These W.O.W. Chats are candid, clear, and concise Words of Wisdom gathered from people I respect and admire: professionals and friends I have connected with throughout my travels across the globe. This compilation is Part 7 of 7 of the 2018 interview collection of brilliant and binge-worthy tidbits of insight, information, life lessons, and more.
Hope you enjoy!
These W.O.W. Chats are candid, clear, and concise Words of Wisdom gathered from people I respect and admire: professionals and friends I have connected with throughout my travels across the globe. This compilation is Part 6 of 7 of the 2018 interview collection of brilliant and binge-worthy tidbits of insight, information, life lessons, and more.
Hope you enjoy!
Your pelvic floor plays an important role not only in bladder, bowel, reproduction and sexual function, but also in hip function, breathing, core strategies, standing balance and more. The pelvic floor is also known to be intimately connected to the feet and the floor of the mouth. Pelvic health issues related to these many roles are commonly poorly addressed or often left untreated in both women and men.
Join Shelly Prosko, PT, C-IAYT, CPI, physical therapist and yoga therapist, for her 20 hour, Live In-Person, yoga therapy course focusing on pelvic floor health that offers a combination of inspiring, empowering, educational and valuable theory and practice. This course explores the evidence surrounding the biopsychosocial factors that influence pelvic floor function and integrates this evidence with yoga practices and philosophy that can be safely and effectively used to address and maintain optimal pelvic floor health in both men and women in an accessible way. Read more →
Copyright Ray Long, MD Used with Permission
Integrating Pelvic Floor Cueing into Your Yoga Classes
Shelly Prosko, PT, PYT, C-IAYT
It is wonderful to see the pelvic floor (PF) gain more media attention these days! As a yoga professional, you are well positioned to address PF wellness in your classes for both men and women. Unfortunately, accurate information about the PF is not always conveyed. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of practices to promote PF health? Kegel exercises? Mula bandha? If so, you may want to read on. Read more →
Dustienne Miller. At risk of sounding a bit creepy, I will admit that I have a huge “girl-crush” on this phenomenal woman. I remember about 5 years ago I came across her brilliant work as I was starting to travel around to teach PhysioYoga workshops for optimizing pelvic health.
Dustienne is a board certified women’s health physical therapist, Kripalu-certified yoga teacher, AND a professional dancer. She integrates her love of movement with physical therapy and yoga to help men and women who suffer from pelvic floor pain and dysfunctions.
Dustienne is the creator of a video series that uses yoga postures and breathing techniques to navigate pelvic pain and incontinence: Your Pace Yoga: Relieving Pelvic Pain and Your Pace Yoga: Optimizing Bladder Control. I have been tremendously inspired by these videos and I recommend them to my patients and students regularly.
Dustienne and I had the opportunity to dig deep into the inspiration behind her videos, their impact and if she’d do anything different:
Me: Let’s start with your inspiration. What prompted you to create these videos?
Dustienne: The videos were really born out of a true need for my patients. In 2011 I was working in NYC at Beyond Basics Physical Therapy, and I found myself giving my clients yoga home programs in stick figure form. I realized there was a massive void in video programming available and recognized the need for something to work with at home. Carryover between sessions and after discharge from physical therapy is sometimes a missing link in rehab. Yoga can be an important aspect of the patient’s home program and used for maintenance. I created a program my patients could use at their own pace, in their own space. Read more →
Well, I am finally dedicating an entire post to all these pelvic floor health Physio Yoga resources I’ve been creating and accumulating over the years: writing, filming, interviewing, sharing!
I will keep this post updated and current, and add any resources I find valuable to share. This information is targeted towards people like you who are interested in learning more about and optimizing pelvic floor health through yoga: the general public, the yoga teacher, yoga therapist, health care professional, or anyone simply looking for more quality information and resources on creating pelvic floor health for both men and women through Physio + Yoga.
The first resource is a great place to start: an article I wrote in the Winter 2016 Issue of the International Association of Yoga Therapists “Yoga Therapy Today” publication. It’s a concise summary of roles of the pelvic floor, factors influencing pelvic floor function, and how yoga fits in: Read more →
I recently wrote an article that was published in the International Association of Yoga Therapists Winter 2016 Issue of “Yoga Therapy Today” publication titled:
“Optimizing Pelvic Floor Health Through Yoga Therapy.”
The purpose was to review the role that a yoga therapist has in helping people create and optimize their pelvic floor health. The article is also valuable for yoga teachers, health care professionals, or anyone interested in or requiring more knowledge about the pelvic floor. Pelvic health physical therapists have provided me with positive feedback, stating that the article is an accurate and valuable resource for their clients and also for educating other physical therapists who may want to learn more about the pelvic floor:
“Excellent article. Well written and one of the most accurate I’ve read. So needed.” Diane Lee, PT
In this article, I explain specifically what ‘is’ pelvic health and the pelvic floor, the many roles of the pelvic floor, the numerous factors that influence the healthy functioning of the pelvic floor muscles, and the role that yoga therapists may have in working with people with pelvic floor dysfunctions, with examples of some techniques they may use. I also discuss what some of the research is saying about yoga and certain pelvic health conditions.
There are 27 citations included in this evidence-informed article.
**Above Photo credit: Raymond Long www.bandhayoga.com
You can find the article here: “Optimizing Pelvic Floor Health Through Yoga Therapy”
Please also review the 4 min trailer of the videos, “Creating Pelvic Floor Health with PhysioYoga” that I created for you to download that include many of the techniques discussed in the article!
**This article and video is not meant to diagnose, treat or act as medical advice. Please consult your health care provider for clearance and guidance before following or participating in these activities**
The 6 Stages of Toilet Meditation
Mindfulness practises are gaining popularity and even appear to be quite trendy these days. Perhaps it is because we know, and have experienced, that there is tremendous value in being present and mindful throughout our day.
We talk about mindfulness during many activities such as driving, walking, exercising, eating, socializing, etc; so why not also be mindful while going to the bathroom? Yes, mindful toileting!
Being fully present and aware of our bodies, minds and emotions can help release the pelvic floor muscles (PFM’s) when we perform our toilet duties, resulting in successfully completing our task. We often times are in a hurry and rushing with the attitude of ‘hurry up and just get it over with, I have something important waiting’ or our minds are elsewhere as we are texting or reading, which can be distracting from our present intention of the moment: to empty and eliminate!
This could lead to not fully relaxing and releasing the PFM’s, or not fully emptying the bowel or bladder, which may potentially contribute to or exacerbate a variety of pelvic health issues like urinary urgency, frequency, incontinence, constipation or pelvic pain conditions.
I have a short ‘Toilet Meditation’ that I like to share with my clients/students that involves 6 stages, using the acronym “AIRBAG” to help you remember. Read more →
Overcome Pain with Gentle Yoga Videos Available!
Resources created by Neil Pearson & Shelly Prosko, Physical Therapists & Yoga Therapists
It is known that pain is a complex biopsychosocial phenomenon that consists of many factors that influence the ability to move with ease, including capability of the physical body, breath pattern, psychological and emotional factors, and spiritual or social interactions. In the treatment of chronic or persistent pain, we know that the best long-term improvements occur when people can recover movement and participate in more activities of their daily lives.
Research supports that yoga can be used to address both physical & psychological aspects of persistent pain (Wren et al, 2011). “There is evidence that yoga may be useful for several pain-associated disorders” (Bussing et al, 2012) and growing evidence that specifically suggests different aspects of yoga can help not only reduce and manage pain, but also help people move & function better, and improve health-related quality of life (Ware et al 2013, Holtzman et al 2013, Moonaz et al 2015).
In Yoga for Healthy Aging’s blogpost, “Yoga for Pain Management”, Dr. Baxter Bell explains how different yoga techniques can help calm breathing, decrease muscle tension and improve body awareness, which are essential foundations and skills to learn if people want to move with more ease. He recommends two valuable books on yoga for pain and shares another useful post, “Techniques for Pain Management” outlining why certain yoga practises can be effective management for chronic or persistent pain.
Although we have evidence to support the benefits of yoga for management of persistent pain and many yoga practitioners are using yoga to help their students/clients in pain, there are actually very few resources available for people in pain to practice yoga in a way that safely and appropriately addresses the complex issues of persisting pain and helps people progressively increase movement with ease.
Neil Pearson, physical therapist, yoga therapist, UBC professor, and myself, wanted to create an accessible and safe resource that included more specific guidance to help people in pain. We developed “Overcome Pain with Gentle Yoga”, a series of 7 video sessions consisting of a variety of different practises, each with a different theme that addresses unique challenges that people with chronic pain face.
We chose 7 different themes based on qualities that we knew people with persistent pain often times have difficulty with and can influence pain experience.
The following 7 themes that we have chosen to address in the videos are:
9 Ways to Help Your Yoga Students Engage Their Pelvic Floors
In my Pelvic Floor Yoga and Yoga Therapy courses, I emphasize the importance of adequate training and education of pelvic floor muscle (PFM) engagement with proper synergistic timing with other muscle groups with awareness, movement and breath.
I received a great question from a yoga therapist at the International Association of Yoga Therapists annual Symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research where I was presenting a session on this topic. One of the participants asked, “how does a yoga therapist know if the student is properly engaging the pelvic floor muscles?” The simple answer to this question is, unfortunately you don’t. Accurate measurement of PFM function and strength is difficult, even with the current tools of measurement we have such as direct skilled manual palpation or use of clinical observation skills with measuring devices such as ultrasound, EMG recordings, or MRI’s (Bo et al, 2005). However, these methods are not within the scope of practise of a yoga therapist or yoga teacher.
Additionally, some research shows that over 30% of women (no statistics for men yet) do not engage their PFMs correctly even after their first consultation of one on one training (WHO, 2002). Even if you think you are providing proper PFM engagement cueing in your classes, you really have no way of knowing if every student is engaging correctly. Furthermore, some evidence-based treatment guidelines advise against teaching a PFM contraction for certain conditions. I further expand on this in my courses and in a short blog here.
But for now, we can address this original question if we re-phrase it:
“how can a yoga professional enhance the probability of a person effectively engaging his or her PFM, while staying within scope of practice?”
Here are 9 ways: Read more →
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