Fascia – The Organ of Consciousness

We are all superficial. We only ever really think skin deep and it’s also kind of not our fault. It’s impossible, without skinning ourselves (yuck), to get under the skin.  But under your skin lies a world that would blow your mind.

Have you ever thought about how your body parts stay in place?  You have tons of wires (nerves), hundreds of pipes (veins), tubes and bladders (organs) that somehow stay in place inside the balloon of your skin.  What keeps these things in place inside of you?  And by the way, what is the stuff that your organs, brain, and skin are made of?

Inside your body, you have this stuff, this substance or material, called fascia. Fascia is connective tissue, and the basic elements of this material are collagen, elastin, and an aqueous gel-like ground substance.

This fabric is a continuum of fibers, present in all spaces inside of you.  It is present everywhere within the body linking separate structures from the muscular and organ depths to the surface of the skin.  It fills the areas between anatomical structures and it’s impossible to distinguish areas of “virtual space” between them.  Even though living matter expresses itself as distinct anatomical structures, a living structure is not simply a conglomeration of separate parts.

Researchers and scientists around the world regard this connective tissue as a special organ- a system unto itself, that permeates the whole body and has specific and general tasks as well as special purposes it serves in the body.

In other words, this stuff is pretty significant to your existence, and most of us aren’t even aware it exists!

In the past, anatomists and scientists were aware of fascia but until recently, it wasn’t seen as significant, hiding in the shadows of the more obvious and obtuse anatomical structures- muscles and bones and organs.  Only now are people starting to study and research fascia as a separate organ, a quintessential basic element on which the whole body functions and therefore, our existence relies.

You could say this is a pretty big deal.  In fact, it forces most science fields in biology, physiology, and anatomy to reevaluate many of their foundational postulates and preconceived ideas.  Focusing on fascia IS a paradigm shift and we’ll be exploring it more in upcoming articles to help you better understand how and why your fascia is so important.  Stay tuned!