Fascial Love Letters
Ready to be fascinated by fascia?
…and get all the feels of fascial love
What if I told you that right now, as you’re reading this, your body is generating tiny electrical charges? Not from some fancy device… but from your own fascia - that connective tissue that’s literally holding you together.
I freaking love fascia and have been a little obsessed with it since my 20s. But fast forward to menopause, and my tissues got a little snarky.
One morning, I woke up with horrific pain in my foot. Doing nothing hurt.
Just a dimes worth of weight when it touched the floor, instantly made my eyes water as bolts of pain shot through my foot. But lifting my foot away from the floor felt like one of the bones was about to drop out of my foot.
It was one of those moments where I felt betrayed by my body. Turns out I had a cuboid bone shift out of its position (subluxation). Turns out this is one of the most common trail running injuries.
Since then, my Achilles tendon won’t let me forget it. That little boney shift made a lasting impact on those tissues of support. But more than that, it shook my trust in what felt like the foundation of my own body.
Maybe you know this feeling too. That moment when your body does something completely unexpected — changes that seem to come from nowhere. A little stiffness here and there, or a full-blown frozen shoulder or foot folly. Suddenly you’re looking in the mirror wondering, “Is this what aging feels like? Will I ever feel good in my body again?”
Here’s what I’ve learned: when we tend to our biology and lean into our injuries with curious inquiry — we get to reclaim that trust. We get to move from feeling betrayed by our bodies to feeling amazed by what they’re capable of. I also believe that nourishing your connective tissue is one of the keys for moving through menopause with ease or at least move well as you age.
And there are tons of cool things about fascia that might just blow your mind.
“...nourishing your connective tissue is one of the keys for moving through menopause with ease or at least move well as you age. And there are tons of cool things about fascia that might just blow your mind.”
Four Fascinating Fascial Facts
“What is fascia?” At the most basic level, fascia is a network of connective tissue. It acts as our body’s scaffolding, a matrix of hydrated collagen fibers that wrap around our organs, bones, blood vessels, brain matter, nerves, and more. It also maintains our structural integrity and creates continuous connectivity throughout the body.
Joanne Avison, Author of Yoga, Fascia, Anatomy and Movement describes it as such: “it is continuous and ubiquitous” I love the simple depths of this description. Fascia surrounds and penetrates our entire bodies.
Body Maps
This is where science meets your daily experience. Fascia is loaded with nerve endings. In fact, this fibrous tissue has 10 times more proprioceptors than muscle. With all that feedback from the fascia to your brain, it helps form the body image in your sensory-motor cortex — the body maps in your brain. When your fascia is healthy, you feel grounded, centered, fluid, and like you belong in your own skin.
Reciprocity
Those fascial sheaths also possesses viscoelastic properties, meaning it can both store and release energy like a rubber band. During movements like running or jumping, the internal connective tissue in the legs can store elastic energy when the foot contacts the ground and then release it back down again. Think of this as an act of reciprocity with the Earth. She’s literally helping you move with power and grace.
Flow
Here’s where the magic happens. Fascia can state shift, changing to a more fluid-like state when subjected to appropriate stress and movement. The more we move, the more fluid our fascia. When we move in a variety of ways with ease, grace, and integration… the more we support our fascial health. Imagine waking up and feeling fluid instead of stiff, responsive instead of stuck.
Emotions
Your myofascial continuum can stimulate the areas of the brain that regulate emotional states. Recent research has shown that all past traumas, both physical and mental, are stored within the fascia, causing its natural form to be disrupted and hardened to hold the body in a distressed state. Which might explain why our posture often reflects how we “think” and “feel” and vice versa. It’s not just your nervous system talking - your fascia is having conversations with your emotional brain all day long. And the beautiful thing is that when we shift a fascial habit (hello, movement), we get to shift what’s happening in the brain.
There is no separation of the body and the emotions.
So what does it feel like to have healthy, well-nourished fascia? You wake up and stretch without wincing. You bend down to pick something up without that internal negotiation. You move through your day feeling fluid, grounded, and at home in your skin. Your body feels like an ally again, not a stranger.
Six Keys To Nourishing Fascia As You Age
HYDRATION AND MOVEMENT: Your fascia is like a sponge. When it’s hydrated and moving, it’s supple and responsive. When it’s dehydrated and stagnant, it becomes stiff and sticky. Think of how you feel after sitting at your computer for hours versus after a walk by the ocean.
PROTEIN: Consider this a love letter to your fascia. Every bite of protein you eat becomes the building blocks for new collagen fibers. Your fascia is literally rebuilding itself from what you feed it. Wild salmon, grass-fed beef, pastured eggs, lentils, chickpeas - these aren’t just foods, they’re fascial medicine.
ANTI-INFLAMMATORY FATS (OMEGA-3S): Think of omega-3s as keeping your connective tissues soft and supple instead of stiff and crinkly. When your fascia gets the right fats, it stays fluid and responsive. Imagine the difference between a piece of leather that’s been conditioned with oil versus one that’s dried out and cracked.
ANTIOXIDANTS: Every colorful bite is like a micro-dose of anti-inflammatory medicine for your fascial tissue. That square of dark chocolate? Your fascia says thank you. Those blueberries? Fascial gold. That glass of green tea? Pure fascial love.
VITAMIN C: Here’s where things get interesting - vitamin C and protein are basically besties when it comes to building strong, flexible collagen. They work together to cultivate the kind of tissue that lets you move with fewer creaks and crunches, giving you all the nutritious movement your heart desires.
BRASSICA VEGETABLES: Also known as cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, and kale. Now I know not everyone loves their kale, but who can resist roasted broccoli or cauliflower with a miso sauce? Plus, this subset of the vegetable population deserves a special shout-out as they’ve been known to block an enzyme that causes swelling in the joints so that you feel nothing but ease in your ankles and knees. I can hear the hip-hip-hooray of your fascia singing their praise.
Now, let’s take all that wonderful knowledge and put it into practice.
Here’s my invitation to you. Pick one thing to do in the next 24 hours that will nourish your incredible fascial network. For example, you can:
Try one of my recipes from the blog or eat your own
Explore the latest somatic movement practice in my free Conscious Community
Or… do a little self-myofascial release, gently stretch, fascial floss, dance, make a little love. Do what moves you.
RECIPES FOR FASCIAL LOVE
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Katz, D.L. & Meller, S. Can we say what diet is best for health? Annu Rev Public Health. 2014;35:83-103.
Screen, H.R., Berk, D.E., Kadler, K.E., Ramirez, F. & Young M.F. Tendon functional extracellular matrix. J Orthop Res. 2015 Jun;33(6):793-9.
Zullo A, Fleckenstein J, Schleip R, Hoppe K, Wearing S, Klingler W. Structural and Functional Changes in the Coupling of Fascial Tissue, Skeletal Muscle, and Nerves During Aging. Front Physiol. 2020 Jun 24;11:592. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2020.00592. PMID: 32670080; PMCID: PMC7327116.
Simmons, K. Multicellular organization of plants and animals. Connective Tissue. Cells and Cellular Processes, Lab #4, Fall 2007. University of Winnipeg.
LINK: http://kentsimmons.uwinnipeg.ca/cm1504/15lab42006/lb4pg6.htm
Tempfer, H. & Traweger, A. Tendon Vasculature in Health and Disease. Front Physiol. 2015; 6: 330.
Tipton, K.D. Nutritional Support for Exercise-Induced Injuries. Sports Med. 2015; 45: 93–104.
LINK: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4672013/USDA Nutrient Database
Williamson E. Nutritional implications for ultra-endurance walking and running events. Extrem Physiol Med. 2016 Nov 21;5:13.
Wysoczański, T., Sokoła-Wysoczańska, E., Pękala ,J., Lochyński, S., Czyż, K., Bodkowski, R., Herbinger, G., Patkowska-Sokoła, B. & Librowski T. Omega-3 Fatty Acids and their Role in Central Nervous System - A Review. Curr Med Chem. 2016;23(8):816-31.
