Today I want to talk about something that I often talk about with my clients, which is the connection between stress, anxiety, and your pelvic floor. Many people don't realize that stress isn't just in our minds, it actually affects our entire bodies, and one area where we often hold a lot of our stress is in the pelvic floor. When we're stressed or anxious, our bodies go into what's called fight or flight mode. You might feel your shoulders tense up, or your jaw clench, or your breathing get a little bit shallow, and your pelvic floor reacts to stress in much the same way. It's part of your body's natural response to tighten and brace. It's almost like your body is trying to protect you from something, and over time if that increased tension and muscle contraction is there for too long, it can lead to discomfort, pain, or when it's your pelvic floor it might even contribute to issues with bowel, bladder, or sexual function. What may surprise you, because we don't often talk about this as a society in general, is that this experience and these symptoms are extremely common. You're definitely not alone if you feel this way, and stress-related pelvic floor tension can happen to you or to anyone.
Our lives are fast-paced, they're full of unpredictable demands, and sometimes we don't really notice how much tension our bodies are holding and carrying for us, especially in areas like the pelvic floor, which we can't really see. The good news is that there are some simple things we can do to help relieve that tension and that physical stress response, and they're pretty easy to do. So I'm going to take you through two of them now. One of them is a diaphragmatic breathing exercise, and the other one is called a pelvic drop exercise. So I'll go ahead and demonstrate those for you now.
So the first exercise we're going to do is a diaphragmatic breathing exercise. You can do this laying on the ground, you can do it sitting in a chair, you can do it on your couch, wherever is comfortable for you. The important thing is just for you to be able to be in a relaxed and comfortable position. So you're going to start, I'm going to do this laying on the floor. So you want to place one hand somewhere on your ribcage and one hand somewhere on your stomach, and you're going to let your elbows relax off to the side so your hands don't have to be in the center.
If you're sitting in a chair or on your couch, you just want to make sure that your back is supported and you're in a comfortable position that you can relax into so you're not working to hold yourself up. All I'm going to do here is I'm going to breathe so that when I inhale, both of my hands rise together, and when I exhale, both of my hands fall together and I get a nice easy breath that encourages my pelvic floor to relax. So here I go, breathing in, breathing out.
And you want to let everything soften on that exhale, it doesn't have to be the biggest breath in or the biggest breath out, just a nice gentle breath in and out. You can do that for about a minute or 10 to 20 breaths, whatever you'll be able to stick with. And the goal is that we're relaxing the nervous system, we're calming the whole body down, including the stress response.
By breathing in this coordinated way, we're encouraging the pelvic floor muscles to relax. The second exercise we're going to do is a pelvic drop. You can also do this exercise either seated in a comfortable position or laying on the ground. Or another position that I really like for this exercise is hands and knees. So I will demonstrate it there. So you're going to start on your hands and knees.
All you're going to do is you're going to breathe in and as you do, you want to imagine the space here between your sit bones opening and widening. And you can visualize that in any way that resonates with you. It might be a circle getting larger, it might be a flower blooming, it might be a balloon inflating. Whatever works for you is totally fine. And you're just going to take those nice easy breaths and visualize that opening happening. That opening should happen on your breaths in.
So again, you can do those for about a minute, you can do them for 10 to 20 breaths, whatever works for you, whatever is sustainable for you. But you might notice that you have some calming, your breath slows down, your heart rate slows down, and all of those things are great outcomes for both of those exercises. These strategies are just a starting point, but even something as simple as a couple minutes of direct breathing exercises can really help ease pelvic floor tension and any associated symptoms that you might be experiencing like those bowel, bladder, or sexual issues that we touched on before.
Your pelvic health is part of your whole body and taking a few moments just for yourself can really make a big difference. So if you liked this or you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out. And if you're looking for more personalized support, I would be happy to help you and we'd be happy to help work with you at Empower PT.
Thanks for joining me today and I hope you feel a little bit more connected to yourself and a little bit more at ease.
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