Sometimes what seems to be muscle pain is tight fascia. This is not a recent discovery or fad term—it’s just taken a while to garner the attention it deserves. Fascia is the connective tissue that surrounds muscles, blood vessels, and organs. It can be sticky or move fluidly if a body isn’t tense or full of scar tissue. Fascia runs all through the body, and it’s all connected. The health of a body’s fascia can dictate how much pain one feels and how flexible one is. Healthline.com explains that sticky, tight fascia is usually due to one of the following reasons: a sedentary lifestyle, poor posture, dehydration, overusing or injuring your muscles, unhealthy eating habits, poor sleep quality, and stress.

There is hope for tight fascia, though! Here are a few ways to improve the situation:

Stretch:

Aim to stretch at least 10 minutes a day.

Get Some Bodywork Done:

Have a massage, go to a stretching clinic, or try Thai yoga massage.

Try Yoga:

The mental benefit of yoga will help stress levels go down, and the stretching and warming of the body will only improve the mobility of the fascial system.

Sweat and Hydrate:

Sweating by doing cardio or visiting a sauna are great ways to loosen up that connective tissue—but make sure you are hydrating even more when sweating. Half your body weight in water every day is the goal for healthy fascia.