Have you heard about fascia?
No? Don’t feel bad most people don’t, even professionals.
I learned about fascia 3 years ago when it came to my son’s inability to calm down at the end of the day to sleep, a few months into the pandemic.
What is fascia?
Fascia is a connective tissue that envelops and interconnects muscles, organs, and bones in your body. It forms a continuous web, providing structural support and facilitating communication between different body parts.
If our bones were removed from our body we would still hold our shape thanks to our fascia!
Fascia restrictions occur when this tissue becomes tight, tense, or restricted due to factors like poor posture, repetitive movements, stress, and injuries.
It can be a major influence for why we have chronic issues due to nutrient deficiencies, body aches and pains, and stuck in chronic stress / fight or flight response.
How does fascia create tension?
Watch this video explaining how our current approach in treating pain may be incomplete.
Pain in your hip may not have anything to do with an imbalance or injury in that area but caused by fascial strain happening in the neck.
Fascia restrictions can cause muscles to become tense and tight, contributing to physical discomfort and stress but also restrict or reduce mobility of blood, lymph, and neuron communication.
Tight fascia can influence the body’s stress response, leading to heightened feelings of anxiety and overwhelm >> stuck in fight or flight autonomic nervous system response (my son as briefly mentioned above).
Our fascia remembers! It may hold emotions that were not fully processed and/or acknowledged, affecting your ability to cope with stress and leading to mental and emotional fatigue.
Now before you are like this cannot apply to me, think of this. Do you experience:
- Tension in your neck?
- Arms or legs fall asleep / get that tingling feeling?
- Cold hands and/or feet?
- Always cold?
- Get motion sickness?
- Have hip/low back pain?
- Knees hurt?
- Digestive discomfort?
- Exhaustion?
These are only a handful of symptoms tied to fascial restrictions, it can honestly be a contributing factor to almost anything.
Remember fascia surrounds our nerves and organs. Imagine if there’s restriction that is impacting our vagus nerve (stress response, digestion, reproductive and more!) and digestive system.
While my nutritional therapy services address nutritional deficiencies, another aspect that could be contributing to you not achieving your goals is fascial strain!
Because fascia influences the mobility and alignment of organs in the digestive system impacting how you digest food, nutrient absorption, and overall gut health.
The onion effect of fascial strain
Warning if you are squirmy with the inner workings of the human body, you may not want to watch this video – it uses a human cadaver (dead body donated to research). But here’s why you need to start peeling back the layers and how long it takes will vary person to person.
How can you start address fascial strain?
One simple way to address fascial restrictions is to STRETCH!
But you must be mindful and intentional.
Meaning, we aren’t pushing beyond limitations that we feel like a muscle is going to snap or we are going to pass out.
You are most likely going to do both static and gentle movement stretches.
Stretches will vary day-to-day based on what your body needs at any given time.
Stretching can reduce stress by creating a sensation of relaxation but remember the key here being you don’t push beyond your limitations and you are slowly breathing through your nose and taking time to hold the stretch gently to release tension
One major benefit is that stretching increases circulation of blood but also lymph this can drastically increase your energy levels as it allows nutrients to actually get where they need to as well as let waste move out.
Stretching is a seriously underrated tool in your wellness toolbox.
Need to go deeper?
Craniosacral Fascial Therapy or the Gillespie Approach developed by Dr. Barry Gillespie is a non-invasive and gentle way to approach fascial strain.
We took my son when he was 15 months to see if it would help him downregulate at night to go to sleep.
Something happened a few months into the pandemic and he was just wild man and refusing to relax to go to sleep at a decent hour.
In our first session Dr. Gillespie determined there was significant fascial strain at the front of his throat. My son did have the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck when he was born.
After that first session we noticed our son talking or babbling significantly more than he did before the session. But didn’t realize he hadn’t been chattering away as much as he wanted.
He also slept that first night with less wakings.
After a few sessions Dr. Gillespie released the strain in his throat and our son was going falling asleep at night easily as he was calm and ready to go but also a chatter box during the day that didn’t shut up!
If you want more information regarding this approach, check out his website where he shares a ton of information and client testimonials.
To find a practitioner near you, you can join the Facebook group to find one near you.