Electrical Currents and Energy

Today I am going to borrow, but give credit to Jenny Petridis (a Bowen practitioner in Austrailia), something that Bowen Therapy piccaught my attention regarding piezoelectricity.  This is a very important aspect of what happens with energy and the body’s response in a Bowen session.

~ Because of piezoelectricity, every movement of the body, every pressure, every tension anywhere, generates a variety of oscillating bioelectrical signals… (throughout the continuum of the connective tissue matrix). ~

(rephrased from the work of J Oschman)

collagen-piezo charges

Piezo (means ‘pressure’). The term piezoelectricity is where stress is passed through a material and deforms it. In biological materials such as our fascia this creates a slight electric impulse which is said to cause a response in the tissue, effectively changing the tissue intercellular and extracellular environment.

And of Bowen therapy? We may postulate that it has something to do with the unique shear + compression + tension of the Bowen ‘move’.

Studies have brought to our attention, that the piezoelectrical response in tissue is sensitive to whether collagen is aligned or not. In simple terms, the more ‘organized’ the fascia, the better the flow of bioelectrical information within the soft tissues. 

Plus, it is accepted that, according to fascia research, piezoelectricity seems to be an explanation for more long term change, not immediate. Thus, each Bowen therapy session builds on the previous one. So, if sessions are done in succession (within a couple of weeks or less), we can take advantage of the body’s energy momentum and how the body is responding to this piezoelectricity from each session and build on it.

Thanks, Jenny Petridis, for such wonderful information!