Four Pillars of a Healthy Pelvic Floor - Episode 25
In this podcast, Dr. Kari Roberts shares a plethora of insights regarding pelvic health and its relation to other bodily functions. Stress, sleep, diet, and movement are pointed out as the four essential components to maintaining a healthy pelvic floor. She encourages a whole body approach to health.
-
Dr. Kari: Hey, have you ever wondered why pelvic floor therapists want to do so many things in addition to just pelvic floor therapy? If you have, then stay tuned because I'm going to dig into it in today's episode.
Welcome to the Marone Pelvic Health Podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Carrie Roberts. On this show, we will be discussing a variety of things regarding your pelvic health. These conversations will be a mix of education, personal experiences, and a blend of tips you can apply to have a healthier pelvis.
The goal of this show is to normalize conversations around pelvic health and help women stop suffering in silence.
Even though at the time of recording It's January 2025, I am just now getting to the point where I have thought about it enough and processed it enough. What all I learned when I went to Pelvicon back in 2024, September 2024.
And my biggest takeaway from Pelvicon 2024 was how the body is all related. We are one whole being. I say this to patients all the time. It's.
It's one of my icons with my brand, a whole body approach. I tell patients when you come in the store, oftentimes with the healthcare system, we are just trained that, you know, if it's your bowels, you speak to this doctor.
If it's your bladder, you speak to this doctor. If it's your reproductive, you speak to that doctor. If it's your head, you speak to this doctor. But when you come into this wall, into this room, when that door closes, we talk about all of it together.
I've said that since the day I opened my business. But it all really came together when I went to Pelvicon in 2024. And I've had some months to really incorporate what I've learned.
I've had some months to digest it, incorporate into my practice care, see how it's influenced by patients, see how it's influenced the way that I treat patients and see how people have benefited.
And now I'm ready to share those changes with the world. So basically, in a nutshell, I still believe that a whole body approach is best. I think that it's so unique with pelvic floor because the pelvic floor is.
It's so uni. It's so. It's a unique part of the body for so many reasons. One of the reasons is because the pelvic floor is just so closely in tune to our nervous system.
It's so closely in tune to how we carry stress. It's so closely in tuned with physical stresses we've had in our body. It's so closely in tune with neurological and emotional stresses that we've had in our body.
And then whatever happens with the, you know, mechanical things that have happened from an orthopedic perspective. So the pelvic floor can be influenced by so many things. But to get to the crux of the matter, and I had a patient ask me this two weeks ago, which is when I was like, you know, I'm going to make a podcast.
So tldr, why are we doing all of these things? In a nutshell, you need these four things to be in tune or to be on the right page for you to have a healthy, functioning pelvic floor.
So the Cliff Notes version, or the Spark Notes version, whatever, is a healthy gut, healthy nutrition, healthy proper stress management, appropriate and regular exercise and appropriate sleep management. Those four things, if your sleep is managed properly, if your diet and gut is managed properly, if you've got a regular exercise routine and stress right, stress, sleep, diet and movement, if those four things are locked in, then your pelvic floor has the optimal environment to be healthy.
Now, if you want to stick around for more than a couple of minutes and join me and we can dig into this a little bit further.
So the four pillars that I really like to talk about with my patients and the treatments of how this matters for the pelvic floor, let's talk about stress first.
So why does stress matter? And I might. You know what, I'm going to write this down because it's so important for the pelvic floor. I'm going to write that down for another podcast.
But stress, because stress can lead to stress has such a big impact on our bodies. If you are stressed out, you can carry a lot of tension in your shoulders, you can carry a lot of tension in your jaw, you can carry a lot of tension in your pelvic floor.
It can also increase. Stress can also throw off your hormones. If you are a woman that's going through transitional period and you might be in the reproductive phase, you might be going through perimenopause, you might be going through menopause, you might be post menopausal, you might be postpartum, you might be pregnant.
All of those transitional things have a direct impact on our hormones. And anything that has a direct impact on our hormones, stress can have an impact on that. Because stress has an impact on hormones.
Hormones. Okay, so that's the correlation with stress. Stress can also have an impact on how we carry tension in our body. Because when we are more stressed out, then stress can make our, our muscles tense up.
Now if you have tenseness in your shoulders or tension, not tenseness tension in our shoulders or tension in our jaw, a lot of times we have tension in our pelvic floor.
If you have tension in our pelvic floor, it may not work properly. So you could have all of those pelvic floor symptoms that we've talked about in previous episodes. So just simple things that you can do to manage the stress is you can do different mindfulness exercises, deep breathing and exercise movement.
Those things, those types of things can help with stress management in addition to mindfulness and, and body scans and stuff like that. But stress has a direct impact on how the pelvic floor functions.
Now your sleep, or what I like to say, sleep, hygiene, getting in a regular routine, what you do, I call it a BEDT routine. Having a consistent bedtime routine in a perfect world, the experts say you should be going to sleep about the same time every night and that you should be sleeping about the same every night.
But we don't live in a perfect world. We're not perfect people.
And if you're like me, your routine during the week looks very different than your routine on the weekends. And I like to create space for that. So I like to say four to five days out of the week you should have somewhat of a routine.
And then the weekends, Friday, Saturday, if you want to do things a little bit different, then hey, I'm fine with that. If you only work a four day week. And so Thursday, Friday, Saturday look a little different, I'm fine with that too.
You know, I'm fine with that. But four to five days out of the week you should have, give or take about the some routines. And what that does is it preps your body to know it's time to unwind and it's time to get into that space so that you can go to sleep.
And what that does is sleep actually helps your body regulate hormones. You see how all of this stuff is intertwined, right? We are one body, we are one whole person.
That whole body approach, it just comes together so well. And when we get proper sleep, when we have a proper, when we're in a regular routine and our body sleeps like it needs to, those cells regenerate, the hormones can regulate.
Our digestive system can do what it needs to. Our organs can function the way that it needs to do in the way that we can do that just gentle stuff.
I Think we all know that getting away from our devices about 30 to 40 minutes before bedtime, maybe doing a relaxing activity that might look like listening to music, that might look like, you know, doing a little bit of a word search that might look like reading, that might talking, meditating, praying, writing, any of those types of things.
Restful environment, aromatherapy, body scans, again, that could work. Burning a candle, playing with an animal, talking, all of those things can help with your sleep hygiene, but also getting to sleep around the same time every day, waking up around the same time every day.
The waking up is interesting because I've read up on it and don't quote me, but when you are able to wake up naturally without an alarm, when your body is able to gradually wake up, come out of that sleep and you're not startled, you can GR your physiologically, you can gradually come into the start of your day.
It's just a more ease way of starting into the day.
Your body just wakes up feeling more refreshed and you're not in that fight or flight, you're not in that tense way to start your day. And you can really start your day feeling more refreshed and not being so grouchy and not feeling so anxious, which does also impact your, the way that your body manages stress.
And so the way that you can wake up without an alarm is to have a normal bedtime and wake time. And I actually had really started that during the pandemic.
And I can speak from experience, my alarm was really set so that if I'm not woke up, is that right? If I'm not awake when I'm supposed to, then the alarm goes off, but the alarm is set for kind of like the last time I'm supposed to be awake.
But generally speaking, I do wake up on my own and it's, and it is more enjoyable. So I do recommend that for you, if you haven't tried that already.
Now the third pillar is that gut health, gut nutrition, and a healthy gut promotes digestion which can influence the pelvic floor. Because the pelvic floor is made up of a, of a host of muscles and muscles need fuel.
And if we are giving our body good nutritious things and our body can absorb those things and digest them, then the, then those good nutrients are readily available for those muscles to be able to be used properly.
It also helps with the way that your body, your gut, interacts with your brain and that all promotes health. Also something with the gut that's related with stress when we're eating, when we have a healthy eating pattern or when our stress is managed, then our gut tends to do what it needs to do.
Something else I learned when I was at the conference. I guess I knew it subconsciously, but I didn't ever think about it until the presenter asked, how many people have changes in your bowel or bladder habits when you're stressed out?
How many people have an increase of urinary frequency and urgency when you're stressed? Or maybe how many people have an increase of constipation or diarrhea when you're stressed because the gut is related to your stress.
So if you can really, if you can manage your stress, then that's a way that you can promote gut health. Well, if you're getting thrown into diarrhea, then that means that that food is going through your body too quickly.
Those nutrients aren't being absorbed the way that they need to, which means your body does not have the nutrients that it needs. Right. It's not as readily available, which is not good for any of those muscles in your body, including the pelvic floor.
However, if you're going into constipation, that means that those food stuff is staying in there too long.
All of that food is being absorbed. Now you've got hard fecal matter in there. Now it can't pass like it needs to, which is creating more fecal matter into the ******, which puts more pressure on the pelvic floor, which means the pelvic floor has to work harder when it's time to move the bowels out of the ******, which is not good for the pelvic floor, which can lead to pelvic floor dysfunction.
So all of it is all related, it's all intertwined and the way that you can promote good gut health and good nutrition. Again, I'm not a dietary expert or nutritionist by any means, but just focusing on a good overall balanced diet.
You know, like they say, lean green, make sure you're getting your water in, make sure you're getting in good fibers, probiotics, if you need to. Avoiding, you know, junk food, excessive food, excuse me, excessive processed food, excessive sugars.
You might even need to speak to a nutritionist if you need to go even deeper into really what you need. And then the last thing, as a physical therapist, of course, my jam is going to be exercise.
Now, exercise. The pelvic floor is a series of muscles, so exercise is my jam.
Exercise, promoting exercise. We're thinking about those muscles. We want those muscles to be long, we want them to have good lengthening. We want them to also be strong. We want them to be able to contract well.
We want them to be able to create good, good tension when we need them to. We want them to be able to turn on and off when we want them to, which means we want them to be able to be coordinated and function properly.
We want them to be able to work with their partners well. And that is when we have good pelvic floor strength. We have good pelvic floor coordination. It's doing what it needs to do.
The pelvic floor is working. And we can do that by walking, we can do that by stretching. We can do that by good hip mobility, keeping the abdominal muscles strong, the deep back muscles strong, the core muscles strong, the hips strong, keeping all of those muscles flexible.
And when you get all of those things in line, not only do you have a healthy pelvic floor, but now you've got a healthy environment. Think, what would life be like if you lived in a body that had stress, that was properly managed, a body that was getting adequate sleep, a body that was getting adequate nutrition, and a body that was having good nutrition and gut health.
What would it feel like to live in a body like that? Yeah, you would have a healthy pelvic floor, but you would have a healthy body, right? That is kind of like the recipe for a healthy body.
And generally speaking. And that's why, again, it was so eye opening. But then it's like you're going full circle. We're coming. It's a 360. You right back where we started, where healthy pelvic floor is good wellness.
It is a full body approach. So when you do come to see me, if you come to see me in person or online or. Or you continue to listen to this podcast.
No, I will never just specifically only talk about the pelvic floor in isolation. And are those muscles contracting and relaxing and turning on and off when they're supposed to? Because I'm doing you a disservice.
Because I need to make sure that we are creating the optimal environment for those muscles and for you. We need to make sure that that gut is in order. We need to make sure the stress is being managed, and we need to make sure that sleep is in order as well.
So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm going to try my hardest to produce podcasts a little bit more regularly, but y'all know the deal. You know, I get to it when I get to it.
I produce when I'm motivated and when I have the inspiration and the goal is every two weeks, but I I do it when I can. So I will be back at this in a couple of weeks with another episode and let me know in the comments.
Or send me an email or DM and let me know what you thought about this episode and I will check you at the next one.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Marron Pelvic Health Podcast. Please do me a favor and leave a review so that more people can find this content.
And make sure you like and subscribe yourself so you never miss another episode.