Soften your fascia to improve self-healing

Flexible connective tissue improves circulation, communication, and detoxification

Happy New Year 2022!!

For many of us on a deep healing path, New Year’s resolutions can feel like pressure. Healing from chronic illness or pain (in my case Lyme disease) is a winding road, and responds badly to straining or pushing for imagined perfection. Who needs it? I’ve come to understand healing as a daily practice of tuning in with grace: listening to my body and softening. Healing is as much a spiritual practice as a physical one.

Of all the body’s tissue layers, perhaps the most responsive to this kind of internal releasing is the fascia, or connective tissue. Fascia can range in texture from a gel-like, watery matrix to tough strands that feel like re-bar. You can imagine which end of the continuum is more beneficial for healing. When our fascia is soft, circulation, communication, and detoxification improve system-wide, down to the cellular level.

This new year, I invite you to encourage your own connective tissue into a softer and more watery state. Not only is it much more comfortable, it also deeply supports any self-healing practice.

What is fascia?

Fascia refers to the web of connective tissue that supports and encases every muscle, bone, organ, and cell in our body. Fascia contains and protects – continuously and uninterrupted. Fascia encloses every muscle (and each muscle fiber), seamlessly turns into tendons, ligaments, and the outer layer of bone, and flows into and around the next muscle in the chain. It’s considered a fluid, just like lymph or blood, as it also forms the watery matrix that supports all our cells, allowing nutrients and oxygen to diffuse across cell membranes and for cells to release waste products.

When fascia is in its healthy, softer state, we can feel it. We feel flexible. Movement and breathing feels free and unrestricted. However, fascia is very responsive to stress and strain, whether from exertion, injury, less than ideal postural habits, or emotional tension. We’ve all experienced knotty, painful lumps in our upper shoulder muscles after a hard day – this is fascia hardening in response to stress. One day of this won’t impede healing, but ongoing strain will train the fascia into a habit of rigidity, and this can restrict necessary fluid and electrical exchange, and can cause chronic pain.

Three ways to soften and improve fascial tone

Of course, manual therapy or bodywork that targets connective tissue is wonderful for releasing and changing the texture of fascia. If you’ve had a significant injury or suffer from chronic pain, this may be imperative to help unlock protective patterns. But even if you get bodywork regularly, a practice of releasing connective tissue on your own may bring habits of holding tension more into your awareness, shifting them more permanently. Here are a few ways to soften your fascia all by yourself.

·       Meditation

Fascia, like all other tissue layers, is responsive to thought and feeling. Our nervous system is densely interwoven with all tissues of the body – intellectual and emotional states affect us directly. In other words, our fascia listens. Simply lying down, getting cozy, tuning into deep, relaxed breathing, and imagining your fascia softening does amazing things for its texture and quality.

One easy form of releasing fascia through meditation is to start with the crown of your head and travel slowly down your entire body in your imagination, softening and relaxing each body part as you go – perhaps imagining each progressive section of your body soaking in warm water. Because fascia is interwoven into every tissue layer, you’ll be addressing connective tissue whether you focus directly on it or not.

·       Rolling

If you notice a particularly hardened area in your body, such as your hips or shoulders, you can use pinkie balls, lacrosse balls, or foam rollers to roll out the connective tissue and encourage it to soften. There’s really no right or wrong way to roll and release fascia. As long as the process feels relaxing and comfortable, you are on the right track (though as you get deeper into fascia it may “hurt so good”, especially if you’re working with an area that’s been painful for a while). Experiment with what works, and use your breathing to support deep relaxation.

·       Postural awareness

Most of us wander around with our heads forward of our vertical axis, looking down. Unfortunately, the head is darn heavy, and this puts a strain on the fascia throughout the body. Whether sitting, standing, or even lying down, remembering to connect to the vertical current of energy that runs up a healthy spine and out the crown of the head is a truly profound way to take the strain off your connective tissue and allow it to soften and release. Releasing upward through the crown aligns the skeleton, and also opens space around every organ, allowing more optimal organ function as well.

In conclusion

This new year, remember your beautiful and resilient connective tissue – supporting, encasing, and protecting every structure and cell in your body. Your fascia is smart and responsive, it’s listening to you! Send it some love and care by encouraging it into a more habitually soft and watery state. Whether through meditation, rolling, or simple awareness of your own vertical energetic current, creating softer fascia will support flexibility, ease of breathing, and vibrant health on a cellular level.

Thank you for reading. Your body is the universe,

Shona