I am a big fan of attainable New Year’s Resolutions and am here to provide some easy options for people that can have a big impact on your overall health and well-being.
One of the most surprising things for most people after their initial pelvic floor evaluation is how many things they are doing habit-wise that are contributing to symptoms. Here are 5 accessible options to start working on improving the health of your pelvic floor that will have some great carryover into other areas of health.
Tip #1 - Nasal breathing:
Mouth breathing is shown to put and keep our nervous system in a sympathetic (fight/flight) state. Breathing through your mouth tells your nervous system something is wrong and leads to decreased oxygen in muscle/nerve tissues – contributing to muscle tightness, nerve tension, and feelings of heightened anxiety.
The book “Breath” by James Nestor is a great starting place if you are looking to improve your nasal breathing ability.
**This is referring to resting/quiet breathing and is different than your diaphragmatic breathing with an exhale out through your mouth**.
Tip #2 - Aiming for half of body weight in ounces of water daily
The last thing I ever want to do is ask people to give up things that make them happy – like their coffees, bubbly waters, other vices that get grouped into potential bladder/bowel irritants. Making sure there is a good amount of water in your bladder can help dilute any irritants coming in, making it less likely for you to have bladder or bowel symptoms!
If you drink a lot of water but still feel thirsty often, adding some electrolytes into your water may help with this.
Tip #3 - Avoid spending unnecessary time sitting on the toilet: STOP THE SCROLL!
Sitting on the toilet sends a message to our brain to relax the pelvic floor muscles so urine or stool can come out easily. Spending prolonged time on the toilet messes with the messaging between our brain and our pelvic floor muscles and can make it take longer to initiate and/or fully empty both bladder and bowels.
Tip #4 - Practice a few minutes of mindfulness daily
There are so many more options for mindful moments than traditional meditation (spending
time outside feeling the sun/grass, running water over your hands and feeling the sensation of it, practicing diaphragmatic breathing and feeling the movement of the air, endless options). Mindfulness helps our nervous system go into more of a parasympathetic state where we are better able to rest and recover.
There is a very strong tie between our pelvic floor muscles and our sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous systems. You do not have to be an anxiously wired person to benefit from increasing parasympathetic activity.
Tip #5 - Meeting weekly goals for cardiovascular exercise:
150 minutes of moderate intensity cardiovascular exercise is the recommendation
from the American College of Sports Medicine.
Our pelvic floor acts as a sump pump and is a major part of pushing the blood flow received from our legs up toward our heart. Improving overall cardiovascular function makes pumping that blood back up toward the heart way easier on the pelvic floor.
Even picking just one of these things to work on if you struggle with them should create a noticeable difference in how you feel overall within a couple weeks of consistency. Bonus is that 4/5 of these options require less than 5 minutes of your day to complete, and will have carryover into so many other areas than just your pelvic floor!
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