Breathing for Pelvic Floor Health

Deep breathing is one of the best exercises you can do for pelvic floor health!

There are many exercises and yoga poses that can help to strength the pelvic floor. What these exercises all have in common is that when we do them, we focus on the contraction of the pelvic floor muscles.

What we are going to focus on with this deep breathing exercise is the full relaxation of the pelvic floor muscles. This may seem counterintuitive, but in any exercise, in order to more effectively contract muscles, we need to first learn to effectively relax them. For pelvic floor muscles, we can do this by focusing on deep, diaphragmatic breathing.

The Anatomy of Breathing

Everyone can benefit from these breathing exercises!

To understand why, let’s take a look at the anatomy of breathing.

Your diaphragm is the main muscle responsible for breathing. It is a large, flat, dome-shaped muscle located below your rib cage. The mechanics of breathing can be compared to the mechanics of a bellows. Your diaphragm widens your rib cage, allowing air to enter your lungs (inhaling). After the inhale is complete, your diaphragm relaxes, allowing your rib cage to relax and narrow, which pushes air out of your lungs (exhaling). 

Diaphragmatic Breathing

Let’s take some diaphragmatic breaths. For many of us, when we take a deep breath, we actively draw air in through our nose, which in turn causes our rib cage to expand. This time let’s try initiating the inhale from our diaphragm – try “pushing” your rib cage out. Notice that the air comes into your lungs without you having to “draw” it in through your nose or mouth! This is diaphragmatic breathing, sometimes referred to as “belly breathing.” Inhale like this a few times – first your stomach area will rise and then your chest will gently rise. You can place one hand on your stomach and one hand on your chest to feel this motion.

 When you are ready to exhale, allow your diaphragm to relax and allow the air to leave your lungs. First your chest will fall, and then your stomach will fall. When you feel like you can exhale no more air, imagine drawing your belly button in toward your back to gently squeeze out a little more air. Then, allow your ribcage to expand to begin again!

The Pelvic Floor

Your pelvic floor moves with your diaphragm as you breathe. As you inhale, your pelvic floor expands downward, and the muscles relax. As you exhale, the muscles of your pelvic floor naturally contract, drawing up and in. 

We can take advantage of this natural motion to strengthen our pelvic floor muscles. The key is to fully relax the muscles so that they can then contract more effectively. For many of us, our pelvic floor muscles are always working, staying in a state of semi-contraction, never fully relaxed, but never fully engaged either. Without a chance to relax, the muscles become weaker over time. By taking the time to do our breathing exercises, we can allow our pelvic floor muscles to move through their full range of motion and let them do their job more effectively! 

Let’s begin the exercise!

Before beginning the breathing exercise, use the bathroom so your bladder is empty. 

Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down, somewhere where you feel comfortable and relaxed. If you are seated, sit in a place where you don’t need to exert effort to keep yourself upright.

Close your eyes and allow the muscles of your body to relax. Release any tension that you may be holding in your pelvic floor. Begin with some gentle diaphragmatic breathing. As you inhale, bring your attention to your pelvic floor muscles and start to notice the gentle expansion and relaxation of those muscles. As you exhale, notice the gentle contraction of your pelvic floor and stomach muscles. This expansion and contraction occurs without you having to exert any effort to make it happen. With each inhale, relax your muscles a little more fully, and with each exhale, as you draw your belly button to your back, notice the contraction of your pelvic floor muscles.

Continue breathing in this way for four minutes. You may not feel like you are doing any work at all! But by allowing your muscles to fully relax before gently contracting them, you are retraining your muscles and helping them to become stronger and more effective.

If you are ready for more, you may continue breathing in this way for as long as you feel comfortable! Repeat the breathing exercise three times a day, for a total of twelve minutes a day.