In this episode, we are going to learn from Dr. Kelly

how to relax our pelvic floor via the

pelvic floor connector and relaxation exercise.

You'll need a towel and you'll need a quiet place to sit.

So if you're driving right now or unable to do this, be sure to

bookmark this episode and save it for a time where you're able

to practice it. Let's get right to it.

Today is the last installment of our

series. I'm gonna miss you, Boots

and Randy the Rectum. You guys are gonna have to send him postcards. He's gonna

be so lonely. I know. And Patty Pelvis And

Philip Pelvis. Philip the pelvis or Peter the

pelvis? You know, he's two personalities. Okay.

Yeah. So if you're just finding us,

please be sure to go back and listen to the other episodes

in this series for Heart Month because gives you a lot of the background of

what we're about to do, which Kelly's been talking about

relaxing our pelvic floor, and she's already given us a couple of really

great tutorials. But now we're actually just going to do

a legit 10 minute exercise.

10 minute pelvic floor relaxer. This is perfect. So, yes, I second what Boots

said. Get your cute butts back and watch the other episodes in their entirety.

But this is for you when you're like, yes, I saw myself in

those episodes. I want to connect and relax to my pelvic floor. This is

for you. So Boots and I, if you can see us, we have just like

standard hand towels that are. Would you call this a hand towel?

I never knew a nomenclature. Okay, perfect. I call them hand towels.

Perfect. So we'll fold it in half once lengthwise and

then again in a half. So it's this little rectangle and we are going

to roll it about into a circle that's,

I don't know, like about as big as my fist,

right? Huh? Yep. And I'll probably make

a little, like, handout for you for, like, relative size of this. And we are

going to put this hand towel under our perineum, under

our pelvic floor muscles. So we're going to be sitting down and we're going to

set it so there is some pressure on the

rectum, some pressure on the vag,

and if you don't have a vag, like pressure right behind the scrotum and

pressure on the rectum. So this towel is meant to fit right between

your sit bones and kind of like a bike seat, except a little

skinnier so that it only compresses those

muscles. When we sit on this towel, friends,

you should be aware that you're sitting on it like, hello, but

it should not hurt. So if it hurts, you might need to go

to a smaller towel or if it feels like it's actually

touching your sit bones, your towel roll might be too

big, so you might have to unwind it a little bit. But the key is

that if we are wanting to truly connect to

our pelvic floor and relax the pelvic

floor, we are not sitting on this towel because we think we're going to

pee our pants. We're sitting on this towel because it is

giving a very gentle touch sensation to where

all of these amazing pelvic floor muscles are to

help the brain find them. And that is

so powerful. So even if this is 2

days post op and we've just got to the chair

next to our bed the first time, and we're working with respiratory

therapy and they leave, oh my gosh, guess what? We could put this

rolled towel under here and tune into our pelvic floors

and it would help so much with all the things.

So hopefully we're all sitting down now on the towel

and I want you to tune in. Hopefully you're not driving

or walking. We can sit on the towel. We are going to close our eyes.

We're going to have one hand on our lower chest and one hand on

our lowest belly, kind of right where our belt line would

be. And you're going to take a couple relaxed

breaths, friends. You're going to breathe into your lower belly

and back out. And your first

check is if this top hand that's on your chest, this bottom

hands on your belly when you breathe in. If we're breathing a ton into

our chest, notice that. Don't be mad, but just say, oh, that's

interesting. And try to will yourself to keep the top hand

quiet and take all the breath into that bottom

hand. That's true diaphragmatic breathing

against a relaxed stomach. And that's step one.

And honestly, if this is hard, this is where you stay for three minutes just

doing the soft belly breathing. You sitting on this towel roll

is helping your brain recognize that your pelvic floor exists. And that's

enough for right now. But once it starts to get

easier to feel this belly moving forward,

inhale, let the belly move forward. And now tune your

mind into the parts that are touching this towel. And if

they're truly relaxed, as you inhale and your belly gets bigger,

these pelvic floor muscles should drop into this towel ever so

slightly and exhale. Belly

gets smaller. Inhale, belly

gets bigger. If these pelvic floor muscles are resting

perfectly, they're going to kind of press down into the

towel with the inhale and rebound with the exhale.

But if we're post operative, if we're having pee problems, pain problems,

poop problems, stress problems, the pelvic floor is resting too tight.

So we are going to inhale, the lower belly is going to get bigger. The

pelvic floor is going to drop into the towel. We're going

to exhale. The belly is going to rebound in, but we're going to try to

keep our pelvic floor setting on the towel. And

you are showing your brain where these pelvic muscles are

meant to rest. And we're not pushing right. We're just

allowing them to rest. And interestingly enough, some of you

might be noticing, like, a little ache in your vags,

if you have one, or in your rectum. That ache is indicative that the

muscles are actually elongating. It's like you're stretching your hamstring. Isn't

that fascinating? And if it actually hurts, then again, we

got to go to a smaller towel roll. But we inhale and we kind of

like settle into that ache and we say, oh, wow, I can feel it. It's

like a little rose blossoming. Exhale. Maintain that.

Good job. And now your challenge. Can

you keep this pelvic floor down on this rolled

towel while you gently engage your

deepest tummy muscles to support your sweet bladder,

to support your sweet pelvis? And what most of you

will find is that your rectum and your pelvic floor try to tighten

as soon as you tighten that tummy. But you can

do better, I promise. And the fact that you notice that that's hard

is awesome. That's what this is all about. And you try to hold that deep,

low tummy in, like, 2% for one or two breaths.

Yeah, I know. I'm making you breathe too. I'm so evil. And then relax

everything. Take a couple soft breaths again,

and then try that one more time. Pelvic floor is relaxed,

rectums relaxed. On the towel, gently drawing that

tummy. And breathe. And now your brain is really

learning that your diaphragm is for breathing, your tummy is

for supporting your pelvis, and your pelvic floor is on standby for

now. And if we can master those things in

that little five minutes, like, that is going to help our

nervous system and help our Pee, poop, bedroom time function

so much, not to mention overall athletic function.

And, you know, if you are out in the gym at cardiac

rehab, heck yeah. Active abs,

relaxed pelvic floor with your warmups and with your

cooldowns to help retrain this normal resting

tone. And then, yeah, we don't have to think about it forever,

but while we're stressed and while we're recuperating, we absolutely do.

So that's your basic. I know. How do you feel? I feel so relaxed,

honestly. Well, what I'm noticing is I'm

mentally tired from that. Yeah, it's a lot of work.

And the key. Oh, and you can come out off of the towels now

and. And when you come off of the towel, like, just

appreciate the copious space that even

if you couldn't sense much happening when you were on the towel, now that you're

off of it, you're like, oh, wow, there is a lot of real

estate there that I'm really not connected to. And the

coolest thing about pelvic floor rehab is there's so many nerves

involved that it doesn't matter if we did it right or wrong. The fact

that we tried to do that thing and we were curious about

how hard it was mentally, or that I really couldn't feel

anything. When you go to bed tonight, your brain is actually going to

rewire. It's going to say boots. And Dr. Kelly asked me to do this thing,

and I could not sense anything happening in my pelvic FL floor.

That's weird. And as long as we approach it with curiosity,

it will rewire. And that's called neuroplasticity. And within three to

four days, friends, you will actually feel things happening,

not because the nerves were gone, but just because the brain wasn't utilizing

them correctly. So it is so cool. And it's a. It's

practical now and forever after because we can't remove all

stress from life, regrettably. So anytime we're in stress, I want you

to come back to this podcast and relax your sweet pelvic floor floor and think

of me. And I just so appreciate that you call our cute butts and our

sweet pelvic floors and bodies and our hearts. And

I just so appreciate you and the joy you have brought into my life

through. Through recording this series. And I cannot wait

to hear from you listeners on how this has touched you.

I. I really want to know. And then I'll make sure to let

Kelly know. Like, we did this because we love your pelvises.

We did and we want to help you. And I'm sure we're going to do

it again next year. So give us feedback. What did you like? What do you

want more of? And we will provide. So thank you so

much for this opportunity. Boots. It has been wonderful. Yes,

thank you. Thank you for the time you've spent with myself and the

listeners and hey, listeners, I want you to think of five

health that you love, that that you know

they deserve to thrive. And I want you to send

the series to them. I want you to send my newsletters to them. If

you haven't signed up for Dr. Kelly, do that in the show notes. I

love your pelvis. I love your beautiful heart. Be sure to

keep coming back for more with open heart surgery with Boots. And if you

haven't, make sure you've subscribed. Hopefully you have by now because

this series should have blown your mind and your pelvis. So

much more to come this year and I can hardly wait.

So I look forward to being back with you next week. Bye for now.