Practical Ways To Support The Viscera & Nervous System
In this episode of the Unreal Results podcast, I zoom out and explore how movement, manual therapy, physiology, nutrition, and daily inputs all influence visceral health and nervous system function. I break down the concept of container vs. contents, why movement is never “just mechanical,” and how frequency of inputs often matters more than intensity.
In This Episode, You’ll Hear:
The “container vs. contents” framework for understanding treatment
Why movement is one of the most powerful (and overlooked) visceral tools
How small, frequent inputs reshape nervous system resilience
How assessment guides precision without overcomplicating care
This is a simple, practical way to start integrating a more whole organism approach into your daily work and treatments.
Resources & Links Mentioned In This Episode:
Ep. 12: Rest Posture vs. Stretching vs. Mobility
Ep. 40: Healing and Wellness: Remade
Ep. 91: Diaphragm Details That Unlock Thoracic Mobility
Ep. 122: Spinal Mobility Is The Most Underrated Tool In Your Practice
Ep. 125: You're Already Treating The Viscera... You Just Don't Know It
Blog Post: Rest Postures
Exercise Video: Scalp Massage
Learn the LTAP® In-Person in one of my upcoming courses
Considering the viscera as a source of musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction is a great way to ensure a more true whole body approach to care, however it can be a bit overwhelming on where to start, which is exactly why I created the Visceral Referral Cheat Sheet. This FREE download will help you to learn the most common visceral referral patterns affecting the musculoskeletal system. Download it at www.unrealresultspod.com
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Anna Hartman: Hey there and welcome. I'm Anna Hartman and this is Unreal Results, a podcast where I help you get better outcomes and gain the confidence that you can help anyone, even the most complex cases. Join me as I teach about the influence of the visceral organs in the nervous system on movement, pain and injuries, all while shifting the paradigm of what whole body assessment and treatment really looks like.
I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in.
Hello. Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the Unreal Results Podcast. Hello. I, uh, normally I try to record my podcast episodes on Mondays so Joe has a chance to edit it and not be rushed for a Wednesday podcast drop. But sometimes I don't feel inspired and so I don't record. That was yesterday. I was still, um, recovering from last week, um, which was the doors open to the online locator test assessment protocol level one course.
And, um, I have to put a ton of content out during the week when that happens and be talking all the time. And yeah, it takes it, it takes it outta you. And so I was like, uh, maybe I won't do an episode this week. Didn't feel like talking, didn't have anything necessarily like inspiring. I wanted to go over, but uh, I just got off of an episode with um, I was a guest on my friend Tina Hopper's podcast.
Um, she is Carrots and Cake on Instagram. Uh, I would, ironically, I'm not really sure what the name of her podcast is. It might actually just be that. But, um, anyways, um, after talking with her, I was like, okay, I feel inspired now. I could probably record my own podcast. Uh, I am going to have her on as a guest soon, um, because learning from her has really helped me and then I helped some of my clients too.
So, um, I do want to share her with you, and that is a little bit too of what this episode is going to be about is just, um, a little bit of a review of like the many ways you can actually treat and have an effect on the viscera and the nervous system. Um, and like it made me like even think about like, well, maybe you should just like always do these things.
So, um, I just wanted to riff on that a little bit. So. I am like, what else happened last week? Oh, my guys, my Navy Seal guys, um, I had about seven of them going through hell week last week. And they all made it through. They all secured, super proud of them. Now we're in the, um, post hell week phase of, um, what they call walk week.
It's a week that they actually get to walk instead of run everywhere on base and, uh, while their bodies heal. Speaking of. They must have a break right now because I'm getting a million text messages from them. Um, anyways, uh, yeah, they're just in healing mode and, um, like they, you know, it's amazing what their bodies did during hell week. It's, it's like. They ended up starting Sunday night at like 11:45 PM and they secured Friday morning at around the same time, like 11 or not around the same time, 11 30, 12 o'clock, 11:30 AM 12:00 PM So, um, and they got, I think the most sleep they got was two hours of sleep on, um, Wednesday night or Wednesday afternoon, which is insane.
Um. And, uh, yeah, it's just insane what your bodies can do, to be honest. Uh, during that week, you know, they'll not only did they not sleep, but they put on about 200, 250 to 275 miles mileage, carrying boats, being in boats, being in the water, they were pretty much wet all week. Crazy. Um, it will never cease to amaze me.
What they do during that week. I mean, what they do in general, but what do they do, especially during that week? And then an overarching theme of that is just, it will never cease to amaze me how amazing the human body is and what we are capable of and how resilient we can be. And so I just, yeah, I love it.
Anyways, um, so this podcast episode Yeah. I wanna talk about, um all the ways in which we can treat the viscera and the nervous system. And because I think as athletic trainer, as physical therapists, we are biased towards treating things from a manual therapy standpoint, treating things from a, uh, movement standpoint, maybe even some modality standpoint, but there's other ways we can go about doing it, especially when it comes to the visceral organs. So I always talk about this concept of container and contents. So when we're doing manual therapy in movement, we are always treating both container and contents. But really we're even treating the contents through the container often.
The container being the musculoskeletal system and um, which is a great way to affect the organ. We can do specific visceral manipulation, very precise manual therapy on the organ itself too, especially on the organs that are not in a hard frame, but even within the hard frame, we can have an effect on the visceral organs through our very specific touch.
Yeah, and I think it's important, you know, this goes back and I'll have Joe link in the show notes. I did a whole episode that was basically like you're treating the visceral, whether you realize it or not, through movement and exercise because the visceral organs are deeply attached to the musculoskeletal system.
And so as we move the musculoskeletal system, the organs are moving too. And, um, when you can be more precise. Um, you can actually target the organs specifically with movement too. So movement is a great tool. Movement. Um, movement heals. Movement works move. We, we know movement is a powerful tool in being healthy.
And it's not just from an energy standpoint. It's not just from a calorie standpoint. It's not just from a mechanical standpoint. It's, it's everything. It's all those things. Plus it's also like this is how the organs move and stay healthy too. So, um. And then there's a physiological or functional piece that we can help the visceral organs, um, from a physiology standpoint with different nutritional, um, components, different, um, supplements, peptides, hormone replacement, um, pharmaceutical intervention, right?
Like we can really target them through those means as well. And the best approach typically is a combination of all of them, which is not the same as throwing the kitchen sink at something, right? Doing all the things. It can still be very intentional and very specific to that organ, and it needs to be for the best effect, which is why assessment is still very important and assessment, you know, using the locator test assessment protocol to figure out if your body is in a protective pattern.
If it isn't a protective pattern, what is it around, what organ it is around? And then we can better target that organ then with precise treatments. Part of that too is like once we know it's that organ, we can do even further assessments on the function of it. This is when it comes in handy to be working with a naturopath or a functional medicine doctor or a functional nutritionist, uh, practitioner so that we can do different, um.
Physiological tests to see how we can support that organ functionally as well. So, you know, and then two, we've all, we've also talked about the fact that you can support things from an emotional standpoint too. And that's, you know, I'll make sure Joe links in the show notes, the, um, podcast I recorded with Daniella Spear, um, from Remade Wellness.
'cause she's really approaches things too from that emotional standpoint as well. And all of those are just super helpful. Um. And like I said, without that assessment, we're just kind of throwing things in the dark and hoping that they stick, which is not a terrible way to go about it, especially when you're considering them in the first place.
But things can, you can achieve your goal. Whether your goal is decrease pain, improve function, whatever it may be, um, faster if you can get more precise and you get more precise with an assessment. So, um. That assessment can be physical, that assessment can be physiological, et cetera. Um, but in general, from a general health standpoint, from a nervous system standpoint, you know, making sure that we're doing some work around our cranium often, you know, like doing a little bit of an ear massage, a scalp massage, um, working the trigeminal nerve branches around our eyes, like doing a little bit of a facial massage, like I'm the first one to be like, facials are magical, but also you can do that on your own on a regular basis. You know, even when you're washing your face or washing your hair. Being a little bit more intentional about paying attention to the areas of the skin that don't move as well, there is the scalp that don't move as well and spend some time in those spots, loosen them up, can have a huge effect on the tension in your cranium.
And I'll have Joe link in the show notes some general, um, tutorials of that as well. Also, um, segmental spine mobility. I've talked about this before. Um, I, I believe I did a whole episode of it that I'll have Joe link in the show notes. But moving your spine head to tail is another great way to keep the central nervous system moving, sliding gliding in its container, as well as, um, affecting the visceral organs from the relationship with the visceral somatic reflexes.
So the, um, nerve roots that go from the spinal cord to the organs, a happy spinal cord. A happy spine also can help support organ health. So any sort of segmental spine movement, um, spine movement in general, a. So rolled a spinal roll down spinal waves side bending rotational patterns especially can be super helpful, but making sure we're moving all the parts.
So moving, and then this goes to like moving our rib cage area in order to get our thoracic spine to move very well. Sometimes we need to get the ribs to start moving in order to get our lumbar spine to move well. Sometimes we need the pelvic floor to move a little bit. So this opens up the opportunities there too.
And then, um, then from a visceral standpoint, we're looking at, yeah, rib mobility, diaphragm mobility, diaphragm mobility is best expressed through rotation. Um, and then abdominal organ mobility a lot. That's gonna be a lot of our intestines and our kidneys, and they love rotation kidneys, uh, liver, that, everything around that thoraco lumbar junction, just rotation is so powerful.
So whether it's a 90 90 stretch or a rolling pattern. Rolling in rotation should be a, a normal part of our, um, daily lives. And then from a pelvic organ standpoint, pelvic mobility, pelvic mobility sometimes too is how much time are you spending sitting on the floor? And if sitting on the floor is uncomfortable for you, you can use bolsters to support your body in as much height as you need to to make it comfortable.
And um, I'll have Joe link in the show notes, the rest posture lecture, because this is what that's all about too. So not only is it really helpful for the pelvic floor mobility, the pelvic mobility, the hip mobility to be doing floor based exercise. But it is also a message to our general autonomic nervous system that we're actually resting.
And that is a really important piece for our general health as well, is to have, as it stimulus is throughout the day, telling our brain that we're in a rest state versus a survival stress state, right? Our days are busy. We've got a huge to-do list. A lot of things that we wanna get done during the day. A lot of things coming at us, you know, especially if you're like a parent, you've got like everything coming at you from a kid standpoint, from a work standpoint, from a family standpoint, from everything.
So the more stimulus is during the day that we can get in, that tells our brain and our body that we're resting the better flexibility we will have in our autonomic nervous system. And so, um, sitting, spending some time sitting on the floor is a really great way to do that. You can spend some time sitting on the floor, you can roll around on the floor and get that rotation and rolling patterns.
And the sitting in all at once. So, um, little movement snacks, little movement breaks can be so powerful throughout the day. In fact, this is like one of the biggest takeaways, um, of working with Philip Beach, who is the author of the book Muscles and Meridians, uh, the Manipulation of Shape, when he speaks about his erector-sizes, which are basically exercises based on the rest postures getting up from the floor.
He always says that frequency throughout the day is more powerful than doing more repetitions of it. So he actually provides, um, he actually tells people to do these exercises, minimal repetitions, but multiple repetitive sets throughout the day. So like doing it five times a day, but only for like four reps.
Is it gonna be more powerful? Right. Which is a total of 20 reps, which is gonna be way more powerful than doing it once for like two sets of ten. So it is the frequency throughout the day that will make a difference. And I think this really speaks to that resiliency piece of the autonomic nervous system in embedding this flexibility of, um, switching between parasympathetic stimulus and is sympathetic stimulus.
Sympathetic stimulus is always there. That is life. That is our, the constant amount of stress that we live under because our organisms are always wired for survival and that is how we intake things as it comes in. So what happens is these, um, frequent stimuluses throughout the day that we can insert these rest messages.
These safety messages in are so powerful. So it can be as simple as sitting on the floor. It can be as simple as taking a break from the computer, going outside, looking out into the distance, taking a few deep breaths, whatever messages you need to create those messages of safety and rest. And the more you can do it frequently throughout the day, the better the payoff than just doing it once a day.
Right? Like one day, once a day to go in on a workout, going out on a workout, less maybe impactful for your nervous system than doing five times a day little breaks. So maybe too, if you're having a challenge, um, with regulating your nervous system with finding the flexibility in your nervous system.
Maybe this is indicative of like maybe for a couple weeks, try this approach where you're doing things more frequently throughout the day, but for shorter little bricks of time and see if you have a better impact on your general health and wellness. You know, with that said, all of this stuff I'm telling you is a general approach to caring for your nervous system, caring for your visceral organs through movement.
Um, you know, and then there's this whole piece of like, are you eating enough food? Are you fueling yourself? Um, are you getting enough minerals? Are you, um, you know, dialing in the supplements that you need to, how is your digestion? All of those things, right? Those functional things that you might need different forms of assessment for to figure out.
But somebody, it might have been Tina saying this in her peptide school. But it was basically like, oh, no, no. I don't think it was Tina. I think it was my other friend, Erin Power. She was basically saying like, I think it's bullshit when people are like, I don't know how to eat. Like you a grown ass adult.
You know how to eat. You're just not choosing to do that. So I think that's a little bit of too like don't be an asshole. Don't eat like an asshole. Like you know that your body needs fruits and vegetables and protein and fiber to do well. You know what foods those are. You know what foods those aren't, you know, water is good.
You know, minerals and electrolytes are good. Make those choices to support the physiological health. Then we have these movement pieces that we can do that will also help our organs and our physiological health of the organs through movement, through blood flow, through lymphatic flow. And then we have the nervous system piece that we, if we do it for short bouts throughout the day, multiple times, we'll probably have a better resiliency between the rest and digest and the stress fight or flight response.
Right? So not a novel approach. We know this works. Right? Then a further step in making things better, especially if you do have pain, uh, injury or a disease or like some sort of dysfunction that you're trying to work through. An assessment that tells us exactly where to start can be more powerful.
Because if I know my body is protecting the area around my liver or my gallbladder, if I'm starting things there with my movement and my manual therapy or even my nutritional in, in supplemental needs there, I'm gonna have a more powerful effect than general with more frequently. Makes sense. So it's always going down to these kind of components.
We can get really precise with assessment and probably have a quicker, more powerful outcome. But there's a lot of stuff that we can do in general that can help support our viscera, our nervous system, our general health and wellbeing functionally and structurally, which is going to lead to improving a lot of problems that happen in our body.
So anyways, kind of a quick episode, kind of a general overview, but I think it's always nice to sort of be like big picture again before we narrow back in. Have a great day!