What Is Fascia and How Does It Work?

The importance of fascia has been widely underestimated in comparison to other organs. Only in the last couple of decades, the interest in this amazing part of our body has been sparked again.

This doesn’t mean that fascia is a newly discovered organ. Leonardo Da Vinci made a drawing of fascia over 500 years ago. 

How come we forgot about it? Why are we suddenly interested in it again?

What is so special about fascia?

How can we use this knowledge to become and stay healthier and improve our lives? 

We are about to give answers to these and other frequently asked questions about fascia and how we can use red light therapy to improve its function.

Where Is Fascia Located in the Body?

Fascia covers your entire body, just beneath your skin. It is located 2mm beneath the top skin layer. Fascia is in the form of sheets, fibers, and chords that create an interconnected web through your entire body. 

It connects the body but also separates and encloses entire organs, muscles, bones, and nerves.

We used to think that fascia was just a thin layer over muscle, resembling what you see on a piece of meat. That is the old understanding of fascia. 

Now we know that it is one unique system organ – contrary to the thinking that fascia is a part of each muscle and acting as its cover. 

It’s not that each muscle has fascia. It’s that your entire body has fascia that happens to encapsulate muscles, as well.

How Many Layers of Fascia Are There?

There are 4 main layers of fascia and several sublayers. 

1. Superficial Fascia

This layer of fascia is located right underneath the skin and adipose tissue. Sometimes, it includes muscle fibers. There is a subtype of superficial fascia – the Scarpa’s fascia that is located in the abdomen.

2. Deep Fascia

This layer of fascia encapsulates muscles, bones, nerves and blood vessels. It can be aponeurotic fascia or epimysial fascia.

3. Visceral Fascia 

Visceral fascia surrounds the organs in cavities. These include the lungs and heart.

4. Parietal Fascia

Parietal fascia is a general term for tissues that line the wall of a body cavity just outside of the parietal layer of serosa. The most commonly known parietal fascia is found in the pelvis.

In many places in the body, fibrous septa connects superficial and deep fascial layers. This connection creates a network that weaves in between fat that makes up the deep adipose tissue layer.

What Is the Purpose of Fascia in the Body?

The most obvious function of fascia is to keep your body in shape and maintain the physical integrity of your entire body. Fascia is essential for:

• Proper body posture
• Balance
• Proper movement
• Muscle tone
• Communication within the entire organism on a cellular level

Fascia plays an important part in another system – the lymphatic system. This system is interconnected between the chords and webs of the fascia. Fascia helps lymph circulate the body, therefore assists in expelling toxins and helping the immune system.

If the fascia suffers damage due to injury or becomes too slow due to the lack of exercise, the immune system becomes severely impacted. 

Now, let’s take a closer look at a somewhat neglected function of fascia – it’s the ability to act as a communication channel between the brain and the rest of the body. 

Fascia and The Living Matrix

Fascia is a part of the living matrix. It relays information from one part of the body to another on a level that involves energy and not just nervous impulses.

Dr. James L. Oschman defines is as:

the continuous molecular fabric of the organism, consisting of fascia and other connective tissues, the extracellular matrices, integrins, cytoskeletons, nuclear matrices, and genetic material.

Another important quote that helps understand what the living matrix does is by Professor Nelson:

The living matrix is an “energetic nervous system” that conducts packets of energy and information instead of nerve impulses.

This “energetic nervous system” closely intertwines with the nervous system in every segment.

Red Light Therapy Uses Fascia to Boost Healing 

The main building block of fascia is hydrated collagen. This type of collagen is a triple helix formation protein chain submerged into piezoelectric water.

Piezoelectric water has the capacity to generate an electric charge when there is an electric charge applied to it.

This is the reason why the information runs through fascia from one organ system to another.

It is probably why the body is so quick to respond to pathological changes, even when they occur in seemingly completely different systems. The common denominator for all organ systems seems to be fascia.

This is where red light therapy comes in.

Since photobiomodulation is the type of therapy that is based on the body’s ability to heal itself as a whole when powered enough with the light of certain wavelengths, it is essential that there is a system that interconnects all segments of the human body.

That’s fascia.

Red light energy is absorbed by the body and transferred through the fascia to all the places where the healing power is needed the most. 

It is quite possible that the energy meridians well-known in traditional Chinese medicine are based on the fascia that transfers energy throughout the body.

Fascia connects the entire body and makes communication between the systems easier. At the same time, it separates individual muscles and organs from the rest of the body. 

It is living proof that our body is more of a unique system with elements that have different roles than an assembly of different organs working together. 

Observing fascia, we can easily come to the conclusion that therapies, such as red light therapy, that have a holistic approach are better tailored for the optimum levels of body function. 

Given that fascia has such important roles in our immune system and healing of the musculoskeletal system, it is no wonder that fascia is one of the tools red light therapy uses to provide your body with enough energy.

Read more about portable red light therapy and what it can do for you.