Why the fascia of the body is important and how to care for it
A little more than 6 years ago I attended a yin yoga teacher training. Yin is a form of yoga, which contrary to all other types of yoga is centered around ‘switching off the muscles’ and working with the connective tissues. Until then I didn’t realise how great an impact our fascia has on the body and its functioning. I learned, however, how this connective tissue provides support, protection and connection to our muscles, nerves, and organs - and also how it deeply affects our physical, emotional and energetic body simultaneously. Ensuring our fascia is healthy is therefore an important factor in caring for our wellbeing. By bringing attention to it, we can cultivate more space within ourselves, allow the body to unfold where it’s been crammed and give voice to parts of our body we don’t usually hear.
If you have yet to learn about our fascia’s subtle but powerful effect, keep reading and learn how to support yourself inside out.
WHAT IS FASCIA
Fascia is our connective tissue that lives under the skin, which connects our entire body from the crown of our head to the tips of our toes. It can be visualized like a spider web, which can stretch and pull and wrap around whatever it catches on to. Muscles, bones, nerves, ligaments and organs are all connected and encased by this continuous web-like structure, which protects, supports and carries information between everything in the body. Fascia is a gel-like substance, composed primarily of collagen and elastin fibers and it can attract more than 10 times its weight in fluid. When the tissue is healthy it is fluid and mobile, making the information between different parts of the body run smoothly and ensuring we’re flexible in our movements. However, if we’re not attentive to it, fascia can also become tight and congested, which will then potentially limit our mobility and inner communication system.
HOW DOES FASCIA WORK
Fascia works as an interlaced network that also serves as a conductor for energy and information throughout the whole body. Electrical impulses about the physical body as well as our nervous system travel through the fascia network hence not only our physical body is affected by the state of our fascia. So too are our emotional and mental health.
In a physical sense, if we’ve had surgery that’s caused scar tissue to be created, this tissue will then gently be pulling in on the tissue from other areas. Depending on the location of the scar tissue, this could mean we’re being pulled in a certain direction under the skin, which may affect our posture or muscle activation. Our connective tissue will also be affected if we’re always doing our workouts without stretching afterwards. If this is the case, our fascia will slowly become more stiff and immobile, causing our range of motion to be impeded. Likewise, if we tend to hold tension in the face, over time this may show up as wrinkles. In the same way, it’s affected by physical imprints, our fascia is also impacted by our feelings and emotions. If for instance, we’re going to work with a stomach ache every day over a period of time due to a bad working environment, this ache can be stored in our tissue. This happens when the body continuously sends electrical impulses we ignore or suppress rather than take into account and deal with. The body can easily store tension in the chest, hip, jaw or other areas if over time we continuously ignore sensations of tightness or pain due to being unhappy, stressed, angry, unsafe, pressured or other without meeting it. Our fascia can naturally also be affected by bigger life events or traumas such as a nasty traffic accident, an attack, a severe shock or similar things.
HOW TO WORK WITH FASCIA
The good thing about fascia is that it can be influenced by what we do (and don’t do). If we’ve had difficult experiences or there are areas in our body that either hurt or have a limited range of motion, we can create better elasticity. By doing things such as yin yoga, cupping, foam rolling and breathing we can create more space internally. The key is to draw more fluid to the fascia since this is what helps create more space and fluidity as well as let go of stored toxins. Fascia is slow in the sense that it requires time to draw in this fluid. As mentioned above, in yin yoga we switch off the muscles because this allows us to target the fascia and hold positions for a longer period of time. While yang yoga is all about dynamically working on toning and strengthening the muscles, yin does the opposite. Here we’re working with gravity and inner calmness whilst slowly allowing the body to unfold from within and let the stretch increase in intensity over time. Yin yoga is therefore a more meditative experience where we are using the breath to create more space internally when the stretching sensations become increasingly strong. It also has the effect that we’re practicing being in the body and experiencing the sensations as a felt sense contrary to allowing the mind to tell us about the experience or dictating what to do. Yin yoga provides room to be with what’s present and difficult without instinctively reacting. This way we cultivate more space both physically, mentally as well as emotionally whilst slowly allowing ourselves to let go of what we don’t need. With tension in the face cupping or massages can be great to unwind, increase flow and help drain our lymphatic system. In the same way, it can also be good to work with a foam roller in different parts of the body - but in particular around the neck and shoulders. Both cupping and foam rolling are good as daily practices.
WHY WORKING WITH YOUR FASCIA IS IMPORTANT
The body keeps score. Maybe you’ve read the book by the same name? In traditional Chinese Medicine, they’ve worked with the meridians - our energy lines that run through our fascia - for millennia. In the Western health system, we haven’t always been aware of its effect. However, in recent years, also Western scientific research has found many keys to illnesses or even death causes that can be found in our connective tissue.
When we are working with this tissue, we’re caring for our overall health. It helps us release toxins, tensions, and traumas just as it improves our ‘internal communication system’. Since our fascia also affects our nervous system, which many times gives way for chronic illness, working with our connective tissue can help us heal imbalances that would otherwise develop into illness. In a strictly practical sense though, working with our fascia is also a beautiful thing to do to nurture and check in with ourselves - a much-needed thing for most of us in today’s busy modern world. Through yin yoga we have the opportunity to unwind, grow calmness and tune inwards. Here, we’re giving the body the opportunity to tell us how it feels and slowly find the calmness to expand and create more space physically. At the same time, we’re also cultivating a greater sense of inner peace, which we can take with us into our daily lives. And, especially if we already have a practice of dynamic movements with weekly workouts, it’s great to create a counter-balance by working on the connective tissue and deeply feeling our body.
In addition to yin yoga, via cupping, foam rolling and massage we can create daily rituals for ourselves, which confirm to us that we’re valuable and worth caring for. These everyday rituals make a huge difference not just for our physical health, but also for how we care and show up for ourselves in daily living. One positive action can so easily give way to the next positive choice, so through these practices, we can create a positive upward-moving spiral for ourselves.
Much love,
To book a movement session with Mai, inquire here.