Hi everyone, welcome to the holiday episode of the vlog. The holidays are finally here and they're an amazing time for family and friends and lots of delicious foods that are probably not a regular part of your day-to-day routine. The result of that is that while you're enjoying all the celebrations, there's a not so festive problem that a lot of us deal with and that's constipation.
It's a real thing and we all probably know that it gets a little worse during the holidays and today I want to share why that happens and more importantly, what kinds of things (0:46) you can do to keep things moving. So let's start with why it happens. During the holidays, our routines kind of go out the window.
We eat richer foods like creamy mashed potatoes or other things that are really rich in dairy and like cookies and other stuff, but we don't get enough fiber-packed vegetables like we might in our regular routine. Plus, we're often sitting more, whether that's for long dinners or travel, hours in the car or even just lounging more on the couch. There may be other things happening too, like a little extra caffeine or an extra cocktail and things that might dehydrate you and slow things down even more.
So you might be sitting there wondering what constipation has to do with your pelvic health and why I, a pelvic floor physical therapist, am talking to you about it. So I just want to take a quick sec to talk about how constipation can affect your pelvic floor. If you're super constipated and you're straining a lot on the toilet, that puts a lot of downward pressure onto your pelvic floor muscles.
Straining, if you're not sure what that is, is when you're sitting on the toilet and you're pushing really hard and holding your breath trying to get the poop out. Imagine any meme you've ever seen where someone is sitting on the toilet and their face is starting to turn red. That person is straining.
So when you strain and you push all that pressure down, that can lead to a variety of issues like hemorrhoids or fissures. Also, while you're doing all that straining, you're actually squeezing your pelvic floor muscles which need to be relaxing when you're trying to let the poop out. If you have urinary symptoms, it can make them worse. But most annoyingly, it can actually lead to more issues with constipation. So preventing constipation isn't just about feeling better, it's also about protecting your pelvic health.
I know all of that sounds a little complicated, but don't worry. I have some really, really simple tips to help keep you regular through the holidays. The first tip is to stay hydrated.
You need to have enough water in your system to keep your poops appropriately soft. And while there are no hard and fast rules about exactly how much water a person should have, for the average person, if you can get at least eight cups of water a day, you're probably in good shape. If you are drinking other things, maybe in a little bit more excess than you ordinarily would, like coffee or other caffeine sources or alcohol, then you want to have even more water to help balance that out.
My second recommendation is to make sure you eat your fiber. Fiber keeps your stool a nice, healthy consistency. And you don't have to take supplements, you can get it by including things like fruits and veggies and whole grains in your meals.
The third recommendation is to make sure you're moving. Even just a short walk after a meal does wonders for your digestion. Plus, it is really helpful for shaking off some of that holiday stress. And my last recommendation is to listen to your body. When you're getting the urge to go, go. Delaying it can actually make your constipation worse because of how the reflexes in our body work to get us to have a bowel movement.
There are also a few really simple exercises that can help. One of them is diaphragmatic breathing. This helps relax both your pelvic floor and your gut. You can do it in any position, you can do it standing, laying, or even sitting, but I'll just show you in standing. So you're just going to put one hand on your belly and one on your ribcage. And you're going to focus on breathing in so that both hands rise together and breathing out so that both hands fall together.
You can do that for just a couple minutes a day and it can really, really help.Â
The next exercise is low trunk rotation, but really any exercise you like that creates some twists through this part of your body will work. So for this one, I like to just put my knees a little bit wide and I'm just going to windshield wiper my knees side to side, letting my pelvis and my rib cage move so that I get a nice twist through my trunk.
The last one is an abdominal massage. You kind of can't mess this one up, but I'm going to teach you my favorite way to do it and I call it ILU massage. So you're going to start on the left side of your abdomen and you're going to make swiping motions down from the rib cage towards the pelvis. You'll do each massage about 10 times in each spot before moving on to the next spot.Â
Remember that constipation happens honestly to most of us, especially with all the extra chaos that's going on during the holidays, but these really simple tips can help you keep things moving and enjoy your holiday season with a little less discomfort. But if you're still struggling or if you have questions, please feel free to reach out. I'm here to help and I wish you all a happy holiday and a joyful, relaxed and regular season.
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