Three Tips for Improving Your Pelvic Health

It’s always the little things, right? They even have a saying for it – ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’.  These little things don’t make a difference right away but over time makes a huge impact! A great example is when people throw their back out. It is often not with a huge heavy lift but with a minor activity like bending over to pick up a piece of paper. This person had done a lot of very minor things over time that ended up causing a huge problem! This can happen, not just with back or neck problems, but with our pelvic health as well. When we practice these very minor things over a long period of time, they can contribute to symptoms such as prolapse pressure and stress incontinence.

Below are 3 things we all should practice for good pelvic health:

1 – Sit. Don’t hover

You know who you are. If you find your way into the restroom of Target or the mall you squat over the toilet seat because the thought of sitting on it after all those people makes you cringe. I totally get this. It grosses me out too! But if you think about what goes on with a squat – all of your ‘core’ muscles have to be turned on. This includes our pelvic floor. If you think about the function of our pelvic floor, part of it is to squeeze around our urethral and rectal openings to maintain continence. The contraction of these muscles is good to hold back urine and stool, but if we want to be able to void easily, we need to be able to relax these muscles. Bearing down against a contracted muscle (and often you can’t even tell you are doing it) causes unwanted pressure down on our organs and pelvic floor. 

2 – No Power peeing

We are all in a hurry. I get it! But the extra downward pressure we place on our bladder and pelvic floor with trying to push out our urine more quickly than it naturally comes out can be damaging not only to our pelvic floor but to our bladder and the integrity of what is holding it up as well.

3 – No Breath Holding

It is a natural tendency, holding your breath when trying to exert extra force. We do this without even thinking about it… when we lift something heavy, try to hold a certain position that is difficult, or when straining to have a bowel movement. It does, in fact, help us exert more force… but at the expense of our pelvic health. 

Another bit of downward pressure on our organs and our pelvic floor…

See a pattern here?

There are safe ways to bear down and safe ways to void. We just sometimes start to learn bad habits without even realizing it. 

It is my job to help un-teach these bad habits and help you learn ways to be nice to your pelvic floor for prevention of problems down the road so we don’t have a ‘straw that breaks the camels back’ situation.