Christmas, Chaos and Constipation 🚽💩
Movement Skills For Better Movement. 💩
Bodyspace Movement Newsletter 3 January 2024
I thought I’d kick off my first newsletter of 2024 with some reflections on busyness, stress and your bowels.
The festive season often means changes in what we eat, dealing with stressful relationships and less activity (here in the UK at least).
Right at the time when nature is going to ground and hibernating, we seem to pile extra jobs on the list and it can impact simple regulatory processes like bowel movements.
The rest and digest branch of the nervous system is sensitive and when conditions are normal, calm and safe, all those necessary processes happen smoothly in the background.
But when there is anything that we experience as stress, threat or aggravation - think of staying with a tricky relative, a challenging conversation over the Christmas turkey or driving to 5 different houses in 3 days, sleeping in different beds and navigating traffic in the dark - all these factors can tip the balance and the simple process of digesting food falls out of whack.
Constipation is uncomfortable.
It can feel like back pain, bloating is inevitable and if you have any hint of pelvic floor sensitivity or symptoms associated with prolapse, it can be a nightmare.
Straining is never a good idea. Start with the Fart Position (see below) for some quick relief, followed by drinking more water and taking a walk with a little Crop Dusting (explained below).
When it comes to going to the toilet, it’s something we all need to do and it just so happens that how you move through your day, your posture and movement habits, where you hold tension and what you do when on the loo all have significant impact on your pelvic health, digestive processes and how you feel in your body moment to moment or movement to movement 😉.
Normally this kind of topic doesn’t really come up in your weekly pilates, yoga or exercise class.
How you hold yourself on a daily basis, the positions you spend the most time in and those unconscious habits like holding your tummy in, all have a significant impact on smooth transit from top to bottom.
Going to the toilet can become a great source of distress, stress and strain which is bad news long term for already tense and stressed tissues
The digestive process of a dinosaur - drawing by my daughter when she was 5.
She was very clear about where the food went in and the journey it took all the way to the rear end.
This is proudly hung on our toilet wall and on the other side of the loo is this excellent poster reminding us of all the foods that aid smooth transit. ✅
Nutrition is one of the things you hear about the most when it comes to constipation.
Alignment, how you hold yourself and movement are not talked about as often when it comes to digestive issues.
It’s not just your bowels and bladder going working when you go to the loo. Your nervous system is scanning for signs of safety, sending the signal to your pelvic floor and sphincter muscles that’s it’s okay to relax and release.
Understanding how to align your body parts for better breathing, balancing tensions and making space for autonomic processes like digestion is a self care skill for life.
Knowing how to meet pay closer attention to the signals your body sends you and meet your own needs where possible, is a step towards restoring better whole body balance and function that will serve you long term.
Having a toolkit to support smooth transit, reduce recurrence of constipation and make going to the toilet a joyful experience - some call this a ‘poogasm’ - can be life changing on a daily basis.
Maintaining a flexible and responsive environment in the abdomen, pelvis and hips is crucial for reducing intra-abdominal pressure, GSM and back pain, especially for any pelvic health issue or post c-section or hysterectomy.
This is known as the Fart Position in my house. 😁
I use visual cues in class to help you orientate and organise your body into specific restorative positions for deeper activation of under-active parts and release of overactive parts.
Knowing when to ‘dip your headlights’ or ‘switch to high beam’ can determine how much lower back tension is present and how much added load goes onto the bladder.
But also helps with releasing any excess gas…
FYI, Crop Dusting is a very useful tip for balancing the pressures that can build up in the abdomen and bowel. Next time you’re feeling a bit stuck, take yourself for a walk and ‘let her rip’ - affectionately known as Crop Dusting, this is the perfect solution to alleviating some pressure and if you’re outside, no-one needs to know!
Holding in gas is not good for anyone - least of all anyone with an already stressed out pelvic floor.
Work with me
If something you’ve read here resonates and you want to find out more, I offer group classes in person and online, private sessions and have a growing online library of guided practices and resources for members to access anytime.
Feel free to get in touch to find out more.
Hayley