Hey friends, happy May!

I know many of you have had spring for a while but here in Alaska, the leaves are just starting to emerge on the trees, the seagulls are back, and bits of green grass are coming through the brown. I'm SO happy about these recent developments, and I can feel the summer energy overflowing from everywhere. When the sun is shining, people are moving outside and it feels like the world is coming back to life. I'm so thankful. 🌿🌼🌷

Now, what you're here for. Let's talk about bladder health!

What's the #1 thing you can do today for better bladder health?

• Learn what's normal and what's not, and then make changes accordingly!

It's so important to be in charge of our bladder, and not let our bladder dictate where we go and what we do throughout the day. It should not be an ever-present nag in our minds, or cause us to worry about leaking. We should be able to enjoy our life and not have our bladders take up more space in our brain than is necessary.

So, what's normal???

• Voiding 5-9 times/day
• Peeing for a full 10-12 seconds at least (count one-one-thousand...)
• Not leaking with jumping, running, coughing, laughing, sneezing, lifting
• Not leaking as you rush to the bathroom
• Not having to pee again as soon as you stand up from the toilet

Were you surprised at any of these?

What do you do if things aren't going normally for you and your bladder? Let's chat.

Are you voiding more frequently than 5-9 times a day? Or leaking on your way to the bathroom?

This is considered urge incontinence. It's more of a neurological issue than a mechanical one. The good news? You can retrain your brain!!

Typically we get the first urge signal from our bladder when it's about halfway full. If we respond to this right away every single time, our body learns that a half-full bladder feels like a full bladder because we are quite literally making neural pathways that signal that. 🤯 If we ignore the first urge because we're driving or at work, or have to do something for the kids, then the next signal comes at about 75% full. The same rule applies for this urge. The last signal we get is a full bladder, and that's when it's time to respond. If you find yourself running to the bathroom "just in case!!" every single time you leave the house, or every single time you arrive somewhere, I want you to take a moment to tap into your intuition and follow a little flow chart. Get it? Flow...urine? Haha, I can't resist pelvic floor humor. This is a practice in observing signals from our body, and it strengthens the mind-body connection. You're essentially potty training yourself so that you can hold your bladder longer. 🚽 An "inappropriate urge" would be feeling like you have to void 15 mins after you just went to the bathroom or something similar, and an "appropriate urge" would be having a liter of water and it's been 2 hours or more since you last went to the bathroom. Once you count your stream enough times, you'll get to learn what is an appropriate timed urge for you.

When you pee, is your stream shorter than at least 10 seconds long??

Start counting every time you pee, and start to figure out how long your stream is. If you're consistently under 10 seconds, chances are you're responding to an "inappropriate urge" and you've trained yourself to empty your bladder before it's full. This is a great clue into bladder health!! Once you start counting every time, it'll be hard to stop. And if you've worked with me in person, you know I tell everyone to count if they pee before the workout. Please, please, NEVER push your pee out. If you are just to go faster and save time, stop doing that. It add unnecessary downward pressure on your pelvic floor and years and years of doing that every single time you pee adds up. And it won't really give you much more time in life. :)

Are you leaking with impact? Coughing, sneezing, jumping, laughing, running?

This leaking is considered stress urinary incontinence and it's a mechanical issue, which means that it's more so a structure thing! The great news is that you can work on your structures through muscle retraining!

Many times, leaking with impact is due to a non-optimal core recruitment strategy. First, we need to realign the core, then we coordinate the breathing with movement! A breath where during the inhale, the ribs, belly, and pelvic floor expand and release, and then on the exhale those all engage.

A note to say - you can have a combination of stress incontinence and urge, which is called mixed urinary incontinence. Best of both worlds, right? There are a couple other kinds of incontinence, but these are the most common so we'll save the others for another day.

Are you feeling like you have to pee right away after just going to the bathroom? Maybe you stand up and leak, even though you thought you got everything out?

This could be a yellow light for prolapse. 🚦 Why? Because if your bladder is sliding back and down into the front wall of your vagina, it can create a little pocket that essentially collects urine and when you're sitting on the toilet, that little pouch or pocket holds urine that doesn't come out, but when you stand back up - it straightens out and the urine drops down and out.

Here are a couple really practical things you can do:

1. Sit fully down on the toilet. Hinge forward and rest your elbows on your knees. Take a couple deep breaths focusing on relaxing.
2. Once you feel like you've fully voided, take a moment to do another deep breath. You can also do a pelvic tilt....it's honestly a twerk motion, let's call it what it is 😆 to help that pouch of urine straighten out and empty.
3. Never push your pee out. Some people call it "power peeing" to go faster. Take your time, and avoid excess pressure downward on the pelvic floor!
4. You can also just simply stand up take a moment, and then sit right back down and see if there's any more urine to void.

If you made it to the end, thank you for reading! Please let me know what questions you have after this, and know that you can always reach out. If you're looking to improve your bladder health and get on a better track with movement and mindful strategies, know that I have 1:1 sessions available locally and also offer them online. With that link you can see all the current offerings I have!!

Warmly,

Natalie