What is fascia?
For whatever reason, scientists and academics have not placed an emphasis on fascia. For so many years we have individualized every system and symptom in the body. But as we continue to conduct research from a more holistic point of view, we are learning that the fascial system just might be the most important system in the body. Why? Because it connects every individual system, muscle, organ, nerve, cell into one working, living, breathing human. And how does it do this? Through individual cellular communication. Fascia is the system that allows for organs to communicate to each other. This communication is interpreted well by the body but often times the signal it communicates to our brain can be misinterpreted. For example, when one of my patients has pain in her neck, I know through my study of fascial interconnectivity to treat the forearm and bicep to address the neck pain.
The Future is Fascia
Since 2012, research on fascia has exploded with a 300% increase in published, evidence-based articles. In this new research, we learn that the second component of the fascia is the extracellular matrix. This matrix consists of water, gels, and fibers that surround the connective tissue, which in turn surrounds the muscle, tendons, and ligaments. What we eat, how much force we exert from exercise, and how often we move, determine how healthy our connective tissue is. In other words, the more active we are during the day, the more elastic fibers, water, and gel-like proteins are created around the tissue to keep us flexible and minimize pain. If we sit in a prolonged position day in and day out; year after year, we lose the ability to excrete water, elastic fibers, or gel to surround the muscle. We stiffen up, our range of motion decreases, our structures in the body become compressed, cellular DNA turns on genes to activate aging and degradation, and we lower our overall function to thrive as a human being. Our fascia is a river of liquid and tissue seamlessly touching almost every single one of our 70 trillion cells in the body. If the river is flowing and gliding, we can be vibrant with healthy. But if the fascia stiffens up, we tend to migrate toward a state of what I like to refer to as dis-ease or “lack of” ease.
