Fascia and Aging

I have a mind that sees patterns. This has served me in many ways, although when it comes to sharing details, I am not the person to quote as I don’t retain them. When listening to stories, I get the gist of the conversation, but that’s about as far as it goes.

I appreciate this about myself. They say, “the devil is in the details”. This can be taken a few ways, but the way I see it, details are facts that can be manipulated, whereas patterns are repeatable and whether looking at a galaxy or a cell, mirror each other.

I have learned so much about the aging process through viewing how time affects everything in nature. Whether it’s watching the changing of the seasons and seeing the leaves turn as they mature through the summer, change in the fall and ultimately end their cycle in the winter; or seeing how a fresh loaf of bread that sits on a counter begins to harden at the periphery, until if left for days, the whole loaf becomes hard. Everything has a beginning and an end and goes through a predictable cycle.

In our podcast on fascia and aging, we discussed telomeres and how they change during the aging process. Telomeres are the protective protein caps on the end of the DNA strands. They are there to keep the DNA safe to maintain optimal functioning at a cellular level. It is understood, however, that with each cell division, the telomeres become shorter. Once they hit a certain length, they can no longer divide and go into cell death.

It is known that telomeres naturally shorten with age, but also, that there are environmental and behavioral factors that can speed it up. For example, smoking, lack of physical exercise, stress, trauma, poor diet . . ., basically, all the things that we view with unhealthy lifestyles. This is what excites me though. If there are things you do that can speed up the shortening, then there are things you can do that maintain the length, and potentially lengthen them.

This is where the conversation around creating space within the body has huge significance. When you look at the patterns of nature, what is lost with time is space. As everything on this planet succumbs to the force of gravity -- with time, compression occurs, and space is diminished.

When I was a kid, I used to love playing with balloons. When new, they were so much fun but as the days went by and they began to deflate, they lost their intrigue. The nature of the aging balloon is very similar to that of a cell.

A fully blown-up balloon is round and smooth and almost defies gravity. Let’s say this represents a healthy, youthful cell. If this cell divides and becomes an exact replica of itself, you have the same healthy, youthful cell. Now, take out one third of the air in the balloon. Now it is a little denser, has some wrinkles in it and may even have some dust caught in the creases. If this represents the cell, when it divides it will be of the “older” version. Now take two thirds of the air out. This balloon will not stay afloat, will be much smaller and the container will be denser. There will be more debris trapped in the creases and there is no way this deflated balloon will stay afloat. If this represents a cell, upon division, it will look much older.

Let’s bring your attention to the contents inside. Imagine in the fully blown-up balloon you had a stick that was just long enough that there was only a small amount of space at the ends before it touched the container. If this represented a cell with telomeres inside, upon division, the telomere will be fully intact, representing youth. Now, jump ahead to the third version where two thirds of the air is taken out of the balloon. That same stick will no longer fit inside. If this is a cell and the stick is the telomere, what happens . . . it shortens. In a cell, this doesn’t happen in a moment but is a continual depletion of the space within, causing the telomeres to fray and degrade. This is aging.

Here is the amazing news. You can put the space back. What is done, can be undone in a human body. We have the capacity to put the space back that time has taken away with fascia decompression. Those cells that have been squished also have a tremendous amount of potential energy. In the compression is trapped inflammation that never resulted in healing. The body always sends blood flow to areas that are compromised. If repair occurs, there is no need for further inflammation. However, if full healing doesn’t result, the body continues to send more.

In a body that isn’t conscious of breath and posture, this creates chronic stagnation and can be a burden to overall health. However, all that needs to happen is for the potential energy stored in the inflammation to become activated to turn it into kinetic energy. If this is the case, all trapped inflammation can now awaken to its purpose – to feed and clean the cells. Fascia decompression does this through melting adhesions and restoring space. This process continually puts the space back into the cell, creating a different direction to what has been normal for cellular aging.

This is real, and it is happening every day to those who practice and is very exciting with respect to how you age. Take the steps to learn how to support your fascia and be grateful for the little wins that happen with each step. Before you know, you have walked a mile. In cell language, you have undone what time has done – you are directing your cells, not gravity!

Listen to this week's episode of The Fascia Masters below.