Who doesn't suffer from stress at some point in their life?

Stress has a huge impact on us both emotionally and physically, and I think we underestimate the physical effects.

I think we're starting to talk about it more. We talk about depression having physical symptoms, we talk about anxiety having physical symptoms, but we miss the fact that stress actually has physical symptoms.

Certainly when I'm under stress, I get a little bit jittery, my temper flares a little bit, I tend to want to go to the toilet more often, and I want to eat.

I have a physical response, and my body reacts in a certain way.

One thing that's really interesting, is that the pelvic floor is influenced by stress. So, while you're sitting there, try this...raise your shoulders up while keeping your butt completely relaxed. You felt the tension in your glutes just a little bit. Now I want you to relax your glutes. Your shoulders relaxed, right? Research tells us that the pelvic floor is one of the first groups of muscles to be affected by stress.

Another interesting fact is when a dog wags its tail, it's the dog's pelvic floor that makes that possible. And when it looks sad and its tail is tucked, it's through the pelvic floor. We do exactly the same thing. I don't know about you, but if I'm feeling good, my outfits on point my hair is on point, which is never the case! But if I'm feeling good, I have a bit of a swagger in my step. If I'm not feeling so good, I can't. I just want to curl up into a little ball and hide.

So what can we do to help with that?

Well, a really good thing we can do is a simple cat/cow stretch and child’s pose. I want you to think about your pelvic floor muscles when you're doing it. So for those of you that have never done a cat/cow pose, you're going to basically be on your hands and your knees. You're going to arch your back up, and then you're going to relax. As you arch your back up, you're going to feel the muscles between your pubic bone and your tailbone lengthen, and then as you come down, they're going to shorten. Repeat that 10 times.

Keep your breathing nice and even. Okay, perfect. How'd that feel?

Now one of my favorite ways to do a child's pose is to grab a pillow, pop that down. I also sometimes will grab a yoga block if I have one or another pillow, and I'll put that between my thighs and my shins. Spread your legs nice and wide. And just lay there and chill out. This is going to stretch the muscles between your sitz bones, the bony bits under your butt. You're just gonna hang out here taking nice deep breaths for about 30 seconds.

Try these once a day. They're going to not only help your pelvic floor, but help lower your stress.

Nicola Robertson

Registered Physiotherapist