connective tissue matrix Archives - Bowen Therapy in Dallas

Fascia Contracts

How does this happen? It’s because of the myofibroblasts, specialized fibroblast cells (they synthesize the connective tissue matrix). Studies of myofibroblasts in mechanobiology prove that they are significant to wound healing/tissue injury and fibrosis. “Myo” means muscle, thus their contractability.

They have an important role in wound healing (a really good thing). But they are also responsible for fibrosis (not such a good thing).

The thing that is important for us in understanding therapeutically what they are and what they do, is to note the fibrotic, rigid tissue, which does NOT need more stimulation. Fibrotic, rigid and often inflamed tissue is already contracting and overactive!

Fibrotic tissue (low back pain sufferers being a good example) with either overactive myofibroblasts or high density of myofibroblasts really requires less aggressive stimulation; it requires regulation achieved through intermittent soft tissue ‘stretch/stress’, at just the right dose. This has now been proved scientifically.
Well, Bowen Therapy seems to give just the right dose.

Electrical Currents and Energy

Uncategorized / By admin

Today I am going to borrow, but give credit to Jenny Petridis (a Bowen practitioner in Austrailia), something that caught 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)

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!