Drew Hume, Author at NAVINA

The magic words: I feel safe

August 5, 2022 By: Drew Hume1 Comment

“I keep expecting pain, but it doesn’t arrive, so I feel safe”.

This is what one of my clients said the other day in Newfoundland.

This brings up so many things to talk about but the bit I would like to focus on right now is that this sensation of safety in your treatments.

Safe spaces aren’t just laying around, existing of their own accord – I’m not a safe space for everyone, though I may try to be. They are developed through the use of inclusive and caring actions and words (in a way that’s far more complex than that sentence really captures). They are dynamic – and they are based on the needs of each individual.

So there are a lot of variables, and not everything will work for everyone.

There’s one element though, that has so far worked for every single person I’ve treated over the last 10 years.

That thing is going SLOW.

I know I talk about it a lot. But so many people don’t realize just how important it is in manual therapy. I’ll stop saying it when I stop seeing ridiculously aggressive and painful treatments being given out there.

Going slow definitely has grades, depending on the need – but especially when someone is in pain or has a chronic condition (like this person had, who said the words above), the approach becomes extra-slow.

Why?

Pain is deeply complex. Within that complexity and layers, a decent portion of the equation for chronic pain is sensitization and expectation of pain.

When we go slower than slow, we give the body and brain time to sense the pressure, read it, interpret it, think about it, and give feedback, BEFORE we add more pressure. This whole process is reassuring to the mind and to the nervous system directly.

It’s almost like a conversation with the nervous system. You start off with the greeting, which is usually short and light – you wait for the response and then little by little you go back and forth starting a conversation. You only learn about surface things for the first bit, but then gradually they let a little more of themselves be seen.

The same process is what should happen for manual therapy.

If you do this, even when pain is expected, you can avoid it and better yet you can help with the desensitization process, just like with my client the other day.

I promise you this is the best thing you can do for your treatments – to make them better. For the safety factor and for so many other reasons. Now, obviously it’s not the only factor in the safety equation, but for someone in pain, it’s a big factor – they want to really feel that you’re not going to hurt them. And you can say all you want “I won’t hurt you” or “this is a safe space”, but it doesn’t mean they FEEL that safety.

This is not something new – this has always been the way I’ve practiced, but interestingly I’ve gotten even slower and slower as time has gone on. Because I’ve seen the benefits of doing so, over and over.

If you’re not a practitioner yet, you should remedy that by coming to Costa Rica in December. But also, this message is for when you receive a massage too – ask for your practitioner to go slowly. Because unless you get treatments from only Navina practitioners, you will likely be getting fast bodywork.

It might take them some getting used-to, because when you’re not used to going slow, it can feel very weird to – but persist and insist, because it’s your treatment and you’re the one who will reap the benefits.

Drew & the Navina team.

Can you feel fascial release?

June 16, 2022 By: Drew Humecomment

Image source: https://www.hfe.co.uk/blog/understanding-myofascial-release/

Considering fascia is a bit of a buzzword, fascial release is all the rage these days. But are you actually feeling the fascia “release”? [Read more…]

“my students/clients don’t care about anatomy lingo”

April 7, 2022 By: Drew Humecomment

This and “it’s confusing for students when they hear anatomy terms, so it excludes people who don’t know them”, are two things I hear when movement educators are explaining/justifying why they don’t take a&p training.

I can see where these ideas come from. And at the same time, I don’t agree with them. They’re largely a symptom of poor previous experiences with anatomy/physiology education.

Here’s why:

1. For starters, it’s not about the lingo. Or at least it’s not about showing off the lingo. Having a working understanding of anatomy and physiology is WAY more than just names of bones and muscles – AND way more than just throwing those names around like a smarty bum.

Part of the problem there is that so many teacher training groups spend most of their limited time on memorizing muscle and bone names. It’s not that knowing bones and muscles isn’t useful – it is to some degree – it’s just less important than learning concepts of biology and foundational elements of the human body. Much of the “my clients don’t care about the lingo” stems from this practice of only teaching bones and muscles, because trainees walk out thinking that’s the majority of anatomy. But it’s not.

A better understanding how the body works actually means we can be more effective in our movement education through the APPLICATION of the knowledge.

The way the lingo does help us, is if we’re working closely with people who have medical things going on and we can actually collaborate with the rest of their medical team, because we understand the lingo – ultimately helping our people so much more.

2. Even though they think they don’t care, the more knowledge we share with them about the human body, the more empowered they become to influence their own health and how they feel on a daily basis.

On top of that, evidence shows that the more we know about things like pain science, the greater the chance is that our pain-reducing efforts will be successful! So really, it’s in their best interest to start learning this stuff.

3. The other thing is – we’re in the room to teach our people about moving their bodies…so why can we not also teach them about the terms we’re going to use in class (that are relevant to the movements of the day)? The idea that something is confusing to people in the room simply is feedback for ourselves as educators – if someone is confused it means we haven’t explained it well enough or in enough ways.

So instead of confusion being a reason we shouldn’t learn this stuff, it is actually impetus for us to gain a more complete understanding, so that we CAN reduce confusion, through our sharing of knowledge more accurately and in a greater variety of ways.

Because also there’s absolutely no reason we can’t teach them what we’re talking about in class. And trust me – when you do it well, people really appreciate learning stuff in class. It really also, doesn’t take much time at all or even much effort (a few words timed correctly can help people identify and learn the action of dorsiflexion of the ankle very quickly, as just one example).

The beauty is as well, when we do it well, more people are included. People mostly get left behind in classes because we as the educator haven’t done a good enough job of explaining things – so part of our job is to pay attention to this, and to then be able to on-board more people with different ways of explaining things.

The variety of ways we can speak to anatomical concepts is a direct extension of both how much we’ve studied and the range of topics included in our studies. As in, the depth and the breadth of our learning reflects our ability to keep everyone on-board in a class.

Keep in mind most a&p training is designed around an attempt to memorize bones and muscles. Without much else.

Which is also why we don’t do that in our intro course. In the future, I’ll teach you bones and muscles and regional anatomy. Not yet though – because again, we gain more (and therefore have a greater impact) through understanding how the body works.

Over the years of teaching this stuff, I’ve found that sharing things like how the body adapts to inputs, how we can modify positions to target different areas of the body better, WHY we shouldn’t always “microbend” things, and so on to be far more useful right off the bat for movement educators.

In this way, we often help people experience the difference between knowledge application and “lingo”.

If you’ve got the itch to dive deeper into the world of anatomy and physiology, your chance to is coming up on May 2nd.

Is Massage Detoxifying?

October 27, 2021 By: Drew Humecomment

Image source: spacecoastmassage.com.

I bet you’ve been told before that “massage is detoxifying”. But is it actually?

In short – it’s more likely that it’s the opposite: slightly (and temporarily) toxic! Yep, you read that correctly. Let me explain.

Typically when we think of a “toxin” we usually think of substances that we don’t want in our bodies. And whilst that can be the case in some instances, we have to remember that toxicity is not just a function of the substance itself but also of concentration.

By that I mean, anything (yes, even things like water and oxygen) in a concentration that is too high, is technically a toxin for us. That distinction is important in this conversation, because in massage, mostly what we’re talking about are substances normally found in our bodies, that might have accumulated to a point of being too much.

So just the stuff we normally produce, but in concentrations that are too high.

The other thing that is important to know in this conversation is that toxicity can be either localized or systemic.

Now, before we venture any further down this rabbit hole, I think we should note that our biology is wonderfully well equipped to prevent toxic situations, especially on a systemic level. We have multiple organs of filtration that help to remove things when they start to be found in amounts higher than the ideal balance point for us.

This means that any temporary toxicity (like alcohol, for example) is removed in the course of a few hours, and therefore our systems mostly handle that process of detoxification without things ever getting to a point where they are truly, harmfully toxic.

You could say then that (in most cases, for most people), systemic toxicity is a very rare event that likely signals some other grave problem.

But what about localized toxicity?

This is more the realms of massage and manual therapies.

Trigger points (a whole world of conversation unto themselves), are essentially microscopically tiny points of metabolic waste accumulation. They contribute to a lot of discomfort we encounter in our lives and likely complicate all or almost all pain syndromes. Essentially small packets of localized toxicity.

Massage *can* help with these localized patches of toxicity. [key word: can].

And when you do find a therapist that finds and helps a trigger point, what you’re actually doing indirectly is spreading that local accumulation of metabolic wastes into the blood – which means that temporarily you’re freeing toxins into your system!

Now, if it were only this, you might be able to suggest that in the end, we reducing the toxicity of the body – by taking a localized accumulation and spreading it into the system with the end-goal of those things being removed from the body. So whilst temporarily toxic, ultimately detoxifying…

But unfortunately it’s not the only thing to consider here.

With massage we also induce a small degree of muscle fiber [and other cell] damage during a treatment. It’s entirely normal and is much the same as the effect of exercise (so don’t worry, it’s not abnormal, nor actually bad for you).

When muscle fibers (or any cells, really) are damaged, what happens is their internal components leak out into your tissues, and eventually your blood – where those particular components aren’t really supposed to be.

And if it’s not supposed to be there, we can say that its presence is a relatively toxic one – and thus once again we’re temporarily increasing the toxicity of our blood/system.

((It sounds way more dramatic than it is though – because again, our biology is incredibly good at managing this)).

Sometimes we even feel the physical effects of these temporary increases in toxicity – things like feeling sick after a massage, or regional tenderness – or even general malaise. All these are likely symptoms of a temporary increases in systemic toxicity.

It’s worth noting too along that same train of thought, that massages that are harder/deeper, are actually increasing your toxicity even more – because these types of massages cause greater cell damage. Perhaps something to consider if you always feel soreness a day or two after your treatment. It’s really not necessary to feel that way, because much of the benefit of massage can still be extracted with lighter pressure and a more gradual approach.

Whilst the trigger point release might be considered to be a net reduction in toxicity if we look at the end-goal, this damage to the cells is net-new and essentially a creation of the massage. (Not to say that cells don’t die normally, they do – but that process looks very different).

So why do we always hear about massage being detoxifying? Likely by the experience of it feeling GOOD – and the results of it feeling good for most people. From that base, a logical thought process leads us to believe that something bad is leaving our system.

But even though we now know that it’s not really detoxifying (that it’s actually temporarily the opposite), it doesn’t mean that massage feels any less-good, or that it’s any less-valuable.

OH – and I almost forgot – the type of post-massage muscle soreness I mention above and the tenderness that is sometimes felt after massage – it’s more common when you haven’t received a massage for a while. Much the same as the soreness post-exercise, when you haven’t done that exercise in a while. So as you/when you venture back out into the world for your next massage, just know that you’ve likely had a long time between massages, and also you likely have more trigger points.

So go slow – and remember that the level of post-massage muscle soreness you feel is absolutely no indicator of the benefits of the treatment. So there’s also no need to get your regular deep tissue treatment right out of the gates.

Be good to yourself (and others).

Why “listening to your body” is much more complicated than you think.

October 9, 2020 By: Drew Hume3 Comments

Image source: medium.com.

In both movement and manual therapy circles, there are a lot of discussion about pain, pain-avoidance, “listening to your body” and so on as it relates to the “right” way to move or apply manual technique. In this article, I address these ideas with the latest in pain research, which explains to us that this may not actually be the best way to go. Or at very least, that most of us aren’t actually listening to the right cues in the right ways.

What does a pain signal actually mean?

Before we can really tackle the idea of listening to your body fully, we need to talk about what pain actually means. If I asked you to write down what pain means, the majority of people will likely say something like:

“pain is a sign that something is wrong, that something is happening in my tissues that I want to avoid”

Whilst this may be the case in some instances, it’s certainly not accurate for a lot of painful scenarios, and really the research tells us it’s mostly not accurate at all. I’m going to show you what I mean by that through this article – and hopefully the information here will help to reform what you think pain actually signals.

Different sensations and meaning.

It’s useful to know what a ‘tingling’ sensation could mean, or a ‘sharp’ one, and so we’re going to open that conversation here. Before we do, it’s important to understand that pain science is hugely complex and that the next section here is only a part of a big pain-story, so make sure you keep reading. Pain science cannot simply be reduced to a list of “this pain equals this”. Because not only is most pain not simple, it’s also not just one thing.

To start with we’re going to look at the 3 main classifications of pain, before we then look at types of sensations:

• Nociceptive – this specific term refers to pain signals that are being transmitted by nociceptors (special receptors) in the tissues of the body, as in, they’re detecting something that might be going on in the tissues themselves.
• Neuropathic – this type of pain is where something is going on directly with the nerve. It could be a medical condition (like multiple sclerosis for example), or it could be that a nerve is being impinged by a joint, or has been impacted from an external force.
• Algopathic – this is also called “pain without a known cause”. It encompasses the rest of pain syndromes that aren’t either of the other two (or at least we don’t know if they fit into one of those two buckets), and often are beyond the scope of what current pain science can understand. Fibromyalgia is the queen example of this type of pain.

For the rest of the article, we’re only going to be talking about pain that doesn’t have an ‘obvious’ cause. Even though a lot of information exists to help us understand a pinprick pain of a needle entering our skin, a sprained ankle or a punch in the face, we’re not really going to focus on that here. Not that apparently “simple” pain is actually simple at all (because some people can cop a punch in the face no problem and others cannot), but right now we’re setting our sights on the even-less-obvious pains that arise from seemingly unknown or seemingly innocuous circumstances.

Types of sensations

Now, let’s discuss possibilities for sensations of particular ‘type’ characteristics. It is probably beneficial to have already read through a previous post I wrote “A Comprehensive Guide To Describing Pain: Helping Us Help You”. This is where you can find the list of types of pain that we’re going through below.

Types of sensations and how they could be classified:

• Sharp – these sensations can be neuropathic in nature and we most often assume this to be the case, such as in a nerve compression. Yet true nerve impingement is not as common as you think (read this for the example of carpal tunnel syndrome). So actually, a lot of sharper sensations fall under the algopathic label. Remember, right now we’re talking about sensations that aren’t tied to an obvious insult – not the broken bone that gives you a sharp sensation.

• Dull – is often a nociceptive sensation and we can usually expect more persistent dullness as a result of that. This is typically something we can expect from non-specific low-back pain where nerve endings/nociceptors are reporting that something in the tissues is “off”.

• Tingling – another sensation that we often refer to as nerve-pain (neuropathic), but again is typically more of an algopathic one, if not nociceptive. An example of this is having “slept funny” on one arm and during the day the fingers of that arm are tingly. You might be surprised to know that this is often less about nerves being compressed upon exiting the spine, and more about trigger points within the tissues, and joint distraction.

• Burning – This sensation is something we are likely to encounter in nociceptive or algopathic sensation communications. An example of nociceptive burning is putting capsaicin or another chemical irritant on your skin. Another example is the sensation often described with “sciatica” that is actually mostly misdiagnosed piriformis syndrome, which is more algopathic.

• Numbness – is actually a great example of neuropathic sensation, and one that is possibly our best indicator of direct pressure on, or impingement of, a nerve.

• Throbbing – is more often than not, a nociceptive-derived sensation – one where inflammatory mediators have irritated nerve endings, similar to a nociceptive burning sensation.

To reiterate, I’ve just noted the more common interaction with the types of sensation and their classifications. This is not always going to be the case in every instance. Just a good number of them. I’d also like to highlight that there hasn’t yet been any comment on what each of those sensations might mean in terms of “good”, “bad” or “other”.

So again, what does pain mean?

All of the types of sensations could mean something, and all of them could also mean nothing. Pain is like that. That’s because pain is entirely a cerebral event. The MEANING of sensation is derived from the brain interpreting those signals and either ascribing significance to them or not.

In that case, can dull pain actually be signalling something wrong with the tissue? Yes, it certainly can. It could also be absolutely nothing at all. Or it could have been something to set it off previously, but nothing physical anymore.

This means that our whole idea that “pain is a signal telling us something is wrong”, needs to be re-evaluated and deconstructed. Because it might, and it might not – and most often, it’s the latter.

But we have to be careful, because we don’t want to throw the baby out with the water. It’s a complicated situation, as you may be starting to feel (even if just by not getting a solid answer).

Why could pain mean something?

The sensation of pain may indeed be telling us something worth us knowing – it may actually be signalling that something is wrong and needs to be addressed. Our brain does this to keep us alive – when we feel intensity, we often do something about it. And if something were indeed wrong (to a medium degree), it would be advantageous for us to actually take action and make some changes.

So, why could pain mean nothing?

Because perhaps something hurt a while ago and has since become centrally sensitized or in the shorter-term, peripherally sensitized. Either meaning that we’re registering a sensation in our brain simply because it’s used to it after a long period of time, or we’re still getting messages from the periphery because of lowered stimulation thresholds of nociceptors and a release of inflammatory mediators that weren’t actually needed but where released anyway just in case. Also, there’s this thing when actual injuries of life-threatening severity do occur, they can often be painless (like this).

Want to know something even trickier?

Here are some things that complicate our ability to interpret the meaning of pain or intensity of sensation:

• The location of pain and severity of sensation often have nothing to do with the degree of physical insult. (reference)
• Sleep deprivation plays a role in how sensitive we are to stimulation (reference)
• Diet – the food we eat and it’s composition also influence pain perception (reference)
• Stress – I don’t really think I need to give you a source for this one because I’m pretty sure you already agree, but here you go anyway (reference)
• The beliefs we hold about pain play a huge role (whether conscious or unconscious) (reference)
• All past experiences in life…including but not limited to physical and emotional traumas. (reference)

**Senses like vision and touch would normally also be included here, but remember we’re only talking about pain from unknown or unclear sources right now.

But just one sec.

Something I’d like to draw your attention to for just a minute, is that in our list of sensations and what they could be signalling, there was really only ONE sensation that is almost a slam dunk for telling us that nerve impingement is happening. Just one. That was numbness.

However, a lot of the time, we hear people saying (or if we don’t yet, keep an ear out for it) that they have nerve impingement here, there and everywhere. Now, that’s not to say that it isn’t happening in some instances (about 12% of the population, so certainly not insignificant), however nerve impingement and compression is just not as common than a lot of people think. And this is actually a really good thing. (It’s even not really all that more common in those who have had motor vehicle accidents. Reference).

Slight diversion –

It’s a really good thing that neural damage isn’t as common as we believe because neuropathic pain is the one we want to be most cautious of. This is because neuropathic sensation can lead to chronic pain more often than nociceptive-driven sensations. So perhaps it’s over-diagnosed in order to just make sure, because it has greater clinically significant implications if it’s made worse. Now, nerves aren’t all that delicate – let’s be clear. Not much in the body could really fit under that classification. However, they don’t have the same mechanisms of repair that for example muscles do, and they have to compete with infiltrating scar tissue (reference). This type of thing really needs to be evaluated with medical imaging so that you’re able to see the physical impingement.

Now, back to the main point…

Why do I want to draw your attention there?

Because for the most part, people use the phrase “listen to your body” because they believe that intense sensation signals that something bad is happening or is about to happen and therefore must be avoided. And whilst it might indeed be signalling that, we see that there’s really only one instance where we don’t want to really challenge that theory. Meaning, that a majority of people who have pain, don’t really need to be taking rest so often. And this is important because…

Movement and manual therapy are often critical elements to the reduction and possible removal of that pain. Yet, if we’re continuously scared to move, or even encouraged to rest as an actualization of “listening to your body” (which is mostly how it’s understood by people), we substantially cut our chances of actually getting out of that pain.

I know this can be a really challenging, and brain-straining to read. We’ve been told our entire lives that when it hurts, we need to stop doing it.

But more and more research is telling us that sensation is actually not the enemy, and it’s also not always even the real messenger. And more and more, movement and manual therapy are being shown to be the things we need rather than the things we need to avoid, even when there’s some intensity to sensation.

To help, you could also read research like this:
– https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_Otis/publication/294276376_Potential_ neurobiological_benefits_of_exercise_in_chronic_pain_and_posttraumatic_stress_ disorder_Pilot_study/links/56e1883108ae23524090afbe/Potential-neurobiological-
benefits-of-exercise-in-chronic-pain-and-posttraumatic-stress-disorder-Pilot-study.pdf
– https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4534717/
– https://www.oarsijournal.com/article/S1063-4584(19)30902-1/fulltext
– http://www.thblack.com/links/rsd/ClinJPain2015_31_108_Exercise4ChronPain.pdf

So, after all this, what does it mean?

No, it doesn’t mean that we can bring back the idea of “no pain, no gain”. That is staying in the history books still. It means that we need to stop always using pain/intensity as the indicator for determining our next actions, especially as an excuse to rest/do less, and instead develop a greater vocabulary around sensation in order to be able to support the reduction in pain in the best possible way over time, backed by science and shared with others through education. It’s also important to note that if we’re really listening to the “needs” of the tissues, we’d actually be moving a lot more, even in order to retrain our pain system.

It doesn’t necessarily mean scrapping the saying. It means teaching people what they’re listening for, and what they might be able to do with that information on sensation. This also means taking the fear OUT of movement and manual therapy settings.

Thoughts or questions? Hit me up below.

Your neck needs this

May 13, 2020 By: Drew Humecomment

For everyone with neck stuff – try this out, let me know how it goes:

If you liked this, you might also like this free foot massage tutorial over here!

We’re going to have our work cut out for us, you and I.

April 2, 2020 By: Drew Humecomment

On so many levels. I don’t just mean the work of due diligence, or of managing fear. Though that’s certainly part of it right now.

And I also mean more than working hard to save businesses and livelihoods. Even though that’s also a very real thing.

I been thinking a lot lately about the social, emotional and cultural work that will be (and already is) needed. Part of what we do here at Navina is educate about touch – which you probably know, since you’re here reading this.

But wrapped-up in that education is the biology of human contact – and this leads us directly to the anthropology of us being social beings. We’re deeply hardwired for touch, and this brings us together and builds bonds with others (Oxytocin is the hormone that drives human bonding, and this is released significantly with touch), which in-turn creates the emotional and social security of groups. Touch is the glue that binds us as social creatures. ((Yes, even if you’re highly introverted)).

I’m seeing it all over social media right now – the realization of many that this social distancing practice ((though very necessary)) is very difficult. To me, this highlights our relative interdependence on one another.

So, I see that there is the experiential realization of our nature.

But.

There’s also fear layered into this experience. And this fear won’t simply go away when the virus starts to finish its path across the world. This fear drives suspicion. It drives self-preservation. It drives the distance between us (emotionally and culturally). And this is what it will continue to do. This will be one of its legacies. And this is what I mean by we have our work cut out for us.

Image source: helpguide.org.

For many of us this is going to be the hardest element of the post-virus fallout to deconstruct and work through.

Reprogramming the fear of social contact – the social anxiety that will be palpably leftover. We already live in a touch-averse culture.

In some ways I feel as though the progress we’ve been making (at least in our own sphere here at Navina) in bringing people together and teaching the tools to bridge you into the language of touch and human connection, will be reversed. In other ways, I see this as exactly the reason we exist here at Navina. To re-educate. But also to frame that education with responsibility – to give tools and language to develop safe touch-spaces (with all this entails), AND to embody what it can mean to do this work in a world that both very much needs touch, and also where touch is a mode of viral transmission.

So where does the work begin?

Feel free to contribute ideas below. I’m putting my own ideas here – as actionable items to begin the challenging process of dismantling our newfound (or newly-amplified) social anxiety and fear. Some of these will be more applicable already, and others may be future items.

The first piece, which is something we should be doing anyway, is talking about touch:

• Touch is a very intimate experience (note: intimate doesn’t mean sexual) and for many people, it is a deeply layered and complex experience as well.
• In honouring the complexity of touch, we should be talking about it. These conversations can be uncomfortable, but all the work that is worth its salt is at least a little uncomfortable. So I encourage you to step into that space.
• Talk specifically about what makes you feel safe in touch-based scenarios. How does that look right now (know that it can/does change)? Is it a hand on the shoulder? A hug? Or is it different for different people? Talking about this helps to clarify things in your own mind and clarity helps agency – it gets you exploring what your comfort with touch feels and looks like and then communicating it. Sharing and hearing these things will also keenly attune you to considerations for others.
• Talk about consent. Highlight its importance with your close people – get them thinking and talking about this too. Remember that this conversation can be uncomfortable, and at the same time if you stick with it, this discomfort grows into agency and voice.
• Hygiene practices – talk about this too – when confronting anxious feelings, it can be helpful to really dig into the details of how we not only take care of ourselves but also others. Data for our brains is often helpful.

The next piece, some of which can already take place at home:

• Self-massage. Receiving massage is about a lot of things – including the release of extra tension, and so self-massage can help to meet those needs AND to get you experiencing some degree of touch, albeit from massage tools. It can’t replace the connection element of a massage from a human, but this is where the next part comes in…
• Massage with isolation-companions or with close people. These close people should be people who are responsible and have taken all logical measures to reduce their risk and therefore your risk of infection.
• Making sure that you talk about touch, consent, and hygiene practices first.
• And then enacting all those practices in the creation of a safe environment in which to build that connection.

Note, if your isolation-companion is a life-partner/sexual partner, I would strongly encourage you to explore the layers of intimacy touch provides beyond sexual experiences. This space is where touch vocabulary expands.

Hopefully this helps.

Stay well,

Drew & the Navina team.

Reverse unicorn horn. Good? Bad? Let’s evaluate the situation.

June 25, 2019 By: Drew Hume1 Comment

This image has been doing the rounds on social media the last week or so. And I see that a lot of people are worried or just straight-up scared about the situation. This fear is mostly the result of journalism, rather than the science, so I’d like to take it all a step back and go through and share with you the science of this finding, what it means and also what it doesn’t mean.

[Read more…]

Bunions & Big Toe Deviation – Genetics or Environment?

June 20, 2019 By: Drew Hume6 Comments

This is the first of a series that is designed to target common conditions and “trouble spots” in the body and give you a greater understanding of what could be going on and also providing some tools to help the process of improving function (and how it feels).