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July 10, 2025 11 mins

In part two of this empowering conversation, Jennie talks actionable advice with pelvic floor physical therapist, Dr. Sara Reardon (aka The Vagina Whisperer.)

Now that we’re equipped with some knowledge about the essential but often overlooked aspects of pelvic health, this bonus episode brings some tips for strengthening your pelvic floor and a better understanding of your body, today.

Find Dr. Reardon’s book, Floored: A Woman's Guide to Pelvic Floor Health at Every Age and Stage―A Comprehensive Guide for Women of All Ages HERE 

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garland. Welcome
back to I Choose Me. Doctor Sarah Reardon, also known
as the Vaginal Whisper, is a board certified pelvic floor
physical therapist with over eighteen years of experience. So, doctor Sarah,

(00:22):
let's talk about what we can do today. Let's get practical.
Let's go through. If you don't mind what we talked about,
let's do some rapid fire just to bring it home.
What are the small daily choices people can make to
support their pelvic floor starting today.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
First thing is I'm going to tell you how to
pee and poop so that you can change that immediately.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Okay, good.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
When you pee, you need to sit down on the
toilet instead of hover, unless it's like Novy supergrowth no huk.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
I used to be able to hover. This is gonna
get TMI for our listeners, maybe not for you. I
used to be able to hover, and now with the hips,
I can't have anymore. So I guess that's a good thing.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
It's a good thing.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Your hips are moving you in the right direction, so
sit down and then don't push. So don't push when
you pee, your bladder pushes your urine out when you pee.
If you're pushing, I call it power peeing. You're weakening
your pelvic floor. You're gonna lead to it's gonna end
up incontinence and prolaps. So just sit and chill and
let your bladder empty, and if you feel like it

(01:23):
doesn't empty all the way, then like wiggle your hips,
rock your hips back and forth, and then stand up
and sit down again, and then see if a little
more urine comes out.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Don't push when you pee.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Have you ever heard of the stop start technique?

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Yeah, don't do that.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Don't do that.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
No, don't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Oh no, okay, okay, Because so the stop star technique
is that when you're thinking, like, do kegel contraction to
tighten your pelvic floor, to strengthen it.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, like stop peeing mid flow and you can do it,
pee again and then and then be again.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
I'm so glad you brought this up. You can do
it once.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
And that's to see how you do a kegel contraction,
because stopping your stre is a kegel contraction, and so
it's just making sure you feel like you're doing it correctly.
But when you're peeing, you should be relaxed. Stopping and
starting your stream is like the wrong message to your
bladder and can lead to problems, so like incomplete bladder
emptying things like that. So just sit, chill and breathe

(02:17):
and let your bladder empty. And that's pushing ping and
no pushing, no pat Just say no to power ping.
Tell me about poohing, my other favorite topic. You sound excited,
I am. So when you're pooping, you should put a stool,
a step stool, or those little squatty potties under your feet.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
I was going to ask you should we all be
using a squatty poties?

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Everybody should be using one, and even your kids, like
even little kids need to have their feet on a stool.
When you put your feet on a stool, that elevates
your knees, and when you kind of lean forward and
relax in your elbows you it puts.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
You in a squatting position.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
And swatting is the best position to relax your pelvic floor,
which is your anal opening, so you don't have to
strain with bomb movements. Pushing and straining during pooping weakens
your pelvic floor more than jumping, coughing, running, like all
of these things.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
And if you're pooping.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Once a day and straining it will cause hemorrhoids and
prolapse and hernias and things like that. So you know,
feed on the stool, lean forward. You can push when
you're pooping, not peeing, but you can push, but just
don't hold your breath. Make sure that you're exhaling, like
you're blowing out a bunch of candles or something.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Okay, I'll be thinking of you later. What about what
about just in case peeing? Like you're gonna leave and
you don't really have to pee, but you should pee
before you get in the car?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Also a no, also a negative when you I know.
So it's good to pee when you have the urge,
which normal peeing should be every two to four hours
during the day or zero or two times at night.
The only times that are good to just in case
p are like before you work out, after sex, or
before sex, or maybe before bed. But otherwise you should

(04:00):
wait for your bladder.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
To fill and then empty.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
If you go just in case all the time, then
your your bladder only fills a little bit and then
empties feels a little bit and then empties, and so
you're training your bladder to like be small and then
you'll have to go pee all the time.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
So go when you have the urge.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
What if you already have a small bladder. I am
asking for someone who might be listening right now, not me,
but I know somebody that has to pee a lot
all the time, and they say, oh, it's because I
have a small bladder.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
So I would there's a way that you can, like
it's called stretching your bladder or bladder training. You start
increasing your kind of intervals between peeing by fifteen minutes,
so say you go every thirty minutes, I'd be like
set a time or just go every thirty minutes, and
then after that you go every forty five minutes, and
then after that you go every hour, So you kind
of like are gradually it's like training to run a race.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
You kind of gradually.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Increase the time until you get to the two hour mark.
And if you pee and then you feel like I'm
not sure I got it all out and you go
back and only have a little bit, then you know
that that second one was a false urge, and then
next time you just kind of ignore it.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
And I give a lot.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Of tips in the book for like urge suppression and
how to like quiet the urge when you have it,
because you need to train your bladder to be bigger
so that you can sit through a movie.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Well, I tried to quiet my daughter's urge to pee
once when she was back in the back of my car,
and it didn't work and she peed in my car.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, that's gonna happen. I would say for kids, it's
a different set of rules, so but for the adult bladder,
I would say, try to stretch it and also think
about what you are drinking, like sparkling waters and alcohol
and sugary drinks and artificial sweeteners, acidic drinks.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
Those will all cause you to.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Pee more often. And then this is the other thing.
If you're constipated, you're going to have more bladder urgency
because all that poop in your pelvis is pushing on
your bladder. So often when people will come in for
bladder issues, I like work with them when they're pooping
and that can help their bladder emptying as well.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
I know it's your mind blown right now.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
So you just said I work with them when they're pooping.
That is very intimate doctor patient relationship.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
I work with them on pooping.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
On Okay, it's different. Oh my gosh. Okay, for someone
listening who's overwhelmed and wants to start today, what's a simple,
like five minute routine they can do to try to
connect with their peblic floor. Like, I know, we can

(06:43):
visit your website on your instagram the vagina whisper, But
what's an easy, like five minute thing we can do.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Breathe is the first one. A lot of us whole tension,
So just taking big, deep, diaphragmatic breaths helps our pelvic
floor relax. Other things are watch how you're sitting. Make
sure that you're not clenching your bat you're not twisting
your legs up like a pretzel kind of sit with
your feet flat or cross at the ankles. That can
release a lot of tension in your pelvic floor.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Move.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
So many of us are sitting for too long throughout
the day, so taking a break every thirty minutes or
an hour can bring blood flow to.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
The pelvic floor.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
We talked about how to pee and poop, and then
if you're exercising, like you don't have to carve out
separate times to do pelvic floor exercises. If you're doing yoga,
you're working on pelvic floor relaxation already. If you're doing
strength training or weightlifting, bring that pelvic floor contraction into
that weightlifting routine so that you get the bang for

(07:38):
your buck and your pelvic floor while you're strengthening already.
So there are ways to like really easily bring this
into things you're already doing.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
I feel like we have so many things to worry about.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
There's a fire hose of health information coming out. But
if we learn these tips early or whenever we do,
they just become part of our lifestyle, like brushing our
teeth or you know, flossing our teeth, they just become
part of our daily routine.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Every time I work out, I usually end it with
pelvic thrusts. You know when you lay on your back
and you push your pelvis put down. I think I'm
doing that for like my glutes, yep, but I guess
it's also.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
It's also if you contract your pelvic floor, like you're
sipping up a smoothie with a vagina, like with your vagina.
So I always tell people think of sipping up a
smoothie with your vagina, and that's like they're drawing up.
Then it also becomes a pelvic floor workout.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Oh my gosh, sorry about the sound effect. Okay, Yeah,
this is all so so interesting how it really does
come back to daily choices, from how we sit to
how we pee and food, how we breathe, what we eat.
It's not just about fixing something, it's about choosing to
feel better long term.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
Right exactly.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
And that was one of the reasons for the book.
It was like, I don't as much as social media
it's just been amazing for disseminating health information. There's not
always credentials behind that, and I think it's really important
that we kind of go to sources that are using
evidence and science and clinical experience to help us with
our health care.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Absolutely, you talked about tightness in the woodle. That's what
I call it. I've ever heard that before.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
Now that's a new one for me.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
We always call it a woodle around here. Lots of
oodles in this house. What about people who complain of
having a loose woodle.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah, So that's one of the things that I think
people expect to happen after pregnancy and breath and kind
of with aging, is like my vagina is going to
be loosey, goosey and sex is just not going to
be pleasurable and I'm going to let my partner down.
In fact, more people have tension and pain with sex
after birth than tightness, I mean than weakness. But you
can have more weakness with the more babies you have

(09:51):
and getting into menopause, So this is where you want
to focus on strengthening. And other types of weakness could
be like your tampon falling out or you feel like
something's falling out of your vagina, So this is where
you really want to focus on, like strengthening your pelvic floor,
so just like we would strengthen your bicep. There's so
many different ways to do it. You can, of course,

(10:13):
do what we always think of as kegel exercises that
kind of tighten and close the vagina, but you can't
just do those like sitting in the car poolane. You
need to do those standing and walking with squats and
lunches and lifting weights, like use those muscles and load
them and just like we do other muscles in our
body and then turn them on before a cough or

(10:34):
a sneeze or a workout.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
But it's okay to do them in the carpooling. I'm
just asking away for a friend.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yes, the car puolane, the shower, while you're brushing your teeth,
while you're reheating coffee. Anytime you can work them in.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
It's a good. It's a good. It's an easy workout.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
And nobody will nobody will even know you're doing it.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
It's the beauty of it.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
No. I loved it. I loved our conversation. Thank you
so much for being with us and talking about all
these fascinating things that have to do with our pelvic floor.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Thanks for having me, Jenny, Bye bye.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Okay, So, if this episode hit home for you, maybe
you've been leaking a little when you laugh, or sex
doesn't feel the same anymore. I want you to know this.
You don't have to just live with it. You don't
have to push it down, ignore it, or blame yourself.
Today can be the day you choose something different.
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Tori Spelling

Tori Spelling

Jennie Garth

Jennie Garth

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