The following question was posted in response to a Newsletter article called Issues in Our Tissues.
An interesting article thank you. I have attended many yoga and body working workshops where the practitioners use this same idea of 'Issues in our Tissues'. I do also agree that this may be the case however, I have asked many of the teachers at various workshops the below question and I would like to ask you it as well:
What is the scientific theory behind this statement and, to your knowledge, has there been any clinical trials or observations to discover what causes muscles and Fascia to hold on to trauma?
I ask this as surely there must be a chemical or neurological trace / pathway created by emotional trauma but to this day no one I have spoken too has any scientific information. I ask this out of utmost respect and, as a scholar of yoga, I know how many of the techniques described in the Hathayogapradipika and other texts have been proved to have scientific merit.
Any information you can offer will help me in continuing my mission to write a concise paper on this theory.
Many thanks for your time. Daniel
---------------------------
Hi Daniel
Sorry that it has taken so long to respond to you: I didn't know you posted your question until just now! I will try to give you some thoughts, but unfortunately, there is not a lot of "science" right now supporting the idea that our emotions are embodied, in fact most Western doctors would probably snicker at the idea, save for the fact that, as I mentioned in the article, we intuitively agree with many of these ancient Eastern observations: we know grief and sadness affect the lungs (called crying) and that anger management issues are more frequent in people who have damaged their livers (through alcohol abuse). These correlations are quite obvious, but the question is - why? What scientific map can we create to explain these connections of emotions and certain tissues and locations? I have not heard of such a map, but I can offer some speculations as to what such a map may include.
Recent work, cited by Robert Schleip and others, have shown that our fascia is highly enervated: there are proprioceptors (which measures where the body is in space and how it is orientated), nociceptors (which create sensations of pain), chemoreceptors (which measure various things like the body's ph levels), thermoreceptors (measuring temperature), as well as nerves that can contract the fascia, and nerves that can relax the body, dilate blood vessels and help us feel calmer. All this wonderful complexity exists in our fascia and affects our nervous system as well as our immune system. Of course our emotional body is also affected by what happens to our nervous system (think of the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems which control our rest and digest responses as well as our flight or fight responses: these are intimately tied into our emotions.) We also know, from the work of Ida Rolf and others, that trauma, emotional or physical, can alter our fascia, by altering our habitual posture and how we related to gravity. Contraction of parts of the body are common after an injury, but this contraction pulls us out of our normal, healthy alignment to gravity, which results in stresses building up within our tissues. As these stresses persist they create a permanent rearrangement within us, affecting the stresses on our fascia as well, which we have just seen affects the autonomous nervous system and immune system.
It is really not surprising that physical changes result in mental and emotional changes because the reverse is so obviously true. Look at someone who is depressed: you will see a slumped posture. As the Daoist long ago noticed, these relationships are circular and work both ways: put someone into a slumped posture and soon their energy levels drop and they don't feel so happy. But, have them stand up straight and tall, with their hands on their hips and their blood chemistry changes, they become more confident and even a bit aggressive. [See the article I wrote on Power Posing for more on this topic.] It is clear that we all have issues in our tissues, but the detailed maps working out exactly how this works are still being drawn up.
I hope this helps a little. Cheers, Bernie