Fascia is Life
My instructors at the National Holistic Institute would often repeat “fascia is life”, it became a mantra to me in my practice once I understood what we know about fascia and its role in the body.
Gil Hedly lends a great mental image when he explains it as, “Each night when you go to sleep, the interfaces between your muscles grow “fuzz” potentially. And, in the morning when you wake up and stretch, the fuzz melts. The stiff feeling you have is the solidifying [nature] of your tissues. The sliding surfaces [just] aren’t sliding anymore.”
So you may be wondering what fascia is? Fascia is everywhere in our body. It is a thin casing of connective tissue that surrounds and holds everything in place, you can think of it like a spider’s web and imagine it wrapped around our organs, blood vessels, bone, nerve fibers and muscles.
“Every cat in the world wakes up in the morning and stretches its body.” -Gil Hedly
So we can imagine that for various reasons our muscles may grow this “fuzz” as Hedly explains. While inactive and sleeping, the fascia has a way in our body of intermingling. If we wake carry on with our day, without stretching or having dynamic body movement, our fascia’s intermingling overnight may continue to be “stuck together” throughout the day. This is a mental picture of just 24 hours. Now imagine, for months or even years, our body hasn’t had a lot of movement or body therapy. You can expect to feel tight, unable to stretch far, tension, aches, and general body discomfort. Fascia is much more dynamic and I’ll write more blogs on it in the near future. However, today and here let’s focus on the “fuzz” and how to promote easeful gliding of joints and muscles.
One might wake with a tight neck or shoulder and shrug it off hoping it works itself out throughout the day. Fascia doesn’t exist as isolated units in the body. It is an interwoven connective tissue that throughout the entire body remains connected. If the fascia in the neck or shoulder is tight then it will have a direct effect on the fascia near and far. You can think of it as a table cloth, nicely set and prepared for dinner. If you tug, pull or twist on one corner of the table cloth, it will change the position of everything else on the table.
Massage is an excellent way to promote dynamic movement and address the “fuzz” of fascia! Myofascial therapy helps to break down adhesions between the tissues (commonly known as “knots”), it softens and realigns muscle fibers, and frees up muscles (by breaking up the “fuzz”) which in turn allows for more effective muscle to glide over one another (which is what movement is).
Cara’s Recipe to healthy Fascia:
Stretch for 10-20 minutes in the morning, before you start your day.
Roll out your tight spots.
Keep you and your fascia hydrated (drink spring or filtered water)
Receive a massage once (or more) per month. (1 massage every 2 weeks is an excellent way to maintain health to our muscles, fascia and overall health).
