What do we mean when we say 'releasing pressure'?

The fascia receives and offloads pressure. So what does that mean? Well, quite simply that it distributes the pressure across a larger volume. If you take a blow to the shoulder, the shoulder of course absorbs a large force, but the force will also be distributed in all directions through the body, up through the neck to the head, down into the arm and down through the trunk, abdomen and back, through the leg all the way down into the toes. If you were to watch the blow in "slow motion," you would be able to see how the force/movement travels through the body and then springs back from the impact. Through the body's biotensegrity function, much like a "gyro suspension," it is constantly trying to balance and spread out the force so that equilibrium is restored. This happens in order to protect the shoulder from taking the entire impact and thereby being more seriously injured.

As the fascia receives the impact, the fluid part, the fascia's ground substance, will immediately at the moment of the blow take on a higher viscosity and become more sluggish in order to halt the blow without becoming completely rigid. It is, among other things, the hyaluronic acid, which is present in large quantities in the fascial flow, that so quickly changes its properties and takes on a higher viscosity due to, among other things, high pressure. It is said that a densification occurs in the ground substance, the flow thickens, the pressure increases between the collagen fiber network, which increases the pressure on everything in that area, collagen fibers, blood capillaries, lymphatic capillaries, nerve receptors and nerve fibers. The collagen fibers are pressed together more densely and "stick" to one another. The pressure on the cells in the area also increases, for example the fascia's fibroblasts. They are now stimulated to begin forming more collagen in order to reinforce the area that has been heavily loaded by the increased pressure. Eventually we now have a more fibrous tissue, we have developed a fibrosis. This can, however, take a few months, since it takes time to remodel and form new collagen. Now it is also denser and tighter between the fibers and there is less room for flow, compare scar formation.

The same thing happens if the body is unevenly loaded. Then there is increased pressure on certain areas that take greater load, while other areas become underloaded/inactivated since they are not used. Tissues that are not used atrophy while others are overloaded, taking on higher pressure.

You can use the analogy of a plastic mesh bag that you keep onions in. An elastic grid of fibers, though two-dimensional in contrast to the body's fiber network, which is multidimensional. An unloaded mesh bag has even, large openings, and you can imagine that a flow can move unhindered through the network, there is plenty of room. Press the mesh bag in one direction instead, and you see that the whole fiber mesh will change and alter its shape, it becomes tighter between the threads, the holes become smaller. The flow now has greater difficulty penetrating the network, perhaps even coming to an almost complete standstill.

When we offload the pressure that has accumulated in the body from a trauma (this can be both physical and mental pressure), we cause the hyaluronic acid to reduce its viscosity, the flow gets going, and the collagen fibers realign and allow the flow through. This is naturally done best and most effectively soon after the injury, when only the ground substance is affected. If a long time has passed since the trauma so that a fibrosis has had time to form, then it also takes longer to address. It requires more treatments, and the pressure releases a little at a time.