From Heart Surgery to Happy Pelvis: Post-op Zen for Your Pelvis

Hey Heart Buddies! I hope you have enjoyed this month's pelvic health series. In this final installment with Dr. Kelly Sadauckas, we unravel the mysteries of pelvic health and its crucial connection to overall wellness by using a unique interactive experience designed to teach you how to relax your pelvic floor. All you'll need is a simple towel and a quiet space. Ever wondered about the secrets of diaphragmatic breathing or how to harness the power of neuroplasticity for pelvic health? This is the episode for you!

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**I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. Be sure to check in with your care team about all the next right steps for you and your heart.**

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
In this episode, we are going to learn from Dr. Kelly
how to relax our pelvic floor via the
pelvic floor connector and relaxation exercise.
You'll need a towel and you'll need a quiet place to sit.
So if you're driving right now or unable to do this, be sure to
bookmark this episode and save it for a time where you're able

(00:23):
to practice it. Let's get right to it.
Today is the last installment of our
series. I'm gonna miss you, Boots
and Randy the Rectum. You guys are gonna have to send him postcards. He's gonna
be so lonely. I know. And Patty Pelvis And

(00:46):
Philip Pelvis. Philip the pelvis or Peter the
pelvis? You know, he's two personalities. Okay.
Yeah. So if you're just finding us,
please be sure to go back and listen to the other episodes
in this series for Heart Month because gives you a lot of the background of
what we're about to do, which Kelly's been talking about

(01:07):
relaxing our pelvic floor, and she's already given us a couple of really
great tutorials. But now we're actually just going to do
a legit 10 minute exercise.
10 minute pelvic floor relaxer. This is perfect. So, yes, I second what Boots
said. Get your cute butts back and watch the other episodes in their entirety.
But this is for you when you're like, yes, I saw myself in

(01:30):
those episodes. I want to connect and relax to my pelvic floor. This is
for you. So Boots and I, if you can see us, we have just like
standard hand towels that are. Would you call this a hand towel?
I never knew a nomenclature. Okay, perfect. I call them hand towels.
Perfect. So we'll fold it in half once lengthwise and
then again in a half. So it's this little rectangle and we are going

(01:52):
to roll it about into a circle that's,
I don't know, like about as big as my fist,
right? Huh? Yep. And I'll probably make
a little, like, handout for you for, like, relative size of this. And we are
going to put this hand towel under our perineum, under
our pelvic floor muscles. So we're going to be sitting down and we're going to

(02:13):
set it so there is some pressure on the
rectum, some pressure on the vag,
and if you don't have a vag, like pressure right behind the scrotum and
pressure on the rectum. So this towel is meant to fit right between
your sit bones and kind of like a bike seat, except a little
skinnier so that it only compresses those

(02:35):
muscles. When we sit on this towel, friends,
you should be aware that you're sitting on it like, hello, but
it should not hurt. So if it hurts, you might need to go
to a smaller towel or if it feels like it's actually
touching your sit bones, your towel roll might be too
big, so you might have to unwind it a little bit. But the key is

(02:57):
that if we are wanting to truly connect to
our pelvic floor and relax the pelvic
floor, we are not sitting on this towel because we think we're going to
pee our pants. We're sitting on this towel because it is
giving a very gentle touch sensation to where
all of these amazing pelvic floor muscles are to

(03:19):
help the brain find them. And that is
so powerful. So even if this is 2
days post op and we've just got to the chair
next to our bed the first time, and we're working with respiratory
therapy and they leave, oh my gosh, guess what? We could put this
rolled towel under here and tune into our pelvic floors

(03:42):
and it would help so much with all the things.
So hopefully we're all sitting down now on the towel
and I want you to tune in. Hopefully you're not driving
or walking. We can sit on the towel. We are going to close our eyes.
We're going to have one hand on our lower chest and one hand on
our lowest belly, kind of right where our belt line would

(04:03):
be. And you're going to take a couple relaxed
breaths, friends. You're going to breathe into your lower belly
and back out. And your first
check is if this top hand that's on your chest, this bottom
hands on your belly when you breathe in. If we're breathing a ton into
our chest, notice that. Don't be mad, but just say, oh, that's

(04:26):
interesting. And try to will yourself to keep the top hand
quiet and take all the breath into that bottom
hand. That's true diaphragmatic breathing
against a relaxed stomach. And that's step one.
And honestly, if this is hard, this is where you stay for three minutes just
doing the soft belly breathing. You sitting on this towel roll

(04:49):
is helping your brain recognize that your pelvic floor exists. And that's
enough for right now. But once it starts to get
easier to feel this belly moving forward,
inhale, let the belly move forward. And now tune your
mind into the parts that are touching this towel. And if
they're truly relaxed, as you inhale and your belly gets bigger,

(05:11):
these pelvic floor muscles should drop into this towel ever so
slightly and exhale. Belly
gets smaller. Inhale, belly
gets bigger. If these pelvic floor muscles are resting
perfectly, they're going to kind of press down into the
towel with the inhale and rebound with the exhale.

(05:33):
But if we're post operative, if we're having pee problems, pain problems,
poop problems, stress problems, the pelvic floor is resting too tight.
So we are going to inhale, the lower belly is going to get bigger. The
pelvic floor is going to drop into the towel. We're going
to exhale. The belly is going to rebound in, but we're going to try to
keep our pelvic floor setting on the towel. And

(05:55):
you are showing your brain where these pelvic muscles are
meant to rest. And we're not pushing right. We're just
allowing them to rest. And interestingly enough, some of you
might be noticing, like, a little ache in your vags,
if you have one, or in your rectum. That ache is indicative that the
muscles are actually elongating. It's like you're stretching your hamstring. Isn't

(06:17):
that fascinating? And if it actually hurts, then again, we
got to go to a smaller towel roll. But we inhale and we kind of
like settle into that ache and we say, oh, wow, I can feel it. It's
like a little rose blossoming. Exhale. Maintain that.
Good job. And now your challenge. Can
you keep this pelvic floor down on this rolled

(06:39):
towel while you gently engage your
deepest tummy muscles to support your sweet bladder,
to support your sweet pelvis? And what most of you
will find is that your rectum and your pelvic floor try to tighten
as soon as you tighten that tummy. But you can
do better, I promise. And the fact that you notice that that's hard

(07:02):
is awesome. That's what this is all about. And you try to hold that deep,
low tummy in, like, 2% for one or two breaths.
Yeah, I know. I'm making you breathe too. I'm so evil. And then relax
everything. Take a couple soft breaths again,
and then try that one more time. Pelvic floor is relaxed,
rectums relaxed. On the towel, gently drawing that

(07:24):
tummy. And breathe. And now your brain is really
learning that your diaphragm is for breathing, your tummy is
for supporting your pelvis, and your pelvic floor is on standby for
now. And if we can master those things in
that little five minutes, like, that is going to help our
nervous system and help our Pee, poop, bedroom time function

(07:46):
so much, not to mention overall athletic function.
And, you know, if you are out in the gym at cardiac
rehab, heck yeah. Active abs,
relaxed pelvic floor with your warmups and with your
cooldowns to help retrain this normal resting
tone. And then, yeah, we don't have to think about it forever,

(08:08):
but while we're stressed and while we're recuperating, we absolutely do.
So that's your basic. I know. How do you feel? I feel so relaxed,
honestly. Well, what I'm noticing is I'm
mentally tired from that. Yeah, it's a lot of work.
And the key. Oh, and you can come out off of the towels now
and. And when you come off of the towel, like, just

(08:31):
appreciate the copious space that even
if you couldn't sense much happening when you were on the towel, now that you're
off of it, you're like, oh, wow, there is a lot of real
estate there that I'm really not connected to. And the
coolest thing about pelvic floor rehab is there's so many nerves
involved that it doesn't matter if we did it right or wrong. The fact

(08:54):
that we tried to do that thing and we were curious about
how hard it was mentally, or that I really couldn't feel
anything. When you go to bed tonight, your brain is actually going to
rewire. It's going to say boots. And Dr. Kelly asked me to do this thing,
and I could not sense anything happening in my pelvic FL floor.
That's weird. And as long as we approach it with curiosity,

(09:15):
it will rewire. And that's called neuroplasticity. And within three to
four days, friends, you will actually feel things happening,
not because the nerves were gone, but just because the brain wasn't utilizing
them correctly. So it is so cool. And it's a. It's
practical now and forever after because we can't remove all
stress from life, regrettably. So anytime we're in stress, I want you

(09:38):
to come back to this podcast and relax your sweet pelvic floor floor and think
of me. And I just so appreciate that you call our cute butts and our
sweet pelvic floors and bodies and our hearts. And
I just so appreciate you and the joy you have brought into my life
through. Through recording this series. And I cannot wait
to hear from you listeners on how this has touched you.

(09:59):
I. I really want to know. And then I'll make sure to let
Kelly know. Like, we did this because we love your pelvises.
We did and we want to help you. And I'm sure we're going to do
it again next year. So give us feedback. What did you like? What do you
want more of? And we will provide. So thank you so
much for this opportunity. Boots. It has been wonderful. Yes,

(10:22):
thank you. Thank you for the time you've spent with myself and the
listeners and hey, listeners, I want you to think of five
health that you love, that that you know
they deserve to thrive. And I want you to send
the series to them. I want you to send my newsletters to them. If
you haven't signed up for Dr. Kelly, do that in the show notes. I

(10:44):
love your pelvis. I love your beautiful heart. Be sure to
keep coming back for more with open heart surgery with Boots. And if you
haven't, make sure you've subscribed. Hopefully you have by now because
this series should have blown your mind and your pelvis. So
much more to come this year and I can hardly wait.
So I look forward to being back with you next week. Bye for now.