What is a Healing Crisis?
	A healing crisis is a short term increase in new or old symptoms after MFR treatment usually lasting somewhere from one to three days. It can occur after in person treatment or after a self therapy session of using your tools at home. A healing crisis is actually a good sign of change but it can be tough symptom wise for a few days. One of the things that can be difficult to understand about MFR healing at first is that there is often a lag of a few days between getting treated and getting to the relief you were hoping for. During treatment we are releasing fascia and tight tissues which brings out inflammation that was trapped in those tissues. Your body's natural inflammatory response peaks 48 hours after treatment then decreases, which is why most healing crises last about 3 days. Inflammation Getting that trapped inflammation out of your tissues is crucial for your long term healing. Keep that in mind if you feel slightly worse for the first few days after treatment before you start feeling better. Myofascial release is all about long term healing, it is obviously not a massage meant to make you feel good for just a couple hours. It's important to have that mindset when you get MFR treatment or do your home therapy in case you have a healing crisis you want to remind yourself, 'I'm going through this short term discomfort for the long term healing and relief it will bring me'. Physical & Emotional Symptoms Sometimes a healing crisis will bring up pain and physical symptoms and sometimes it will bring up an array of emotions or you can have both physical and emotional symptoms arise. I often get texts the day after a client's treatment that say something like 'I am so emotional today and I'm never emotional, could that be a healing crisis?' and the answer is emphatically YES! Most people seem to naturally just understand that they may feel worse for a few days after treatment but they tend to expect it to be physical and it often is, but it's pretty common to have emotional symptoms during a healing crisis too. Fascia has many purposes in the human body and one of them is to hold things together, it does this physically giving your tissues and body structure and it does this mentally and emotionally as well. Our fascial restrictions often hold in our feelings and hold the memories of many very old wounds both large and small. When we release the fascia in an area and open things up, it does just that, it opens you up to feel things you don't usually let yourself feel and realize things you weren't aware of for the good of your healing. Taking down some of those old walls that block us from our innate wisdom and keep us from reconnecting fully to areas of old physical and emotional wounds is a deeply important part of your true healing. Be Proud of your healing crisis! So, if you have a healing crisis, I know it can be a rough few days but I encourage you to embrace it. It is a sign that you are healing deeply from the inside out. It may sound silly but - Be proud of your healing crisis! Warn your family that you may be extra emotional for a few days after treatment and it's not about them, it's just that you're in healing mode. If we were going to renovate your house, we may need to tear down a few walls and make a mess for a while and healing your body is just like that. If you really want to feel better, you'll have to let yourself change - maybe gently tear down a few walls that are holding you back and get messy and get rid of some things inside that no longer serve you. A healing crisis as tough as it may be is a very special time of transformation and power and you deserve to get better so enjoy your time of change. Happy healing crisis everyone!!