The WIT Method

Using Integrated Fascial Release to help people connect to their bodies,

and be empowered to heal.

What is Integrated Fascial Release?

ATTENTION/SELF-CONNECTION

  • Pause and shift your focus to the area of pain or discomfort (be it physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual). TURN TOWARDS IT

  • Start an ongoing conversation with your system.

  • Ask the question & then LISTEN to the answer.

PRESSURE

  • This part is about increasing flow.

  • Where is the pain? The tightness? Where do you feel the emotional discomfort in your physical body?

  • Put a hand on it, or lean against a ball. Touch it, put pressure there.

  • This increases the hydration and the flow of energy in the tissue.

BREATH/INTENTION

  • Take a deep breath. Slow exhale.

  • Set an intention to LISTEN, to CONNECT, to HEAL.

  • Everything needs to flow: energy, blood, oxygen, lymphatic fluid, thoughts, emotions, etc.

  • Know that we are an integrated whole.

  • Nothing works in isolation.

  • Everything connects through the fascial network.

  • Bring together and balance all parts of you (mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual).

When you start to pay attention and create an open dialog with your system, you have access to feedback that puts you on a path to optimal health.

What is out of balance?

  • Fascial tissue needs to be mobile, fluid, dynamic, and hydrated.

  • Look for imbalances in your system.

  • DO SOMETHING! Do not just ignore it!

  • Be INTENTIONAL with whatever you do. Hold healing, flow, release, and movement as the intention.

  • Roll, stretch, put your hand on it, sigh, breathe, laugh, cry, yell, talk, walk in nature, etc.

  • A shift in ANY system in your body will cause a shift in other systems. We are all connected. Nothing works in isolation!

About Kristin Jamieson, MSPT

“I believe that people are empowered through knowledge. Whether it is simply that they finally understand why their shoulder hurts every time it gets just above 90 degrees or the role and importance of something called the fascial network. When a person truly understands why it is that something is inflamed, how it got to be that way, and ways that will help it get better, they can be more in control of their healing.”
Kristin is a Physical Therapist and Founder of WIT (Wellness Integration Tools).   After obtaining her Bachelors from the University of Colorado, Boulder Kristin relocated to the Bay Area. It was a love of science that brought her to San Francisco where she worked as a researcher at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center, UCSF Department of Neurology intent on getting a Ph.D. in Neuroscience. After several years in the lab, it became clear that her calling was to work with people. She followed up her undergraduate degree with a Masters of Science in Physical Therapy from the University of Colorado Denver Health Sciences.
She returned to the Bay Area, this time with her husband and son, and has been practicing Manual Physical Therapy and teaching Pilates since 2003.  
She founded the company WIT (Wellness Integration Tools) in 2016 with the goal of being able to reach more than one person at a time. Over the years she has developed a method that combines many different areas of study to provide what she believes to be an easily attainable path to wellness. Her mission is to educate people about their bodies and the fascial network, provide tools to unlock awareness and promote healing, and to create a culture of prevention.
“As a physical therapist and in my 1:1 practice, my mission is to first help people get out of pain through the use of functional manual therapy. I use a hands-on approach combining soft tissue mobilization, myofascial release, deep tissue massage, trigger point, and active release, and muscle energy techniques to first release and realign the body. Once we have freed up mechanical restrictions we begin the process of strengthening and stabilizing, retraining unhealthy movement patterns and habits and coming to a place of whole system-wide healing. 
I have a vision of a world where everyone has a solid understanding of how their body works and what it needs to feel good and function optimally. Where every person is empowered with the tools to help themselves heal.”

What Is Fascia?

Fascia is a 3-dimensional web of connective tissue that surrounds and connects everything in your body. It is the extracellular matrix, the glue that holds us together. It is all the space in between, literally enveloping and connecting every cell in your body. All of your muscles, nerves, arteries, veins, tendons, etc. pass through this web.

WHY IT MATTERS?

This fascial network needs to be mobile and dynamic and FLUID. Everything in the body (everything in life really) needs to flow. Energy, oxygen, blood, nutrients, toxins, tendons, ligaments, muscles, etc. need to be able to move and flow. When we have injury or inflammation in an area, it can lead to restriction and adhesions in this fascial web. This impedes the flow of whatever happens to be in that area. For example, if the fascia is tight and restricted surrounding the nerves and arteries of your low back, this can lead to decreased circulation and increased pain in that area by tightening down, and constricting around the arteries and nerves.

IT’S ALL CONNECTED!

When one part of this web is tight, it pulls and places too much tension on other parts. This uneven pull in the system is what can lead to tightness, pain, and injury. For instance, lets' say you did too many push-ups at the gym or sat for WAY too many hours slumped over your keyboard, and end up with increased tightness in your neck and shoulders. That tightness is now putting increased tension throughout your entire system, but for this particular example, especially down into your low back. So the next day, when you bend down to pick up the heavy box off the floor, you have all this extra tension through your low back- increasing the risk of injury or strain.

It's as if you were trying to pull a garden hose around the side of the house- but it's caught on a chair.

THE SYSTEM NEEDS TO BE MOBILE AND DYNAMIC

In order for all the elements essential to our health and well-being to literally FLOW around our body, this fascial system needs to remain mobile and dynamic.

What impedes the flow in this tissue?

  • Level of hydration- our bodies are approximately 60% water, so when we are dehydrated this will affect the flow in our tissue.

  • Nutrition- when we eat things that are inflammatory to our systems, this impedes the flow through this tissue.

  • Stress- studies have shown that cortisol (stress hormone) causes the fascial network to contract.

  • Injury

  • Repetitive Strain / Trauma

  • Poor Posture

  • Working Out

  • Pretty Much- LIFE

HOW DO YOU KEEP FASCIA MOBILE AND DYNAMIC?

  • Awareness- Repetitive Inquiry- keep checking in. Ask the question and then LISTEN to the answer.

  • Stay Hydrated

  • Eat Healthy

  • Move your body

  • Exercise- increase blood flow and circulation

  • Decrease stress: meditation, socialization (community), laugh, get out in nature

  • ROLL OUT- this has been shown to decrease pain & tightness, increase blood flow, increase mobility, decrease inflammation, hydrate fascial tissue, improve immune function, improve body awareness, and decrease stress!