At the start of what we consider modern medicine, the idea that cadavers should be dissected in the interest of learning was vigorously opposed by the church. Eventually, all interested disciplines got their part—the church got our spirits, the physicians go our biochemistry and the psychiatrists got the mind … and nobody wanted the emotions. 

Whole Humans: Mind, Body + Myofascial Release

The problem with dividing humans into discrete systems is that humans are not discrete systems. In life, you cannot fragment the human being. The systems and cells of our mind/body function as integrated totality, instantaneously in the most marvelous way.

Some view us as mindless machines, but the problem with that is that a person’s moment to moment experiences of themselves are ignored. We are living, breathing beings with consciousness that cannot be separated from our physical beings, not widgets to be stacked up and quantified.

In my practice experience I regularly see how the mind cannot be separated from body. There are close to 70 to 100 trillion cells in our body that can function together as a unit instantaneously—something the brain and nervous system are too slow to accomplish.

The nervous system can only conduct one signal at a time at approximately 20 meters per second, which makes stimulating trillions of cells instantaneously impossible. So, as it turns out, our body’s primary communication system is the fascial system, which must be fluid to conduct consciousness.

See Also: Can Myofascial Release Help with Anxiety, Depression and Exhaustion?

Myofascial Release and Trauma

Humans sometimes endure trauma—whether acute or more long-term—by being able to dissociate from the pain. When something is too intense, too painful or too fearful, our survival mechanism kicks in and we’re able to somehow diminish our “feeling intelligence” and numb ourselves enough to get through. 

What I have seen over the years is that nature wants us to learn from our experiences. Dissociating from pain fragments our experience, and our subconscious is now perceiving that this is an ongoing trauma. In other words, the car is still hitting us or we're still being attacked— whatever horrible thing that may have happened triggers an automatic response.

The result for most people is an internal anxiety and tension. It is something we cannot control from our conscious mind, so the constant internal tension is what I call the broken record effect. The fluid of the fascial system, the ground substance, becomes more viscous over time and eventually turns into enormous pressure on pain sensitive structures that produce a multitude of symptoms that you and our clients suffer with.

Myofascial release helps to bring out the tissue memory of the trauma and allows for pain relief and authentic healing to occur as the body becomes more fluid once again.