any facial movement whatsoever.

Dana Tasche:

So, hmm, that's it.

Dana Tasche:

All right.

Dana Tasche:

So no like, no lips curling or cheeks pushing in.

Dana Tasche:

So with the tongue tie, if someone has a very restricted tongue tie and they

Dana Tasche:

are unable to function, and I can't get them, no matter how many exercises we

Dana Tasche:

do to push the tongue to the palette.

Dana Tasche:

when we clip that, here's what's crazy, and I, I'm glad we're mentioning this

Dana Tasche:

now, is a lot of people, after they get their tie released, they, they're like,

Dana Tasche:

wow, I can, I feel like for the first time in my life I can take a deep breath.

Dana Tasche:

so if you think about it, and I can send you a picture of this link.

Dana Tasche:

They did a whole dissection of a body, but, the fascia, the

Dana Tasche:

frontline fascia in our body, it's all connected in the frontline.

Dana Tasche:

It starts at the base of the tongue, the freedom, and it wraps down.

Dana Tasche:

The whole neck down and it wraps around your lungs and

Dana Tasche:

wraps around your diaphragm.

Dana Tasche:

So if you have this like swallowing, swallowing, swallowing,

Dana Tasche:

it's tight, tight, tight.

Dana Tasche:

We get a lot of people with this like forward head posture, so it's

Dana Tasche:

trying to open the airway and you get a lot of like rolled shoulders look.

Dana Tasche:

So if that's you, like, check your airway, check what's going on in your mouth.

Dana Tasche:

And we get a lot of those people saying like, I just have never been

Dana Tasche:

able to take a super deep breath.

Dana Tasche:

Like, they're always kinda like, like it's weird, like they feel

Dana Tasche:

they wanna take a deep breath, but it's not really happening.

Dana Tasche:

because that fascia stemming from your tongue that is so restricted

Dana Tasche:

and, and functioning improperly, is tightening that fascia all the way

Dana Tasche:

down to your front line of your body.

Dana Tasche:

So, like I said, around the diaphragm, down to your knee, down to your

Dana Tasche:

big toe is where this fascia goes.

Dana Tasche:

So we'll see Lots of like back aches.

Dana Tasche:

Wow.

Dana Tasche:

Neck aches.

Dana Tasche:

it's just, it's distorting your posture because the fascia is tight.

Dana Tasche:

I have people see body specialists doing therapy too to help with,

Dana Tasche:

the musculature movement and exercises that we do that can help.

Dana Tasche:

But, I will be getting, um, a tongue tie surgery at some point

Jeannie Oliver:

Okay.

Jeannie Oliver:

We'll have to have you get back after that.

Jeannie Oliver:

You can tell us how.

Jeannie Oliver:

How that goes and what you know.

Jeannie Oliver:

So for

Dana Tasche:

me to give a little, cause you always like,

Dana Tasche:

well, what's wrong with you?

Dana Tasche:

I will need to get expansion.

Dana Tasche:

my palette is too narrow still, even after I had expansion as a

Dana Tasche:

kid, I just don't have enough tongue space, so, So I will need to get

Dana Tasche:

some expansion, adult expansion.

Dana Tasche:

There are certain orthodontists that do this wonderfully and

Dana Tasche:

there's others that don't.

Dana Tasche:

So don't just go to anybody.

Dana Tasche:

after the expansion, then I would do the tongue tie release so that

Dana Tasche:

on my tongue has space to go, and I would do therapy again on myself.

Dana Tasche:

I'd probably go to an actual, like a friend, because therapy on

Dana Tasche:

yourself is always the best thing.

Dana Tasche:

and then, yeah, then there we go.

Dana Tasche:

That's kind of my, my plan of action for my own self.

Dana Tasche:

But A lot of the migraines from poor sleep are, it's the oxygenation factor.

Dana Tasche:

Like you're not getting deep sleep and your brain is

Dana Tasche:

actually striving for oxygen.

Jeannie Oliver:

so, which makes sense as to why your body would

Jeannie Oliver:

shift into that sympathetic state.

Jeannie Oliver:

Totally.

Jeannie Oliver:

Right.

Jeannie Oliver:

It's going panicking.

Jeannie Oliver:

Hello?

Jeannie Oliver:

Panic.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

Emergency.

Jeannie Oliver:

I need oxygen.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

Something else that you mentioned there that's fascinating to

Jeannie Oliver:

me is, The memory factor.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah, because

Dana Tasche:

well,

Jeannie Oliver:

and you know, we won't go down the rabbit trail with

Jeannie Oliver:

this yet, cause I want you to talk about A D H D a little bit later.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

But, I've always had a terrible memory.

Jeannie Oliver:

I mean, always.

Jeannie Oliver:

It's not like something that's just onset now in my forties and I should be freaking

Dana Tasche:

out.

Dana Tasche:

I remember

Jeannie Oliver:

as a kid just being like, huh, like friends would talk

Jeannie Oliver:

about, oh, remember when we did this or that or the other thing.

Jeannie Oliver:

I'd be like, Nope, nope.

Jeannie Oliver:

No, I don't.

Jeannie Oliver:

So that maybe is part

Dana Tasche:

of what was causing that.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah, I mean I um, I have a stat here actually for if you wanted

Dana Tasche:

to go into the ADHD thing, but so os a so obstructive sleep apnea.

Dana Tasche:

They looked at a bunch of patients in 20 to 30% of just the OS a patients, they

Dana Tasche:

reported a d h, ADHD like diagnosis.

Dana Tasche:

Okay?

Dana Tasche:

Mm-hmm.

Dana Tasche:

I think ADHD is underdiagnosed and like some of these studies

Dana Tasche:

are back in like 20 17, 20 18.

Dana Tasche:

but then 95% of those OS a patients were showing, attention deficit like

Dana Tasche:

symptoms, like actual, like, yeah.

Dana Tasche:

So they weren't diagnosed yet, but they all had these like

Dana Tasche:

brain fog, like, I can't think.

Dana Tasche:

It's kinda like chronic fatigue and like adhd, like mixed together is what

Dana Tasche:

a lot of people, a lot of my patients that I see come in with, um, good times.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Cuz it's myofunctional therapy.

Dana Tasche:

Even though I, we say it's like, it's physical therapy for the

Dana Tasche:

muscles of the face and the mouth.

Dana Tasche:

It's really, it's our main goal.

Dana Tasche:

And like the spotlight is on airway.

Dana Tasche:

It's on your airway so that we can get you to sleep.

Dana Tasche:

Because if your airway is obstructed either in the day or the night, like,

Dana Tasche:

I think that's a game changer, right?

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Like you, you could be working out all day and eating super healthy, but

Dana Tasche:

if you're not repairing it's right.

Dana Tasche:

You're kind of, that's your, it's our foundation.

Dana Tasche:

So, that's really what we're looking for.

Dana Tasche:

So I would say that I'm more of a detective to find root causes.

Dana Tasche:

Like why is your airway dysfunctioning?

Dana Tasche:

Like, do you actually have obstructive sleep apnea, which is.

Dana Tasche:

You know that we look at like different, like levels of sleep in a sleep study

Dana Tasche:

or do you have what's called upper air resistance syndrome, which is also dubbs,

Dana Tasche:

like skinny fit girl sleep syndrome.

Dana Tasche:

we fall with that.

Dana Tasche:

So that one, upper air resistance syndrome or U A R S.

Dana Tasche:

these are the people like you and me, that, let's say we, we have poor sleep

Dana Tasche:

quality, but we take a sleep study and we don't really hit any of, like,

Dana Tasche:

the limits that would qualify us for even like slight or mild sleep apnea.

Dana Tasche:

Okay.

Dana Tasche:

But there is an actual obstruction in like this, like the upper airway.

Dana Tasche:

So either like in the back of the throat or like the,

Dana Tasche:

esophageal area, like the trachea.

Dana Tasche:

So there's something happening.

Dana Tasche:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

Clarify a little Dana, what you mean by obstruction?

Jeannie Oliver:

Okay.

Jeannie Oliver:

Because I think something stuck in your

Dana Tasche:

throat.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

What is that?

Dana Tasche:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Um, obstructive, obstructive sleep apnea normally is, like, the simplest

Dana Tasche:

way to put it is your tongue is falling to the back of your throat

Dana Tasche:

and it's literally obstructing the airway, like the airway is closed.

Dana Tasche:

Okay.

Dana Tasche:

So you ha you like stop breathing and then you have these like ORs Scary.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Like people will like say like, I wake up like gasping.

Dana Tasche:

So.

Dana Tasche:

so that's obstructive sleep apnea.

Dana Tasche:

And there's, you know, mild, moderate, severe, and normally

Dana Tasche:

people are like shoved right onto like a C P A P device, right?

Dana Tasche:

Um, and then there's upper airway resistance syndrome, which

Dana Tasche:

falls under the whole like sleep disordered breathing umbrella.

Dana Tasche:

And that one is your, hip HIPA index, like how much your body is

Dana Tasche:

like desatting through the night.

Dana Tasche:

So if you were to get a sleep study, they'd be like, you're fine.

Dana Tasche:

Like, you don't have sleep apnea, but you're like, but I still feel gross

Dana Tasche:

and I'm not sleeping well, and I feel groggy in the morning and I'm forgetful

Dana Tasche:

and I'm getting these migraines.

Dana Tasche:

Like, what do you, what do I do?

Dana Tasche:

And they're like, You're getting older.

Dana Tasche:

I think that's what a lot of,

Jeannie Oliver:

I love that you're getting older.

Jeannie Oliver:

How many older things have us women heard that answer when we all

Jeannie Oliver:

the time to different complaints.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

All

Dana Tasche:

the time.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

It's crazy.

Dana Tasche:

So that one, that's mainly what we see in a lot of these

Dana Tasche:

little kids that I work with.

Dana Tasche:

And then the adult patients that I work with as well, like they're, they're

Dana Tasche:

falling under their radar, so they're not gonna be diagnosed as os a patient.

Dana Tasche:

And they're confused as to why their sleep quality is so poor.

Dana Tasche:

But there are tests that you can take to figure out if you have U A R

Dana Tasche:

S and I can, I'll link, uh, that in your show notes if you want me to.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah, perfect.

Dana Tasche:

It's, it's really, it's cool if, if people wanna do it

Jeannie Oliver:

and why do they call it, what did you say?

Jeannie Oliver:

Skinny

Dana Tasche:

girl.

Dana Tasche:

A skinny fit girl.

Dana Tasche:

Not because normally, so when they look at like, Os a, like,

Dana Tasche:

they're like, are you a dude?

Dana Tasche:

Cuz they're at higher instance for sleep apnea.

Dana Tasche:

Are you overweight?

Dana Tasche:

And what's your next circumference?

Dana Tasche:

And then like, we walk into the room and like, you know, we're skinny, we're

Dana Tasche:

fit, our neck circumference is small.

Dana Tasche:

and we're female.

Dana Tasche:

Mm-hmm.

Dana Tasche:

So we, and pretty much all the studies in Ossa are male derived, so It's just

Dana Tasche:

hard to find a diagnosis for those people unless you get a sleep medicine doctor

Dana Tasche:

who is willing to look a little deeper into those like metrics and to be like,

Dana Tasche:

let's, let's figure out like what you have and like they might have to do a

Dana Tasche:

different type of sleep study on you.

Jeannie Oliver:

Fascinating.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah, that's, that's really, really interesting.

Jeannie Oliver:

I'm curious too, if that's going on.

Jeannie Oliver:

You know, I wear an aura ring, which I always refer to cause

Jeannie Oliver:

I'm kind of obsessed with it.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yes.

Jeannie Oliver:

And I got like data driven.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

I dunno if I've had an episode yet where I haven't brought up my Aura ring.

Jeannie Oliver:

Um, hello Aura.

Jeannie Oliver:

Like

Dana Tasche:

hook me up guys.

Dana Tasche:

I know.

Dana Tasche:

Seriously.

Dana Tasche:

Come on.

Dana Tasche:

Right?

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

I need a lot more followers for that, but I.

Dana Tasche:

I

Jeannie Oliver:

really don't recover as well as I ought to.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

And my sleep has improved greatly over the last few years.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

Actually, since wearing this, I, I'm able to kind of move, you know, pull

Jeannie Oliver:

different levers in my lifestyle.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

Eating, timing, all of these things to get better quality sleep for sure.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

But I wonder, does this play a role if someone's dealing with this in them,

Jeannie Oliver:

maybe struggling to get the results or the increase in lean muscle mass that they're.

Jeannie Oliver:

Working for in their workouts and they're just not seeing

Dana Tasche:

it.

Dana Tasche:

For sure.

Dana Tasche:

I think there's that, there's, there's the whole like metabolism talk of like,

Dana Tasche:

I think you had mentioned it in your email, it was like, hormones are affected

Dana Tasche:

by your sleep, you know, insulin levels, yeah, cortisol levels, all of that.

Dana Tasche:

But you're right, because if you're constantly.

Dana Tasche:

Stage one sleep is like I'm falling asleep.

Dana Tasche:

It takes like one to seven minutes Normally for people,

Dana Tasche:

sometimes it's longer.

Dana Tasche:

and then you go into stage two, which is like your heart rate starts to slow.

Dana Tasche:

Like your muscles start to relax.

Dana Tasche:

You can still be woken up very easily in that stage.

Dana Tasche:

Um, nothing is being repaired yet.

Dana Tasche:

Stage three is like, heart rate now is really, is much lower.

Dana Tasche:

Like your body temperature drops, muscles are like almost paralyzed.

Dana Tasche:

And that's when the restoration happens.

Dana Tasche:

But if you're constantly being woken up in that period, because now that your

Dana Tasche:

muscles have relaxed your muscles in your neck and in your mouth, if they don't

Dana Tasche:

have good tone and, and like function when they relax and you don't have that suction

Dana Tasche:

of your palate to your tongue anymore, now you're creating this obstruction.

Dana Tasche:

Excuse me.

Dana Tasche:

So the dysfunction of the muscles is essentially like it's waking you

Dana Tasche:

up cuz you're, Choking yourself out.

Dana Tasche:

So when, when we talk, when we talk about like, your recovery, like

Dana Tasche:

recovery is all in stage three in rem.

Dana Tasche:

So if you're constantly having like broken stage three in rem like

Dana Tasche:

you, then your body can't repair

Jeannie Oliver:

God.

Jeannie Oliver:

That makes so much sense.

Jeannie Oliver:

And I find that I, even if I get enough time in my deep sleep mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

And rem the point at which my heart rate is dropping to its lowest.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

It takes a

Jeannie Oliver:

really long time.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

And it's like only an hour or two before I'm waking up.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

When it should be dropping much earlier.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

In the night.

Jeannie Oliver:

So

Dana Tasche:

that explains a lot.

Dana Tasche:

The interesting part is the beginning of our night is, is full, is like a lot of

Dana Tasche:

stage three and then as the night goes on and stage three gets smaller and smaller

Dana Tasche:

and then REM gets bigger and bigger.

Dana Tasche:

Mm-hmm.

Dana Tasche:

So they kind of like hand hand it off to each other a little bit and

Dana Tasche:

There's a lot of stuff like just, with breathing that you can do to kind

Dana Tasche:

of help stay in those stages because we've kind of talked about upper chest

Dana Tasche:

or breathing and mouth breathing.

Dana Tasche:

If your body's doing that in the day, it's gonna wanna do that in the nighttime.

Dana Tasche:

So you're really trying to like train your body in the day for sleep,

Dana Tasche:

which sounds interesting, but Right.

Dana Tasche:

We don't really think about it that way, right?

Dana Tasche:

Like we just think whatever I do in the day is gonna make me healthy.

Dana Tasche:

But like whatever my sleep is doing, like I have no control.

Dana Tasche:

And I think we have more control with our sleep than we think.

Dana Tasche:

And I think the oral ring is great because it's giving you cool metrics,

Dana Tasche:

but if you have like the hallmarks of upper airway resistance syndrome,

Dana Tasche:

it's not gonna show that on there.

Dana Tasche:

So it's not gonna show those little arousals that are

Dana Tasche:

keeping you out of those stages.

Dana Tasche:

So that's what I would love.

Dana Tasche:

I would love a ring that could look at that.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

No kidding.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

No kidding.

Jeannie Oliver:

It does have a new reading that they've added that's, I'm not looking at my

Jeannie Oliver:

app now, but it's like an oxygen thing.

Jeannie Oliver:

Oh, that would be, yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

So it's a new feature.

Jeannie Oliver:

So I think that that's what that's hoping to address.

Jeannie Oliver:

I'm guessing.

Jeannie Oliver:

I

Dana Tasche:

wonder what, but we'll see.

Dana Tasche:

That'll be after that.

Dana Tasche:

Cool.

Dana Tasche:

Oh, I'm excited.

Dana Tasche:

You know, right.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah,

Jeannie Oliver:

definitely.

Jeannie Oliver:

so sleep apnea specifically.

Jeannie Oliver:

Because I've worked with several clients who have that and I definitely

Jeannie Oliver:

have seen them get improvement.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

Once they are eating an anti-inflammatory diet, they're not as inflamed.

Jeannie Oliver:

Definitely.

Jeannie Oliver:

Once they start to lose fat, what is that link between, I mean, is it just

Jeannie Oliver:

inflammation or what is the actual cause?

Jeannie Oliver:

I know most doctors will tell people with sleep apnea.

Jeannie Oliver:

Well, you just have to lose weight.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

I just used to assume, well, oh, maybe it's just the extra

Jeannie Oliver:

pressure on their, their chest.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

Or their neck from the physical weight itself.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

But tell us more about

Dana Tasche:

that.

Dana Tasche:

Um, it's a couple things.

Dana Tasche:

You're actually right in some regards.

Dana Tasche:

So when you have a lot of like.

Dana Tasche:

Visceral fat, like on the belly.

Dana Tasche:

It's just harder to breathe, so you have all that weight.

Dana Tasche:

your neck circumference is larger, so there's a lot of fat around here.

Dana Tasche:

So once again, you're constricting your airway.

Dana Tasche:

Um, you also have fat pads in your tongue, so when you lose weight, I

Dana Tasche:

think the newest study is you have a 50% reduction in sleep apnea.

Dana Tasche:

When you, when you get to a better B m i, like a healthy B m i and

Dana Tasche:

so you, you're losing that giant fat tongue can now it's shrinking.

Dana Tasche:

And the theory is like you have more space for it to actually function

Dana Tasche:

properly and move out of the airway.

Dana Tasche:

So there's a yes, there's all of that body and mouth.

Jeannie Oliver:

Okay, cool.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah, I read something recently that was saying that.

Jeannie Oliver:

Your tongue is actually the first place that you will start to gain fat

Jeannie Oliver:

when you're, you're gaining weight.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

And that often before people even notice, oh, my clothes are getting

Jeannie Oliver:

tighter, or any other physical signs of weight gain that they will start

Dana Tasche:

to snore.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah, for sure.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Which I thought,

Jeannie Oliver:

wow, that's so cool.

Jeannie Oliver:

That's so interesting to know.

Jeannie Oliver:

You know, that like, oh man, if you just start snoring out of nowhere

Jeannie Oliver:

and nothing else is shifting,

Dana Tasche:

like it might tough.

Dana Tasche:

Maybe let's address this.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

That

Jeannie Oliver:

tough.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

I know mouth taping is kind of a.

Jeannie Oliver:

You know, it's having a moment.

Jeannie Oliver:

So having a moment.

Jeannie Oliver:

Tell me a little bit about that, because I know that people swear by

Dana Tasche:

it.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

For me, just

Jeannie Oliver:

the thought of taping my mouth at night makes me panicky.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

I, I mean, I'm, that freaks me out so badly I think because I have

Jeannie Oliver:

struggled with, breathing properly.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

And the idea of like, well, gosh, if I can't.

Jeannie Oliver:

Just mouth, breathe when I need to during my sleep, am I gonna

Jeannie Oliver:

have one of those awful panicky wake-ups where I can't breathe?

Jeannie Oliver:

Like what's gonna happen to me?

Jeannie Oliver:

Yep.

Jeannie Oliver:

what

Dana Tasche:

are your thoughts about it?

Dana Tasche:

okay, so I personally, I mouth tappe.

Dana Tasche:

I do, and you'll find, uh, probably most malfunctional therapists are gonna

Dana Tasche:

be mouth taping because we, we are so obsessed with nasal breathing and

Dana Tasche:

like what it does, you'll, you'll wake up more rested and you'll have more

Dana Tasche:

restorative sleep if you nasal breathe.

Dana Tasche:

Just hands down.

Dana Tasche:

I do say though, like if you are needing to mouth tape, there's a

Dana Tasche:

reason behind it and we need to figure out why you're doing it.

Dana Tasche:

So is it because you have low muscular tone of your tongue and

Dana Tasche:

it's not functioning properly, then we need to address it and actually

Dana Tasche:

strengthen that with exercises?

Dana Tasche:

Or is it a structural issue?

Dana Tasche:

Like does your.

Dana Tasche:

Lower jaw, is it really recessed and you, you physically have difficulty even

Dana Tasche:

keeping your mouth closed during the day.

Dana Tasche:

Those people tend to need to mouth tap because they, they will wake up no matter

Dana Tasche:

how much malfunctional therapy they do, and they, their mouth will be open because

Dana Tasche:

they can't connect the lips essentially.

Dana Tasche:

So I always say people, if your mouth taping.

Dana Tasche:

Great, but let's figure out why.

Dana Tasche:

And let's work on your structure first and your function first.

Dana Tasche:

And if you wanna continue mouth taping, great, let's do it.

Dana Tasche:

But let's figure out why you needed to do it in the first place.

Dana Tasche:

Because a lot of people do it and it's, it's, you know, they rip it

Dana Tasche:

off, they don't have success with it.

Dana Tasche:

And then I think, well, we still haven't, we haven't gone to your root cause yet.

Dana Tasche:

Like, what's, what's happening here?

Dana Tasche:

Why are you

Jeannie Oliver:

snoring?

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah, exactly.

Jeannie Oliver:

thought that was always what I wondered about it too, is this just, you

Jeannie Oliver:

know, essentially a bandaid on your mouth for, you know, in figuratively

Dana Tasche:

and literally.

Dana Tasche:

Totally.

Dana Tasche:

Um, there's also great mouth tape out there that goes,

Dana Tasche:

it's kinda like kinesio tape.

Dana Tasche:

It goes around your lips.

Dana Tasche:

So you can still talk like we are right now, but it works on this muscle.

Dana Tasche:

The Obi Orus going around your, your lips.

Dana Tasche:

It works on actually tightening it so you could Cool.

Dana Tasche:

Get a drink of water the night if you wanted to.

Dana Tasche:

You could say something and so there's less, uh, panic that

Dana Tasche:

I could get my head around.

Dana Tasche:

Yes.

Dana Tasche:

I'll send you that link.

Jeannie Oliver:

Okay.

Jeannie Oliver:

Thank you.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah, please definitely share that with us.

Jeannie Oliver:

I think a lot of people would be interested in that specifically.

Dana Tasche:

Cool.

Dana Tasche:

And you mentioned a Dr.

Dana Tasche:

Ken Hooks, I think.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Dr.

Dana Tasche:

Ken Hooks is a sleep medicine doctor and he does at-home sleep tests.

Dana Tasche:

So he, you pay, he sends you the sleep study.

Dana Tasche:

Um, you do the sleep study over.

Dana Tasche:

I think he does like two or three days.

Dana Tasche:

He just wants to get good metrics on it.

Dana Tasche:

And then he will go over like deep into your a h I levels, your R d I.

Dana Tasche:

So you're looking at like, not just your APNIC indexes, but more of the

Dana Tasche:

upper airway resistance syndrome indexes, which fall below the.

Dana Tasche:

Indexes.

Dana Tasche:

So he's looking a little deeper and he will personally walk you through

Dana Tasche:

your results, which is really cool.

Dana Tasche:

And that they start for around like 350 bucks.

Dana Tasche:

so if anybody wants to like check to see, well I know I sleep poorly,

Dana Tasche:

I know I'm waking up fatigued.

Dana Tasche:

Like maybe I have this, I'm showing other symptoms of forward head posture.

Dana Tasche:

My shoulders are rolled or I have neck tension.

Dana Tasche:

yeah, I would say then get a sleep study, get some more information,

Dana Tasche:

and he's a good resource.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah, that's awesome cuz that's not crazy expensive.

Jeannie Oliver:

And man, like I don't think anybody finds the idea of going in

Jeannie Oliver:

and staying in some random place overnight for a sleep study appealing.

Jeannie Oliver:

No.

Jeannie Oliver:

And for me, like I don't think I would ever even sleep as

Jeannie Oliver:

normally as I would at home.

Jeannie Oliver:

So it wouldn't be an accurate

Dana Tasche:

representation of how I sleep normally.

Dana Tasche:

Totally.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

And it's gonna take you forever to get into a sleep study.

Dana Tasche:

It's so hard to get appointments now.

Dana Tasche:

It's crazy.

Dana Tasche:

So if you're wanting to know now, then that's a good, a good option.

Dana Tasche:

Awesome.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Thanks

Jeannie Oliver:

for sharing that resource.

Jeannie Oliver:

That's great information.

Jeannie Oliver:

My other thing that occurs to me, I know that since the pandemic, we're

Jeannie Oliver:

all wearing masks and it's really hard to nasal breathe with the mask on.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

Because you're, it's already, kind of restricting the amount of air

Jeannie Oliver:

you're getting to some degree, depending, you know, if you're wearing

Jeannie Oliver:

a really well fitting, N 95 mask or other that, you know, really truly

Jeannie Oliver:

fits around your mouth and nose.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

And I know that that was something I really noticed that I was

Jeannie Oliver:

doing was, yeah, mouth breathing throughout the day under this mask.

Jeannie Oliver:

And then once we weren't wearing the masks anymore, I was still kind

Jeannie Oliver:

of, I had to really consciously.

Jeannie Oliver:

Stop doing that and practice not doing that and being aware of it.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yes.

Jeannie Oliver:

Do you find that a lot of people are, are dealing with that or am I just a freak?

Dana Tasche:

no.

Dana Tasche:

So many people, I definitely, I mean, having that many years of, we created a

Dana Tasche:

bad habit in mouth breathing because Yeah, like you said, it's, it's difficult to

Dana Tasche:

breathe under those masks to begin with.

Dana Tasche:

And, what I find in a lot of people is they were not aware that they

Dana Tasche:

were mouth breathing so much.

Dana Tasche:

So whenever you ask someone like, are you a mouth breather?

Dana Tasche:

They're like, no, no, no, no, no.

Dana Tasche:

But as you start observing people, Throughout their day or you have asked

Dana Tasche:

them like, just be conscious of what your, your breathing patterns are.

Dana Tasche:

They always come back to me and they're like, I'm 100% a mouth breather.

Dana Tasche:

They're like, I just did not realize it.

Dana Tasche:

Mm-hmm.

Dana Tasche:

And I think a lot of it did start from the pandemic because like

Dana Tasche:

what you said, that daily like.

Dana Tasche:

Mouth breathing.

Dana Tasche:

It just created this terrible habit.

Dana Tasche:

And I also saw a lot of like, uh, the lower jaw protrusion, just like

Dana Tasche:

people having like T M J issues because they're kind of pushing their lower

Dana Tasche:

jaw out and breathing at the same time to kind of move the mask around.

Dana Tasche:

sure it dehydrates you really fast.

Dana Tasche:

There's lots of more like gum disease and just some nasty gum tissue,

Dana Tasche:

cuz the gums do not want to be dry.

Dana Tasche:

They want to have the lips closed and they want saliva to

Dana Tasche:

be constantly flowing over them.

Dana Tasche:

So when your mouth breathing, You have a higher incidence of cavities, you have a

Dana Tasche:

higher incidence of periodontal disease.

Dana Tasche:

It's really bad for your digestion when you mouth breathe cuz there's no filter.

Dana Tasche:

Um, and all that periodontal disease bacteria, you're sharing that down the gut

Dana Tasche:

tube and down into your gut, which we know is like the powerhouse of our immunity.

Dana Tasche:

So, right.

Dana Tasche:

You just don't get any benefits, from mouth breathing.

Dana Tasche:

It's actually every athlete you look at when they're really working

Dana Tasche:

out, that's there's a reason why they're wearing nasal strips.

Dana Tasche:

You know, you'll see football players wearing those.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

It's because you have more endurance when you nasal breathe.

Dana Tasche:

Mm.

Dana Tasche:

So doing a workout, nasal breathing, a lot of people will start that

Dana Tasche:

and they're like, I can't work out as hard as I used to, but you, it.

Dana Tasche:

It's a different way of breathing and it takes 'em a couple months

Dana Tasche:

to get back to where they were.

Dana Tasche:

But you will have a better workout and you will recover faster because you have

Dana Tasche:

more oxygenation to your muscles and your blood and you, you have more endurance.

Dana Tasche:

So you'll see a lot of long distance runners like they are nasal breathing,

Dana Tasche:

they are not open mouth gaping breathing.

Dana Tasche:

That's when you get all those side

Jeannie Oliver:

aches.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

God, that's so cool.

Jeannie Oliver:

And I have to say, since I've.

Jeannie Oliver:

Been talking to you about this and learning more about it?

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

I have been trying to, to breathe a lot more during my workouts and it is harder.

Jeannie Oliver:

So much harder

Dana Tasche:

for sure.

Dana Tasche:

It's harder.

Dana Tasche:

Yep.

Jeannie Oliver:

you know, luckily I'm not a big like.

Jeannie Oliver:

High, you know, intensity cardio person.

Jeannie Oliver:

If I do that, I'm doing it in relatively short bursts.

Jeannie Oliver:

I'm mostly weight training, but my weight training workouts can get really intense

Jeannie Oliver:

when I'm doing compound movements.

Jeannie Oliver:

And yeah, it's still cardio.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

So when my heart rate's really high, I'm breathing really heavy.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

It's a challenge.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah, for sure.

Jeannie Oliver:

But I'm working

Dana Tasche:

on it.

Dana Tasche:

I would say too, and to kind of go back to like, you know, working out sleeping

Dana Tasche:

and mouth taping cuz a lot of people will like mouth tape when they work

Dana Tasche:

out too, which is interesting to me.

Dana Tasche:

I mouth taping is great, right?

Dana Tasche:

But you really need to understand like, can you even breathe through your nose?

Dana Tasche:

Because a lot of people cannot, like they have inflamed adenoids

Dana Tasche:

way up there or their turbinates, like those little squishy things

Dana Tasche:

up on our nose are really inflamed.

Dana Tasche:

So it's just, it kind of goes back to what you do.

Dana Tasche:

You really need to investigate.

Dana Tasche:

Can nasal breathe And if I cannot, why can I not?

Dana Tasche:

Is it, food related?

Dana Tasche:

Do I have an allergy?

Dana Tasche:

Um, do I actually have like a physical obstruction up there?

Dana Tasche:

And if I have those, I need to figure, I need to figure those out.

Dana Tasche:

So a lot of my patients, when they first come for their assessment, we

Dana Tasche:

go through really extensive history.

Dana Tasche:

I go back to chi like birth with them because we wanna know down to.

Dana Tasche:

Were you a c-section maybe?

Dana Tasche:

Were you nursed?

Dana Tasche:

Like all of those things, right?

Dana Tasche:

Um, cuz it, it plays a role.

Dana Tasche:

Were you premature?

Dana Tasche:

Um, and then we wanna know like, what's your breathing patency like, can you even

Dana Tasche:

breathe in and out through your nose?

Dana Tasche:

And we go through like food allergies and so a lot of people, before they even start

Dana Tasche:

therapy, I have them go see an allergist or I have them go see an E N T because.

Dana Tasche:

If you can't breathe your, this what I wanna train, then

Dana Tasche:

we, that's not gonna work.

Dana Tasche:

Right?

Dana Tasche:

So I would say if you're working out with mouth tape or you're

Dana Tasche:

trying to do the mouth taping, nasal strips are a game changer.

Dana Tasche:

I absolutely love them.

Dana Tasche:

There's other, like, more environmentally friendly ways you can get little, like

Dana Tasche:

silicone, like nasal um, cups to go up the nasal passage that kind of like

Dana Tasche:

keep that whole the nasion open for you.

Dana Tasche:

Cuz some people it's just genetically, they have like a little nasal collapse

Dana Tasche:

of the nostril when they breathe in.

Dana Tasche:

And it's really restrictive.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

So breathing that way is kinda like panicky for people.

Dana Tasche:

Um, so we need to open the nasal passages so that we can actually

Dana Tasche:

train like a calm breathing.

Dana Tasche:

Fascinating.

Jeannie Oliver:

So, It's really No, it really is.

Jeannie Oliver:

It could be.

Jeannie Oliver:

It's, there's so much there.

Dana Tasche:

There's too many layers.

Dana Tasche:

So my functional therapist, we, we really end up being a liaison between

Dana Tasche:

different healthcare providers.

Dana Tasche:

So like, I might send someone to you, like, for, like, I, I need a dietician

Dana Tasche:

to be, to say, hey, like you need to change this, this, and this, and

Dana Tasche:

I need you to get allergy testing.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

I might send them, like I said to an orthodontist to get you need.

Dana Tasche:

Palatal expansion of your upper teeth because there's no, there's

Dana Tasche:

physically no room for your tongue.

Dana Tasche:

For your tongue to go.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Um, so there's, there's so many different ways and we're really, and then, and then

Dana Tasche:

we work on therapy kind of in between that, but we're really trying to get

Dana Tasche:

people to the right humans to help them.

Jeannie Oliver:

It's so cool.

Jeannie Oliver:

And when you talk about food allergies, You know, I even said

Jeannie Oliver:

to you before we came on this morning, I don't usually eat banana.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

I have it once in a while and I had, I don't know, maybe a third of a

Jeannie Oliver:

banana in my smoothie this morning.

Jeannie Oliver:

And I feel a little more like mucus production.

Jeannie Oliver:

but that's definitely something that when people have a food sensitivity

Jeannie Oliver:

And they're eating it all the time.

Jeannie Oliver:

They may not even be aware of it, but their seasonal allergies are worse.

Jeannie Oliver:

Their sleep is worse.

Jeannie Oliver:

They're definitely experiencing more of that, you know, inflammation everywhere,

Jeannie Oliver:

which of course, if you're systemically inflamed, why would you not be inflamed in

Jeannie Oliver:

your nasal passages and everywhere else?

Jeannie Oliver:

Yep.

Jeannie Oliver:

Right.

Jeannie Oliver:

And I've seen this in my own life to be true.

Jeannie Oliver:

For sure.

Jeannie Oliver:

I'm actually allergic to cats, but we have.

Jeannie Oliver:

The most wonderful cat in the entire world, and he loves to sleep with

Jeannie Oliver:

us, especially as he gets older.

Jeannie Oliver:

And so

Dana Tasche:

it's not super helpful.

Dana Tasche:

Um,

Jeannie Oliver:

he's worth it, but it's not super helpful for the nasal

Jeannie Oliver:

breathing piece of no piece of things.

Jeannie Oliver:

And so, yeah, I, I, I would definitely say that this is an interesting link because.

Jeannie Oliver:

Anytime that we have a food sensitivity, it's like people often assume that,

Jeannie Oliver:

well, if I'm not having this dramatic reaction to a food, it doesn't matter.

Jeannie Oliver:

Totally, totally.

Jeannie Oliver:

But it could be causing these sort of knock on effects that

Jeannie Oliver:

are incredibly detrimental to our

Dana Tasche:

overall health.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

I'm um, I'm really weird if I have realized, cuz I, I'm like you.

Dana Tasche:

I love metrics.

Dana Tasche:

I wanna know the things.

Dana Tasche:

I wanna try all the things.

Dana Tasche:

If it doesn't work, I'm not doing it.

Dana Tasche:

But if it does, like great.

Dana Tasche:

I just figured something cool out that's awesome.

Dana Tasche:

For me, I've come to realize that sugar, cuz sugar is so inflammatory, but even

Dana Tasche:

if I have a little bit of sugar, I can immediately feel my nose getting stuffy.

Dana Tasche:

It's really, but I never paid attention to my nose before.

Dana Tasche:

Like that was not something I was really like cued into of like, food sensitivity

Dana Tasche:

is more like, does my tummy hurt?

Dana Tasche:

Or like, am I, how am I feeling?

Dana Tasche:

Like tired, right?

Dana Tasche:

But now I'm really paying attention to like what's my breath feel

Dana Tasche:

like after I eat something.

Dana Tasche:

And it sounds weird, but I figured out some really, I, so

Dana Tasche:

I don't drink alcohol anymore.

Dana Tasche:

Because it really affects my nose.

Dana Tasche:

Like I get super inflamed in my nasal cavity.

Dana Tasche:

And

Jeannie Oliver:

do you think that's because of just the alcohol toxin itself

Jeannie Oliver:

or do you think it's the histamines

Dana Tasche:

maybe in the alcohol?

Dana Tasche:

I think it's, I think it's a both.

Dana Tasche:

I think I like, I'm super sensitive to those histamines and I think I'm

Dana Tasche:

super sensitive to like the sugar content after like breaks down.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

And the same way.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah, I'm the same way.

Jeannie Oliver:

bummer Histamine is an interesting I know, right?

Jeannie Oliver:

Histamine's a very interesting thing.

Jeannie Oliver:

And you know, my background, I, I worked in a chronic illness clinic

Jeannie Oliver:

where they specialized in Lyme for years and, and we saw a lot of people with

Jeannie Oliver:

mast cell activation syndrome, um, and people that deal with a lot of mast

Jeannie Oliver:

cell and histamine issues, histamine sensitivity, which I do as well.

Jeannie Oliver:

So I've really had to.

Jeannie Oliver:

Pay attention to histamine levels and foods.

Jeannie Oliver:

you know, I take some natural things like nettles, cetin to help with that,

Jeannie Oliver:

which have made a huge difference.

Jeannie Oliver:

Oh, good.

Jeannie Oliver:

Okay.

Jeannie Oliver:

If my level of just congestion and, you know, ability to breathe through my nose.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

Um, but do you see that, especially, you know, in your work, do you see

Jeannie Oliver:

the effects of histamine frequently?

Jeannie Oliver:

I mean, obviously we think of histamines with.

Jeannie Oliver:

Seasonal allergies.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yep, but that's just one

Dana Tasche:

of the triggers.

Dana Tasche:

so what I see is, I try to get people off, like the main stuff.

Dana Tasche:

So like, you know, dairy and gluten, just to like, yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Just to be like, let's try to really lower your inflammation to see what happens.

Dana Tasche:

and like really limit your sugar.

Dana Tasche:

That's hard for everybody to do, but there are people who are so

Dana Tasche:

desperate, they're like, I'll do it.

Dana Tasche:

Or if there's a kid coming in with super inflamed tonsils and adenoids

Dana Tasche:

and like, we're just, we're trying to decrease, like you said, histamine

Dana Tasche:

level and inflammation is as much as we possibly can to open up that airway.

Dana Tasche:

and the tongue, you know, when your airway is so close with giant tonsils and, mucusy

Dana Tasche:

sinus passages and the tongue of, with a lot of these kids that I see, and that

Dana Tasche:

just, it's always low because you have to breathe through your mouth when you

Dana Tasche:

can't breathe through your nose, right?

Dana Tasche:

Sure.

Dana Tasche:

So you're stuck in this constant state of panic breathing, and this is when we start

Dana Tasche:

seeing the A D H D stuff in children is.

Dana Tasche:

The lethargy because they're not sleeping well at night.

Dana Tasche:

And then when their brain should be developing and siphoning

Dana Tasche:

through the day's events and like, you creating those memories.

Dana Tasche:

Creating like the little, like I went through this trauma during the

Dana Tasche:

day and your brain actually does like reparative work then, right?

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

So if that kid's never getting into that zone and they're always having

Dana Tasche:

this interrupted, crummy sleep and then they can't breathe like they're

Dana Tasche:

snoring like crazy at night, or they're really active sleeper, or another

Dana Tasche:

hallmark of poor sleep in kids is they wet to bed really late into their

Dana Tasche:

little lives, like until like nine.

Dana Tasche:

It causes a lot of attention and behavior issues.

Dana Tasche:

So in adults, when we're sleep deprived, we are lethargic and

Dana Tasche:

we're very like, like pissy.

Dana Tasche:

Yes.

Dana Tasche:

And kids, it's hyperactivity, so they will do whatever they can to stay awake.

Dana Tasche:

So that's why you see like crazy, you know, not really stemming, but

Dana Tasche:

they're just trying to like stay awake.

Dana Tasche:

So we'll see those a d ADHD symptoms and that's why a lot of,

Dana Tasche:

you know, people are moving to more towards that research of is.

Dana Tasche:

Adhd, more of a sleep issue.

Dana Tasche:

Is, is it stemming a lot from that?

Dana Tasche:

And if it is why, and like what's, what's the root cause of that?

Dana Tasche:

What's mitigating that?

Dana Tasche:

And to kind of go back to what we were talking about in the very beginning

Dana Tasche:

is I think obstructive sleep apnea and children, or even sleep, sort of breathing

Dana Tasche:

in children, you know, just snoring.

Dana Tasche:

I think it's really underdiagnosed.

Dana Tasche:

The patients that I end up seeing, it's they're coming from these amazing

Dana Tasche:

pediatric dentists who are like, they're looking in this kid's mouth and they're

Dana Tasche:

seeing his teeth are worn down to tiny little nubs because he's grinding his

Dana Tasche:

teeth so much, trying to keep his area open or, Dark circles under the eyes,

Dana Tasche:

like he's all, all of the things.

Dana Tasche:

And so they're peaked to this and then they come see me and that's when

Dana Tasche:

we, we send them to a sleep study and then they're finally diagnosed.

Dana Tasche:

But like the parent would never know.

Dana Tasche:

And sure.

Dana Tasche:

How hard to be a parent and be like, I don't know.

Dana Tasche:

I guess my kid snores.

Dana Tasche:

That's normal, right?

Dana Tasche:

It's not, it's, it's a warning sign from your body that it's cannot breathe.

Dana Tasche:

And your brain is not getting proper time to repair and

Dana Tasche:

actually grow so into adulthood.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah, that's, I I think in the next five years we will have so much more

Dana Tasche:

research on A D H D and sleep and um, I think in for adults as well.

Dana Tasche:

Like we're gonna have a lot of that is too, cuz growth hormone is released

Dana Tasche:

in stages, the later stages of sleep.

Dana Tasche:

So like you lose growth hormone as you get older.

Dana Tasche:

Now if you have crappy sleep and you're getting older,

Dana Tasche:

we'll, we'll shoot, you know,

Jeannie Oliver:

Right.

Jeannie Oliver:

You know, that brings to mind too, Dr.

Jeannie Oliver:

Gabor Mate talks about the link between trauma and A D H D, and he feels that,

Jeannie Oliver:

you know, trauma is a huge cause of it.

Jeannie Oliver:

And the pieces that I'm kind of linking together in my mind, and correct me if I'm

Jeannie Oliver:

wrong here, but we're talking about like, hey, a person experiences a trauma, but

Jeannie Oliver:

then they're not getting the restorative sleep where their brain can actually do

Jeannie Oliver:

the kind of repair and, Healing, I guess.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

Through that sleep stage where your brain is supposed to process these things.

Jeannie Oliver:

Totally.

Jeannie Oliver:

And you're still in a brain development stage of, of course, we're gonna

Jeannie Oliver:

see detrimental, dysfunction within the neurological system mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

System.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Dana Tasche:

Is that, yep.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

Right.

Dana Tasche:

It's huge.

Dana Tasche:

I mean, I think there should just be more if a child has ADHD or there's similar

Dana Tasche:

symptoms, let's just say like you're a parent and you're noticing like, wow, my

Dana Tasche:

kid, Can't pay attention or they're always getting in trouble or they're really high

Dana Tasche:

anxiety, like they can't cope with like certain things in the day or whatever.

Dana Tasche:

You know, those are like some hallmarks, right?

Dana Tasche:

That's like feel like a lot of kids nowadays have these issues and

Dana Tasche:

there's other things involved, right?

Dana Tasche:

Like this is not the one answer, but I think if you're a parent and your

Dana Tasche:

noticing that about your child or you're an adult now and you were that kid, I

Dana Tasche:

think that's the number one thing to be like, I need to investigate sleep,

Dana Tasche:

or I need to investigate their airway.

Dana Tasche:

Like why I.

Dana Tasche:

What's causing this?

Dana Tasche:

I think it's, it's a very simple thing and I 100% we don't appreciate sleep

Dana Tasche:

enough, but I think things like the aura ring are like helping people

Dana Tasche:

be like, oh, like my sleep actually changes when I eat something different.

Dana Tasche:

I think we're getting more awareness, which is great.

Dana Tasche:

We just need more action for sure.

Jeannie Oliver:

And I think that it's important too to

Jeannie Oliver:

understand that there are.

Jeannie Oliver:

Physiological consequences to emotional.

Jeannie Oliver:

Issues.

Jeannie Oliver:

It's not just one or the other.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yep.

Jeannie Oliver:

Right.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yep.

Jeannie Oliver:

It's, it's, everything is a system.

Jeannie Oliver:

We're all

Dana Tasche:

whole people that are

Jeannie Oliver:

emotional and physical.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yes.

Jeannie Oliver:

And these things can manifest in multitudes mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

Of systems in, in our, you know, emotional life in our bodies.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

In all of these ways, and if we don't look at how they're all interconnected,

Jeannie Oliver:

I think we can really miss the, yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

The big picture or miss opportunities

Dana Tasche:

for real healing on a deep level.

Dana Tasche:

Well, I think you have a good point.

Dana Tasche:

It's like, you know, we talk about the word like hangry, like we all know.

Dana Tasche:

Mm-hmm.

Dana Tasche:

Like if you don't eat, I get like angry or emotional.

Dana Tasche:

It's like, well, if you don't sleep, like.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah, there's, there's a consequence there.

Dana Tasche:

I get emotional.

Dana Tasche:

So is that slang Sangre that, yeah, sang.

Dana Tasche:

That's good.

Dana Tasche:

I'm not

Jeannie Oliver:

sure that one's gonna stick, but Roll it.

Jeannie Oliver:

Don it.

Jeannie Oliver:

I use

Dana Tasche:

too funny.

Jeannie Oliver:

yeah, so, gosh, there's so much we could, you

Jeannie Oliver:

know, dive deeper on here.

Jeannie Oliver:

What are the things, Dana,

Dana Tasche:

that.

Dana Tasche:

You know, first

Jeannie Oliver:

steps or anything, anything we haven't

Jeannie Oliver:

covered yet that you wanna share?

Jeannie Oliver:

I mean, I, I told you that I was recently diagnosed with, with a d h adhd.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

A lot of women approaching, or in middle age are diagnosed now because

Jeannie Oliver:

hormonal changes and things can actually amplify those symptoms.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

We understand so much more now about how it presents in women mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

Versus so different boys and men, it's completely different.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

And.

Jeannie Oliver:

I've heard people say in kind of a, dismissive or critical way that,

Jeannie Oliver:

oh, well everybody has a D H D now.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

But I would say, first of all, we always see more diagnoses and more

Jeannie Oliver:

people coming forward when there is more awareness and there's a deeper

Jeannie Oliver:

understanding and people are able to better diagnosis, but whatever, it's

Jeannie Oliver:

whatever condition or disease, right?

Jeannie Oliver:

So sure we're seeing more of that, but I think also, In my belief, the

Jeannie Oliver:

fact that we have such a, essentially just a contaminated food system, a

Jeannie Oliver:

terrible way of eating in general, like the standard American diet.

Jeannie Oliver:

I mean, we are eating ridiculous amounts of sugar processed foods,

Jeannie Oliver:

these inflammatory oils, right?

Jeannie Oliver:

So even if we're eating vegetables, if we're not eating high quality

Jeannie Oliver:

vegetables that are grown in rich soils, like we're not getting

Jeannie Oliver:

the appropriate nutrition there.

Jeannie Oliver:

We're exposed to all of these.

Jeannie Oliver:

You know, industrial farming chemicals, things like that, our water has

Jeannie Oliver:

gunk in it that it shouldn't have.

Jeannie Oliver:

so do you think that that's contributing maybe to a higher instance of all

Jeannie Oliver:

of these developmental issues,

Dana Tasche:

sleep issues.

Dana Tasche:

Oh, 100% you're talking about?

Dana Tasche:

Yep, 100%.

Dana Tasche:

I mean, even talking about like, I bet you could have a whole show on like food

Dana Tasche:

dyes, you know, like how nasty those are.

Dana Tasche:

Or just like artificial like, or natural flavors.

Dana Tasche:

I think any subset of like medicine wants to be like, this is the answer.

Dana Tasche:

Like do this and everything is cured.

Dana Tasche:

Like we're all searching for perfection.

Dana Tasche:

And I think it can get really overwhelming for everybody to kind of take these deep

Dana Tasche:

dives and like do the research unless you're like psychos like us, you know?

Dana Tasche:

Yes.

Dana Tasche:

I think it's fascinating and fun, but I think for most people I think

Dana Tasche:

they, they put that blanket statement of like, oh, everybody has D adhd.

Dana Tasche:

Cuz they just get sick of thinking about it.

Dana Tasche:

They're like, well then nothing is good anymore.

Dana Tasche:

Right.

Dana Tasche:

But I think you're right.

Dana Tasche:

Like we are in a weird food world right now.

Dana Tasche:

And it's really hard to find nutritious, healthy food.

Dana Tasche:

You really have to search hard in the store to do it and oh, it's so expensive.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah, and if that's like what you were just saying, like the inflammatory

Dana Tasche:

process starts with what you eat, it starts with your stress, it starts with

Dana Tasche:

your actual, like what's your structure?

Dana Tasche:

Like genetically predisposed it look like your parents, but functionally,

Dana Tasche:

when you're a kid that's going to.

Dana Tasche:

Dictate your structure.

Dana Tasche:

So if you're eating lots of soft in processed foods, your jaws do not have

Dana Tasche:

enough stimulation to actually tell your brain, like your brain's saying like,

Dana Tasche:

oh, I don't need to make the, a stronger arch to support all this heavy load.

Dana Tasche:

So you, we found as the industrial revolution was happening, like jaws

Dana Tasche:

started to change and people's facial structure started to look different.

Dana Tasche:

So there's just not enough, like you're not chewing or working

Dana Tasche:

for your food anymore because everything is ultra processed.

Dana Tasche:

So there's definitely a huge link in food consumption in like what

Dana Tasche:

we have now as like the squeezy tubes of applesauce, right?

Dana Tasche:

Like that's what most parents have given their kids.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

And that's easy, right?

Dana Tasche:

Like, I mean, I can't like sure can't like blast people for doing that.

Dana Tasche:

But also give your kids lots of like crunchy hard things like meats and

Dana Tasche:

carrots and all like, we need to be working for our food and eating healthy.

Dana Tasche:

I think it all goes together.

Dana Tasche:

As you know, like if you have something off in your diet, you don't sleep as well.

Dana Tasche:

I think it's it's about sleep hygiene, what you're eating, de-stressing

Dana Tasche:

and figuring out functionally like what do I need to change, like

Dana Tasche:

muscular wise to improve my health.

Dana Tasche:

So it's, it's just, it's a blanket of things, but that's why you find providers

Dana Tasche:

that can help you along the way.

Dana Tasche:

I think like we are here to help people.

Dana Tasche:

Because it's overwhelming.

Dana Tasche:

Well, I think

Jeannie Oliver:

it's really exciting.

Jeannie Oliver:

It can be overwhelming and I mean, you know, I always encourage people

Jeannie Oliver:

too, because you know, if we.

Jeannie Oliver:

Allow ourselves, we could be completely paranoid and insane over

Jeannie Oliver:

all the chemical exposures and the this and the that and everything.

Jeannie Oliver:

That's bad for us.

Jeannie Oliver:

I mean, look, you cannot avoid all those things.

Jeannie Oliver:

You just can't.

Jeannie Oliver:

It's just the modern world that we live in.

Jeannie Oliver:

But there are certain things that are within our control.

Jeannie Oliver:

And so within reason, yes, we should take the steps too.

Jeannie Oliver:

Totally.

Jeannie Oliver:

Just take better care of ourselves.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

And protect our bodies in every way that we can.

Jeannie Oliver:

but the stress piece, I think that that's the biggest, most toxic.

Jeannie Oliver:

Thing that we are exposed to constantly and that we often expose ourselves to.

Jeannie Oliver:

Right?

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

With mindset and, not having boundaries.

Jeannie Oliver:

Not saying no.

Jeannie Oliver:

I mean, I know that when I'm stressed, going back to the breathing, and I was

Jeannie Oliver:

just talking with my body liberation group about this the other night.

Jeannie Oliver:

Really pay atten.

Jeannie Oliver:

I always encourage 'em, pay attention to your breath throughout the day.

Jeannie Oliver:

Because I know for myself and for a lot of people, when we're stressed,

Jeannie Oliver:

we'll breathe really shallow.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yep, yep.

Jeannie Oliver:

We're not taking full deep breaths and that actually exacerbates the stress that

Jeannie Oliver:

we're under and makes us more stressed.

Jeannie Oliver:

Cuz our nervous system is like, well now I'm not getting enough

Jeannie Oliver:

oxygen and like it's not Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

In that parasympathetic state.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yep.

Jeannie Oliver:

but in addition to doing something like that, like paying attention to.

Jeannie Oliver:

Your breath.

Jeannie Oliver:

Are there things that people can start to do?

Jeannie Oliver:

Dana?

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

Just in their daily lives.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

That would be helpful for them.

Jeannie Oliver:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

In this

Dana Tasche:

context, I think the number one thing is keep your tongue

Dana Tasche:

suction to the roof of your mouth.

Dana Tasche:

I've been working on That's, yeah, that's going to help you nasal breathe.

Dana Tasche:

So if you, if you could get nasal breathing 100% of your day.

Dana Tasche:

the benefits are gonna be beyond, keeping you in that very, like de-stressed state.

Dana Tasche:

It's, you got a nasal breathe.

Dana Tasche:

There's so, so many, so many scientific benefits.

Dana Tasche:

It's unbelievable.

Dana Tasche:

I'd say keep your tongue, your palate.

Dana Tasche:

That's number one.

Dana Tasche:

number two is get a good sleep routine.

Dana Tasche:

I think that's, you know, same time every night.

Dana Tasche:

I think that's great and try to keep consistent with that.

Dana Tasche:

myo, functionally wise, I would say find a myofunctional therapist or.

Dana Tasche:

Do a breathing course.

Dana Tasche:

Like I think breath work is so important and people are over breathing.

Dana Tasche:

That's kinda what we call it.

Dana Tasche:

Like what you were just saying.

Dana Tasche:

The TAL breathing is really bad for your health.

Dana Tasche:

there's a great place called the Ateco Clinic.

Dana Tasche:

you can take online courses on it.

Dana Tasche:

there's a lot of people in this area that are certified in it, so they

Dana Tasche:

can actually coach you through that.

Dana Tasche:

Um, how do you spell that?

Dana Tasche:

B U T E Y K O.

Dana Tasche:

Okay, cool.

Dana Tasche:

I'll put that in.

Dana Tasche:

Um, there's a man, his name is Patrick McEwen, and he wrote a book and

Dana Tasche:

he opened up the Butte Co clinics.

Dana Tasche:

But his book is fascinating and he's a researcher and he got

Dana Tasche:

into this whole breathing thing and figured out, wait a second.

Dana Tasche:

he's a mouth breather and he had asthma as a kid and he was just like not healthy.

Dana Tasche:

And he's a big proponent of myofunctional therapy and breath work.

Dana Tasche:

So we, we all kind of work hand in hand with like his research and.

Dana Tasche:

It's helpful, but I would say educate yourself too would be.

Dana Tasche:

The other thing is read the books.

Dana Tasche:

I mean, James Nester book breath is great.

Dana Tasche:

Sheri Lynn, she has a great book called, uh, breathe, sleep, thrive.

Dana Tasche:

It's gonna tell you about how your face changes when you are

Dana Tasche:

dysfunctioning, how your sleep is a cornerstone of your health.

Dana Tasche:

I think the more people educate themselves, they're gonna wanna

Dana Tasche:

do, do these things, right?

Dana Tasche:

So for me, I always wanna like read it first and then like do the stuff, but if

Dana Tasche:

not, then I would say, Keep your tongue up, keep your lips closed, nasal breathe,

Dana Tasche:

and if you need to for the time being, try mouth taping and use a nasal strip.

Dana Tasche:

Okay, cool.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah, I, I would start there.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

I, sleep is always one of the first things I try to address with

Jeannie Oliver:

my clients and these additional tips.

Jeannie Oliver:

This is so awesome.

Jeannie Oliver:

I'm really, really, Just thrilled to have you here talking about

Jeannie Oliver:

this, because I think it's gonna be a game changer for people.

Jeannie Oliver:

I mean, lack of energy and fatigue is probably the biggest complaint.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yep.

Jeannie Oliver:

That people, that women have.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yep.

Jeannie Oliver:

I mean, most people have, but the women that I work with, and

Jeannie Oliver:

the men too, I mean, it's just.

Jeannie Oliver:

We'd all love to have more energy.

Jeannie Oliver:

Right.

Jeannie Oliver:

And wake up feeling rested.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

And feel like we're recovering from our workouts and feel like we're not

Jeannie Oliver:

just a ball of stress all day long with headaches and neck tension,

Jeannie Oliver:

and we're all sitting all day.

Jeannie Oliver:

So yeah, we do.

Jeannie Oliver:

We assume, oh, it's just because I'm sitting all day or at my computer

Jeannie Oliver:

all day or whatever my job is

Dana Tasche:

like, you did that cue, but that cue into what your

Dana Tasche:

body and your mouth is doing.

Dana Tasche:

You gotta be, like you were saying, it took a lot of awareness for you to stop

Dana Tasche:

the mouth breathing after wearing a mask.

Dana Tasche:

Mm-hmm.

Dana Tasche:

It, the awareness factor in therapy.

Dana Tasche:

I, I wish it's like 90% of therapy is your awareness.

Dana Tasche:

Like you just need to be really like give yourself visual cues at home to

Dana Tasche:

be like, oh, where, where's my tongue?

Dana Tasche:

What am I doing with my mouth right now?

Dana Tasche:

Cuz it's always a lot of people, it's just this open and breathing.

Dana Tasche:

It's really weird.

Jeannie Oliver:

Yeah.

Jeannie Oliver:

Well, I'm excited about this and I'm, I keep saying, oh,

Jeannie Oliver:

I need to come work with you.

Jeannie Oliver:

So I just need to make an appointment and, and schedule

Jeannie Oliver:

out the time and prioritize it.

Jeannie Oliver:

But I encourage everyone to seek out Dana or seek out another

Jeannie Oliver:

myofunctional therapist mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

And help you with this.

Jeannie Oliver:

So, on that note, Dana, where

Jeannie Oliver:

can

Dana Tasche:

people find you?

Dana Tasche:

I am located in Bellevue.

Dana Tasche:

Um, I have a little, a little tiny practice in Bellevue, Washington.

Dana Tasche:

so my name of my practice is Upward Myofunctional Therapy,

Dana Tasche:

and my website is upward myo.com.

Dana Tasche:

And you could even go in there.

Dana Tasche:

my phone consults are free, so if you, or like even emailing me, I mean, I'm a

Dana Tasche:

nerd, so I like to talk about this stuff.

Dana Tasche:

So if you email me, I'll, I'll email you back.

Dana Tasche:

a lot of people just don't know where to start and a lot of

Dana Tasche:

people I cannot help, but I can steer you in the right direction.

Dana Tasche:

So I'm definitely not gonna be one to just treat everybody I want to.

Dana Tasche:

Uh, Sure.

Dana Tasche:

Treat people that'll actually get results.

Dana Tasche:

But, I'll provide a little link too, like if I'm not in your area, if that

Dana Tasche:

you have listeners outside of Seattle, then, um, there's some wonderful

Dana Tasche:

malfunctional therapists all around the country that I know, and I will,

Dana Tasche:

I can hook you up with them as well.

Dana Tasche:

Perfect.

Dana Tasche:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

That's awesome.

Jeannie Oliver:

Thank you.

Jeannie Oliver:

And if someone is in the area, I think you told me once before, it's

Jeannie Oliver:

ideal to see them in person, at

Dana Tasche:

least initially.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah.

Dana Tasche:

So initially it's a 90 minute, um, assessment.

Dana Tasche:

So we go through everything.

Dana Tasche:

Like I said, we go through your whole health risk history from birth to now.

Dana Tasche:

even going from like, do you have food sensitivities?

Dana Tasche:

Um, we take a bunch of pictures.

Dana Tasche:

I video you eating and swallowing.

Dana Tasche:

I wanna see what your muscles are doing, how you're functioning.

Dana Tasche:

Um, and then that helps me create a treatment plan for you.

Dana Tasche:

So, Everybody has a little bit of different dysfunctions and we're

Dana Tasche:

trying to target the different musculature that needs work or toning.

Dana Tasche:

and then also we work on breathing throughout treatment.

Dana Tasche:

So it normally takes about 12 to 15 sessions, depending on.

Dana Tasche:

How great you are at the exercises.

Dana Tasche:

If you practice the exercises, it's just like physical therapy.

Dana Tasche:

Like you, you go get knee surgery, you have to have physical therapy

Dana Tasche:

to retrain the musculature.

Dana Tasche:

So like we're retraining your musculature to function how

Dana Tasche:

it always should have been.

Dana Tasche:

So before you started kind of compensating for mouth breathing

Dana Tasche:

or something else, or your allergy that plugged your nose as a kid.

Dana Tasche:

So we're trying to bring you back to your normal function.

Dana Tasche:

Yeah, after that, and then I, I kind of keep in touch with people after that.

Dana Tasche:

So I do a year follow up, um, just to kind of rework on stuff and yeah, that's it.

Dana Tasche:

But yeah, 90 minutes in person then after that telehealth, after

Dana Tasche:

that for most my adult patients.

Dana Tasche:

Awesome.

Dana Tasche:

Mm-hmm.

Jeannie Oliver:

Well, this has been so fascinating.

Jeannie Oliver:

I'm such a nerd with this kind of thing and a lot of my listeners are too.

Jeannie Oliver:

So Good.

Jeannie Oliver:

It's been really enlightening and great, and I so appreciate you taking the time

Jeannie Oliver:

to come on and share all this with us.

Jeannie Oliver:

Thank you for

Dana Tasche:

having me.

Dana Tasche:

Jeanie's the coolest you guys.

Dana Tasche:

Uh,

Dana Tasche:

thank

Dana Tasche:

you.

Dana Tasche:

I pay later.

Dana Tasche:

You do.

Dana Tasche:

It's amazing.

Jeannie Oliver:

Thanks, Dana.

Jeannie Oliver:

All right, everybody, I'll put all this information where you can find Dana in

Jeannie Oliver:

the show notes and thanks for joining us today, and we'll see you next time.

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About the Podcast

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The Nutrition Edit

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Jeannie Oliver

Jeannie is a Certified Nutrition Coach, NASM Personal Trainer and classically trained chef. She helps high performing women improve their overall health, optimize their energy and performance, and discover what it's like to feel good in their own skin - all while enjoying delicious food and creating sustainably healthy lifestyles.