#Barbara Sharp LMT | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bodyalive · 1 year ago

Text

A new study finds the key role of bone in regulating the fight or flight response. In response to alarm signals from the brain, nerves within bone release osteocalcin, which immediately lowers the parasympathetic "brake" and lets the fight or flight response take over!

https://m.phys.org/news/2019-09-bone-adrenaline-flight-response.html

This research is no surprise to anyone that studies or works with fascia, the connective tissue network of the body that is especially dense around the muscles. Fascia is known to play a huge role in the fight or flight nervous system and is also continuous with bone.

Although we think of bone as "solid," 20% of it is actually water, and electrical charges and movement of this water transmits mechanical messages through bone, just like it does through fascia. In fact some scientists call bone "mineralized fascia."

According to a recent review article, "bone is part of the fascial continuum...that constantly transmits and receives mechano-metabolic information." https://www.cureus.com/articles/16943-bone-tissue-is-an-integral-part-of-the-fascial-system

It is fascinating to see how scientists are unravelling the complex interplay between the nervous and musculoskeletal systems!

[Dr. Ginevra Liptan]

Fascia stores about 20% of muscle force contraction. Certain "fascial springs" (Joseph Schwartz's terminology) are concentrated in the Achilles tendon, IT band, and lumbar aponeuroses. I add the thoracic and occipital aponeuroses to the fascial spring concept and put it all together into the Posterior Fascial Line. The Posterior Fascial Line both prepares and enables the body for the fight, flight, or freeze physiological responses.

Freeze is a tricky one to see; it is a stiffening of fascia which eventually becomes a numbing or lack of proprioception in it. But there are loads of nerve endings in fascia, especially where it connects to bone (periosteum). There are more nerve endings in fascia than in our sense of sight. Fasciacytes are also prevalent in fascia. They make the hylauronic acid that bathes fascia so that it can glide and move in layers. Long term compressed or "frozen" fascia has lost some fasciacyctes, and with that a lot of proprioceptive awareness.

There is a 4th response to trauma called "fawn", which means excessively seeking to please your abuser (and thus escape trouble). That appears to be a more behavioral rather than physical response, but if I were to hazard a guess about its impact on the body, I would put it into the stiffen and freeze category, since appeasement of others means one must absorb their wrath when appeasement fails, especially when fleeing is impossible.

In all cases, fascial release work can really create an opportunity for "emotional releases". Be gentle and careful when they occur on your table. You are not trained to know the difference between a "release" and an actual collapse. Also, you are not entitled to the client's story, so don't probe for your own interest. A qualified therapist would simply direct the client into feeling their own body's strengths and capacities in the present time, while acknowledging that the emotional release is about something in the past.

[Barbara Sharp Lmt]

[The fasciacytes: A new cell devoted to fascial gliding regulation] on fasciacytes.

https://www.fasciaresearch.com/.../InnervationExcerpt.pdf [Robert Schleip on fascial mechanoreceptors and their potential role in deep tissue manipulation.]

I found this study that acknowledges that fascia has a role to play in muscle force production, but is non-committal as to how much. They admit being limited in how much "in vitro" measuring can go on due to ethical concerns working with live people (and animals).

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/.../pii/S0021929023001446]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/.../abs/pii/S136085921300082X has more research links for anyone interested in pursuing this further.

#fascia #emotional release #fascial gliding #fasciacytes #Dr.Ginevra Liptan #Barbara Sharp LMT #fight or flight #bone

7 notes · View notes

bodyalive · 8 months ago

Text

“swinging” (c) Bernd Walz

* * * *

Descending Modulation: Why Massage Therapy Can Alleviate Pain Posted by Mark Olson | Oct 24, 2019 | Massage, Massage Science [Thanks Barbara Sharp Lmt]

“Clients walk out of a massage session feeling better, not because circulation was altered in the tissue or because of any direct mechanical manipulation of soft tissues, but because of the symphony of nociceptive modulatory activity that emerges both from tactile input and from the meaning the client derives from environmental and social cues. (11)

Once we understand that the tissue is (often) not the issue and how pain is generated and modulated in the brain, we can realize that placebo effects are nowhere near fake but rather an essential therapeutic tool to wield against the real basis for pain. Understanding the mechanisms of descending modulation’s nonspecific effects means that our treatment strategy doesn’t require mechanical focus on the region with the pain. It also means that educating our clients about how pain works becomes part of the treatment (since it can further enhance descending inhibition), and that what and how we communicate to the client about their condition plays a much more central role than what would be expected with the common, passive, unidirectional, tissue-centric model of pain.

Classes on effective listening and communication skills may truly be more valuable than classes in one massage modality or another.” I think the Neuromuscular Reprogramming model using competent, exacting and still soft manual muscle testing fulfills the active communication aspect better than words. Gently teaching a nervous system how to achieve a motion or hold a joint using a fully balanced set muscles does reduce pain.

#NMR #Neuromuscular Reprogramming #jocelyn olivier #bodywork #Massage Therapy #stress #stress reduction #Body Alive #Structural integration Atlanta

13 notes · View notes