Toni Dundas Reflexology & Hypnotherapy

Toni Dundas Reflexology & Hypnotherapy Hypnotherapy & Reflexology are wonderful therapies to reset and rebalance the mind, body and soul.

12/09/2025

🌌 The Secret Symphony Between Your Fascia, Emotions, and Lymphatic Flow 🎻

What if your body’s emotional memory wasn’t just stored in your brain — but in your fascia?

Welcome to a revolutionary understanding of how your connective tissue, your feelings, and your fluid flow are in a constant, beautiful dance — and how healing your lymphatic system might just help you heal your heart.

💡 Fascia: The Body’s Hidden Conductor

Fascia is a web-like connective tissue that wraps around every muscle, bone, nerve, and organ. It holds the structure of your body — but it does much more than that.

According to research from Harvard Medical School and the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, fascia has mechanosensory and emotional memory capabilities. Yes — your fascia feels.

When trauma, stress, or suppressed emotion occur, fascia can tighten, harden, and hold. This causes stagnation not only in muscles or joints — but in your lymphatic flow.

💧 Stagnant Emotions = Stagnant Lymph

The lymphatic system relies on the mobility of fascia and muscle contraction to move lymph. If your fascia is restricted from old trauma, surgery, or chronic emotional stress, your lymph slows down, detox backs up, and inflammation can quietly rise.

Imagine unresolved grief from years ago living not just in your heart — but in your hips, chest, and even your gut fascia, causing chronic puffiness, digestive issues, and fatigue.

🧠 The Vagus Nerve Connection

Your vagus nerve, the major highway between brain and body, winds through fascia-rich territories. Emotional restriction in fascial areas — particularly the neck, chest, and diaphragm — can impair vagus function, leading to:
• Anxiety
• Gut imbalances
• Poor sleep
• Lymphatic congestion in the head and neck

When you release fascial tension through manual lymphatic drainage (MLD), myofascial release, breathwork, and somatic therapy, you stimulate both lymphatic movement and emotional processing. This is where true detoxification happens — physically and emotionally.

🌿 The Body Remembers — But It Can Also Release

Fascial and lymphatic therapies are now being recognized not just as physical tools, but as emotional release mechanisms.

One 2022 study in Frontiers in Psychology noted that manual body therapies, particularly fascial and lymphatic work, can unlock “stored emotional pain” and “activate parasympathetic (healing) response.”

🌀 So what does this mean for healing?

If you’re feeling stuck emotionally, tired physically, or puffy and inflamed — the issue might not be just in your gut or your hormones.

It may be in the fascia that hasn’t felt safe enough to let go.

💎 Practical Tips to Support the Fascia-Emotion-Lymph Axis:
1. Dry Brushing – stimulates fascia and superficial lymph capillaries.
2. Manual Lymphatic Drainage (MLD) – softens tight fascia, moves trapped toxins and emotions.
3. Diaphragmatic Breathing – releases the solar plexus and vagus nerve.
4. Myofascial Self-Release – foam rolling with mindfulness.
5. Castor Oil Packs – soften adhesions and release stored trauma.
6. Movement with Emotion – dance, stretch, or cry as you move lymphatically.
7. Somatic Therapy – consider working with trauma-informed practitioners who understand the body-emotion connection.

✨ Final Thought:

You are not “too sensitive.”
Your body just speaks the language of truth — and it speaks it through your fascia and lymph.
Listen, release, and watch the healing ripple through your whole being.

📚 References:
• Schleip, R. (2022). Fascial plasticity – A new neurobiological explanation. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies.
• Porges, S. W. (2021). Polyvagal theory: The transformative power of feeling safe. Norton & Company.
• Harvard Health Publishing. Fascia: The connective tissue that supports our body.
• Frontiers in Psychology (2022). Manual therapies and emotional processing: A somatic-emotional feedback loop.

©️

05/09/2025

🦠 Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS):

The Silent Storm Behind Histamine, Swelling & Sensitivity

Have you ever felt like your body is overreacting to everything?
One day it’s your skin. The next it’s your stomach. Then your heart races for no reason, or your face flushes and swells without warning.
Blood tests? “Normal.”
Allergies? “Nothing specific.”

You’re not imagining it.
Your mast cells might be the messengers behind the chaos.

🌬️ What is MCAS?

Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) is a chronic, misunderstood condition where your immune system’s mast cells become hypersensitive — releasing inflammatory chemicals like:
• Histamine
• Leukotrienes
• Cytokines
• Prostaglandins

These chemical signals are helpful during infections or injury — but in MCAS, they’re released too often, too easily, and without a true trigger.

This creates a storm of symptoms across the entire body — often dismissed, misdiagnosed, or misunderstood.

📍 What Are Mast Cells?

Mast cells are immune sentries. They’re found wherever your body interfaces with the outside world:
• Skin
• Lungs
• Gut lining
• Blood vessels
• Brain barriers
• Lymphatic vessels and nodes

When they detect a threat, they release chemicals to fight it — but in MCAS, they act like overprotective guards, sounding the alarm all the time.

🧬 MCAS Symptoms: The Body on High Alert

Because mast cells are everywhere, symptoms can affect every system:

🩷 Skin & Face:
• Flushing
• Hives, itching, eczema
• Swelling (especially under eyes, around lips, throat, underarms)

🧠 Brain & Mood:
• Brain fog
• Anxiety or panic
• Dizziness, light sensitivity
• Migraine-type headaches

🫁 Heart & Lungs:
• Heart palpitations
• Shortness of breath
• Chest tightness (without cardiac cause)

🌿 Gut & Digestion:
• Bloating
• Cramping or loose stools
• Acid reflux
• Food sensitivities or “mystery reactions”

🌡️ Whole Body:
• Fatigue
• Joint or muscle pain
• Temperature regulation issues
• “Allergic” symptoms without actual allergy

🔄 How MCAS Connects to the Lymphatic System

This is where it gets fascinating.
1. Mast cells live in and around lymphatic vessels and nodes.
When they’re overactive, they irritate the lymph system — leading to:
• Swelling
• Puffiness
• Congested drainage
• Delayed detox
2. Histamine thickens lymphatic fluid.
Too much histamine = lymph moves slower = more inflammation builds.
3. Chronic inflammation = overwhelmed drainage.
If your liver, gut, and lymphatic system can’t keep up, your symptoms flare harder and longer.
4. Lymphatic drainage helps reduce mast cell buildup.
Manual lymphatic drainage (MLD), castor oil, and hydration clear inflammatory chemicals that mast cells release.

💥 What Triggers MCAS?

• Stress (emotional or physical)
• Infections (viral, bacterial, fungal)
• Mold or chemical exposure
• Hormonal changes (menstruation, perimenopause)
• Heat, cold, exercise
• Certain medications or supplements
• High-histamine foods (fermented foods, aged cheese, wine, citrus, etc.)

🌿 How to Calm the Storm: Natural Support for MCAS

🔹 Stabilize Mast Cells
• Quercetin
• Luteolin
• Stinging nettle
• Vitamin C
• DAO enzyme support

🔹 Support Detox + Drainage
• MLD (Manual Lymphatic Drainage)
• Castor oil packs
• Hydration with electrolytes
• Infrared saunas (if tolerated)

🔹 Soothe the Nervous System
• Breathwork
• Gentle vagus nerve activation
• Magnesium
• Low-stimulation environments during flares

🔹 Reduce High-Histamine Foods Temporarily
• Avoid fermented, aged, or leftover foods
• Eat fresh, clean proteins and cooked vegetables

📍 Conditions Often Linked to MCAS:

• Long COVID
• Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME)
• Fibromyalgia
• POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome)
• Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS)
• Mold illness
• Autoimmunity (e.g. Hashimoto’s)

💚 In Summary:

MCAS is not “in your head.”
It’s in your mast cells — your immune messengers who’ve become too reactive, too protective, and too loud.

But healing is possible.
Start by calming your nervous system, clearing your lymphatic system, and listening gently to the whispers of your body before they become screams.

✨ You are not broken — your body is just trying to protect you, even if it’s a little confused.

📌 Disclaimer:
This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your healthcare provider before making changes to your health routine.

©️

❤️
04/06/2025

❤️

Writing hypnotherapy scripts and igniting my inner power 💖 and loving my beautiful new candle by Nikita 😍
11/12/2023

Writing hypnotherapy scripts and igniting my inner power 💖 and loving my beautiful new candle by Nikita 😍

07/12/2023

As some of you know I am also working a volunteer complimentary therapist at the Princess Alice hospice helping patients and carers with reflexology and hypnotherapy. It is my aim to be able to help people ease their pain and suffering and to give them a sense of hope, feeling like they have some control back. Hypnotherapy is so deeply relaxing and healing and can help the client/patient/carer to move forward with a feeling of calmness, acceptance, ease pain and also help with a better nights sleep. Reflexology is also wonderful but hypnotherapy works with the subconscious mind so long term positive changes can me made to enable you to move forward feeling more peaceful in your mind… and in your body… what happens in your mind affects your body ❤️

13/11/2023
Reducing stress, calming emotions, increase healing, lower your blood pressure…. and so much more… So many benefits ❤️
21/10/2023

Reducing stress, calming emotions, increase healing, lower your blood pressure…. and so much more… So many benefits ❤️

Puts it all into perspective hey?! ❤️
11/10/2023

Puts it all into perspective hey?! ❤️

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Esher Road
East Molesey
KT80AG

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