The One Strong Mother Podcast

Unlocking the Power of Proper Breathing for Mothers: From Pelvic Health Rehab to Stress Management

• Ashley Mussyal and Charlie Shemansmith

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I discovered the life-changing impact of proper breathing when I was recovering from major surgery. Trust me, it's more than just in and out - it's a tool that helped me through recovery and the everyday chaos of motherhood. As we navigate this episode, we'll tap into the secrets of diaphragmatic breathing, and how it can help you relax and recontract your pelvic floor muscles. Whether you're a new mom or a seasoned pro, there’s something here for you.

Ever felt overwhelmed amidst the hustle and bustle of motherhood? You are not alone. The trick is right under your nose – it’s breathing. This isn’t any breathing, it’s a cyclical breathing technique that can reset your stress response, help manage pelvic floor issues, and even tackle that persistent low back pain. And to top it all off, stick around till the end to subscribe to our newsletter to be entered in for our monthly giveaway - a $115 gift card 1st Phorm  supplements! Let's embark on this transformative journey together, breathe in the power and exhale the stress.

With love from your favorite host's
Ashley:  pelvic floor rehab physiologist
Charlie:  PT,  DPT, pelvic floor specialist

Click subscribe to enter to win!!

Speaker 1:

Hey, welcome to the One Strong Mother podcast, the show dedicated to empowering and inspiring moms just like you to embrace strength, balance and well-being in the beautiful chaos of motherhood. We're your hosts, charlie and Ashley, fellow moms, on this incredible journey together. Each week, we'll dive into candid conversations, expert insights and real life stories that explore the many facets of modern motherhood From pelvic floor rehab to nutrition, from stress management to self-care. We're here to provide you with the tools, wisdom and encouragement you need to thrive as an individual while nurturing your family. So, whether you're listening, while on a quick coffee break or during those precious moments of solitude, know that you're part of a vibrant community of One Strong Mothers. Together, we'll navigate the challenges, celebrate victories and empower each other to become the strong, resilient women we were all born to be. Thank you for joining us today and, without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Hello and welcome to the One Strong Mother podcast, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining me today. I'm so excited to share our time together today. Your time is so valuable and so appreciated from us here at One Strong Mother, so I kind of want to just jump right into today's episodes. I am a lone ranger today.

Speaker 1:

So every now and then you'll get episodes of me and Charlie together. Some episodes are just going to be me, depending on where we are in our crazy lives. A little bit about us. We both work at a physical therapy clinic full time. Charlie is the pelvic floor specialist in physical therapy and I am her right hand man, her pelvic floor rehab specialist physiologist. So we are both very busy, ladies. And on top of that she has two adult kids. I have five kids and a deployed husband currently. So to say our lives are a little bit crazy and hectic would be a bit of an understatement. So just hang in there. Like I said, every now and then it'll be us together. Those are probably going to be the more fun and entertaining episodes. But then you know, every now and then it's just going to be me and we're just going to make it work. We're going to roll with it and make it work, ladies. Okay.

Speaker 1:

So now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about today's episode. I am so excited to share this topic with you, and it's the topic of breathing. What a random topic that may sound like and you may think like. Why would I listen to an entire episode all about breathing. And let me explain to you because. So, as I introduced, we both work in a physical therapy clinic and we are both in the pelvic health rehab world. Charlie is like the one person specialist of the specialized in pelvic floor, so the lady knows what she's doing.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and ever since I've worked with her, I have learned more about breathing than I ever thought I would. And I have applied it and I have found the beauty in breathing and the power that it can hold. And even outside of the clinic, I have definitely gone above and beyond to learn more about the power of breathing and how to do it right. And how crazy it is that all of us, especially women, truly breathe incorrectly. And it seems so simple because it's something that we do to survive and our brain doesn't even have to think about it or we don't consciously think about it. So how crazy that we are all kind of just doing it wrong. And even crazier that, if we just learn the simple tricks and tips and do it right, the kind of positive power it can hold over our lives and what a life-changing gift the proper breathing can be for us. Okay, so I hope by now I have your attention on this whole breathing topic. Let's talk about it, let's see what it does. Let's talk about it in the realm of your pelvic floor health. Maybe some pelvic floor rehab and how it pertains, like things I've done in my own personal life to apply this not only in pelvic floor but through major surgery and recovery on my hips both sides, through lifting, through motherhood, all the things. So let's talk about breathing for pelvic health rehab. Okay, so maybe you're a new mom, you just had a baby, or even a mom, a veteran mom who has had multiple kids, who never really went and saw a physical therapist for pelvic floor rehab after having a baby. Let's talk about breathing in the sense of your pelvic floor.

Speaker 1:

When we breathe, our pelvic floor is designed to ebb and flow with the cycle of our breaths, so especially when you are diaphragm, atically breathing, so what does that mean? The best way I can describe this through audio only is deep belly breaths. That's how I explain it to my kiddos. I have kiddos that range. I have five kids and they all range from the age of four all the way up to 15, and that is still the way I explain it to them.

Speaker 1:

Take a big belly breath. So your belly should push out as you breathe, not forcefully but naturally. Let your belly fill up with air first, before your chest fills up with air, and then you're going to exhale. So when you're inhaling, for the pelvic floor, you are actually that this is the act, the natural act of relaxing your muscles. As that diaphragm fills up, it's going to push your pelvic floor down in a natural way. You may or may not feel a little bit of pressure when that pelvic floor pushes down and then, as you exhale, is when those muscles are recontracting and kind of coming back up and into the body, if that kind of makes sense. So that is in the sense of diaphragmatic breathing. That's how it affects our pelvic floor, just in the everyday flow of breathing.

Speaker 1:

So what's beautiful about knowing even just this little bit of information is if you are struggling with maybe a little bit of pain, with intercourse, any incontinence, so laughing, coughing, sneezing, come on, mamas, we all know that. We all have been there, done that, struggled with we don't want to jump on the trampoline with our kiddos. Why? Well, because we're probably going to pee our pants, right, I mean, I know I have. So just putting that out there, this is something that you can take with you and start practicing and start grasping the concept of diaphragmatic breathing, because usually what happens is, when we are trying to avoid those things, we are tensing up the muscles in our pelvic floor. So with the breathing it naturally forces those muscles to relax and then contract and because of that we are creating space for, say, our bladder. Our bladder is right there in our pelvic floor. We're creating space for it instead of putting pressure on it and sending that signal that maybe we need to go to the bathroom a little sooner than what we actually do. But if we breathe, if we focus hard on our breath and let our body relax and contract as it naturally is designed to do, you're actually creating the space that is needed for your bladder to expand in that neurological sense. Isn't in panic mode thinking, oh my gosh, I have to go to the bathroom right now, or you don't suffer from the actual incontinence like we all freaking do, right? So this has been like a little bit of background on me. This has been a powerful, powerful, powerful tool, and I had actually been so blessed to go through pelvic floor rehab with Charlie as a patient Before I had my four hip surgeries.

Speaker 1:

I was diagnosed with hip dysplasia fast forward, had to have surgeries to correct it, torn labrums, all the things right. Well, because of my pelvic floor rehab and already having some awareness of this breathing pattern, this is actually one major tool that I leaned on through my recovery and during my recoveries was working on this breathing, and it actually is. It's so powerful because it allows you to reconnect with those muscles neurologically. With my surgeries, they had to relocate a lot of muscle attachments and these were in places that my body had never experienced before my hamstrings, my hip flexors, everything was put in a new location. While it was pretty minor from in the sense of like, where it was before my surgeries, but all of my bones were shifted in my pelvic floor. So really everything, everything's being pulled in different ways. I have nerves that are trying to regrow and and reconnect.

Speaker 1:

So I had a lot of dysfunction in the beginning and one of the biggest tools that I pulled on because I was so limited on movement and regaining strength, the best thing I did for myself was knowing how to diaphragmatically breathe and work through that recovery and regain the control, the urinary control, even down to the bowel movements. Like it was so hard to be able to go to the bathroom, and when I was able to walk myself to the bathroom, sitting down, relaxing and breathing through actually will help you pass bowel movements much more naturally and much more less strained. I actually didn't even have the muscle control too strained, so I felt like I like, no matter how bad I had to go, I didn't actually have the control to push, if that makes sense, and so, again, this diaphragmatic breathing was a huge, huge blessing in that kind of sense for me through that recovery. It was such a long journey, but that was that. One of the first things that I pulled on was the diaphragmatic breathing, and it was all given to me. Like I said, through the pelvic floor rehab that I went through with Charlie after having my baby number five, I was finally told, hey, you should go see a physical therapist, and I was put in the hands of Charlie. Thank God our paths crossed, because she literally changed my life. So that's how we can kind of apply that to the pelvic floor. So let's kind of move on, though, because the breathing has such a powerful effect in so many areas of the life of a mom, like our lives are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, and so breathwork can come in so many as, as it's a multi tool, right Like our husbands or our partners have their tools. Well, this is one of my multi tools that I pull on all the time to all the time to fix what feels like literally all my life problems.

Speaker 1:

So let's let's talk about stress management. I am a pretty high strong person. I grew up in a high strong house, and so I do feel like my, my mind kind of developed around anxiety and panic and stress and frustration, and while and I grew up in a very like high achiever household and I think Charlie I think it's safe to say that Charlie would say the same thing we both kind of come from similar backgrounds where we grew up around like the ranch life, but also we both were immersed in health and wellness and healthcare. Like my whole family on my dad's side is in the health and wellness industry healthcare, medical doctors, nurses, physical therapists, you name it chiropractors, they're all there and so with that came a lot of anxiety. But I actually was never given many coping skills or tools or stress management tools to learn how to like cause.

Speaker 1:

Stress never goes away in our lives, it's just in how we manage and cope with it right. Just like being a mom like that, like you can't ask that stress to go away. It's impossible, it just never will. Our lives are gonna be busy, our lives are gonna be chaotic, and so this is actually one of the best tools that I will lean on on a daily, multiple times a day, like it doesn't matter how good I get at managing stress, this will always be present in my life from a stress management aspect, and that is something called cyclical breathing.

Speaker 1:

Cyclical breathing is very interesting because it helps regulate the cortisol production in your body. Cortisol is part of your stress hormones. It kinda spikes you into that fight or flight response. And so when we work on breathing, especially cyclical breathing and I'll explain what that is here in a second and I'll even do a demonstration so you can really hear the sound of it and understand what exactly I'm talking about but cyclical breathing techniques such as a deep diaphragmatic breathing can activate the body's relaxation response. When you engage in slow, controlled and rhythmic breathing, it signals to the body that it's safe and not under immediate stress. So basically what we've done is we get stressed out, like, for example, for my highest, and like the time I rely on this the most is when I am.

Speaker 1:

It's in the morning. I am getting my kids ready for school and school is about to kick back off for us. We live in Wyoming, where it is, we don't get very much summer, so we start school super late. So I think that everybody else has probably already started school, but we're late bloomers around here and you know what I'll take it. But anyways, school is starting back up. We are ramping up and the mornings are pure chaos.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I typically get up in workout. My alarm goes off at 440. I'm usually down in my gym by five, starting my warm up, my stretches, I workout. I am going back upstairs at 615, 630. I take a shower, get myself ready for work, come downstairs, get kids dressed, and I am.

Speaker 1:

When you have five kids, you are getting orders barked at you from every direction. Mom, I want this. Mom, have you seen this? Like we all get it right. I'm even like I can feel my anxiety rising as I'm telling you this and describing this to you. It's chaos, it's pure freaking chaos is really what I'm trying to get at. I understand this and I can't change that because, at the end of the day. I still have five kids in my house who need help, and I'm their mom. That's my job, but I can't avoid the fact that it not only have I worked out.

Speaker 1:

So working out naturally spikes your cortisol, which is a good thing. That's what you want. So then I go from my workout into this uphill battle of getting all five kids, and then three of those ride with me to the other two ride the bus, which this year we're doing a little bit different. So ER schedule's even about to change even more, but nonetheless I have to drop off one at daycare and then the rest are in school. That is a lot of stuff and things and production to happen in a matter of an hour to an hour and a half. So, needless to say, through all of this my cortisol is spiked super high.

Speaker 1:

I am in fight mode, hardcore, I'm stressed out, I'm probably anxious, because Lord knows the anxiety that sits in whenever I get over-stimulated, and that is exactly what happens. And so here's what I do, and it's. What's beautiful is it doesn't even take extra time out of my day, because I do it while I'm in the car driving my son to the YMCA to get dropped off for preschool. This is where cyclical breathing comes into play for me, and I do it the entire drive, the moment I leave base we're a military family who live on base. The moment I leave that back gate by our house to the moment I get to the Y, which is typically around a 10 minute car ride, I am participating in cyclical breathing. You're probably asking yourself okay, can you just show us or let us hear what cyclical breathing is already Get with the program. Okay, so it's a double inhale with a long exhale, so you breathe twice in through your nose and breathe it all out through your mouth. So this is what it sounds like.

Speaker 1:

You're gonna feel really, really silly when you practice this. Over time, you get used to it. Your kids probably think you're crazy the first couple of times. They hear you every now and then even my four-year-old silly mommy, what are you doing? Why are you breathing so silly? And I just tell them honestly mommy's just trying to not be stressed out, and so I'm breathing to help my body feel better. So now not only am I helping my body feel better, but I am also leading by example, teaching my kids these coping skills. And it's so cute because my five-year-old has caught on to this and so now she understands. So that's the amazing thing is, this is a completely useful tool, not only for yourself as a mom, but now you can gift this to your kids.

Speaker 1:

And when you're kid and this is real physiological changes are happening in your body because you put yourself in that rest and digest. When you're breathing this way, you turn that fight or flight off in the parasympathetic nervous system and you turn on the rest and digest, and so then there's a little bit of release of serotonin and your calm down, you're happy. You are physiologically changing how your body is reacting to the environment around you. So it may sound silly, you may feel silly doing it, but I promise you to the pit of my stomach, like down to the cells in your body, you are changing how your body is dealing with stress. That's why this is a very, very, very powerful stress management tool. So not only are we benefiting in the pelvic floor by relaxing and contracting, which is again a powerful tool, because it will help with so many things like pain with intercourse, incontinence, even low back pain from carrying a child on one side because again, let's be real, we all know that those little turkeys have a favorite side, and so do you All breathing, just simple breathing, can honestly help you with that frustrating low back pain.

Speaker 1:

So this is a crazy, crazy powerful tool, and that's why I wanted to share all of this and give you this episode and talk all about breathing, because I feel like it deserves an entire freaking semester's worth of education on just the power of breathing, and I truly this has changed my life in so many ways, and I hope that this episode finds so many moms, because so many people can benefit everybody can benefit from just the power of breathing, and the best thing is is it's absolutely free and you don't have to give up time in order to make it happen, because you're breathing already. The only thing you have to do is put in a little bit of conscious effort into how you're breathing. That's the thing. It's not like you have to take time to go to a gym. You don't have to take time to go to a yoga studio to make this happen. Like I told you, I do it in the car. I reset my stress response before I drive myself to work. I shift my energy by using that tool to go from.

Speaker 1:

I can't show up and work with patients. If I am in a anxious state of mind, I need to be prepared to serve the people around me, and I can't do that if I'm in the wrong mindset. Well, the only way for me to do that is to harness my breathing, release some serotonin in my body and come down from the high of getting my crazy kids ready for school and out the door. So I hope, I hope, I hope I've drilled in the power of breathing. And one more thing I am going to throw in one more little tidbit. It will help you sleep too If you lay in bed and also work on some cyclical breathing. There is this thing called box breathing. So you inhale four seconds, hold it four seconds, exhale four seconds, hold that for four seconds box breathing, because it's four by four by four by four. That also will bring down your nervous system and put you in major rest and digest and relaxation mode and I promise you your sleep quality will get even better. And so, let's face it, us, as moms, can always benefit from better sleep, right? Okay? So again, I hope that I have drilled in the power of breathing.

Speaker 1:

I hope that you've enjoyed my little tidbits of random stories. I promise you this little. This. This one thing will change your life. If you take one thing from this podcast episode, let it be that knowing that it will literally change your life, and then you can change your kids' life and give them proper coping skills, stress management skills and healthy little bodies just from the power of breathing. Okay, so before we go, I do want to talk to you about this is so exciting. If you loved what was in this episode.

Speaker 1:

This is only a little bit about what the pelvic floor rehab journey is, and I am so excited. Me and Charlie decided that we were so busy in the clinic and that we knew that there were more women, but she doesn't have enough time on her hands to take on new patients right now, and so we decided to create a course for you guys on all things pelvic floor rehab, exercise program and nutrition because every mom deserves to be served in all three areas to create the strongest and most empowered version of yourself that you can possibly be. So we will have that being released soon. The One Strong Mother course. It is all things that embody the definition of being one strong mother. So before we're able to launch it, we do have a newsletter and an email list that we are just working our tails off on building and we have a giveaway Each month we are for our new subscribers to our email list and newsletter.

Speaker 1:

We are giving away a $115 gift card to our absolute favorite supplement company, first Form.

Speaker 1:

This is where I order all of my collagen and vitamins and reds and green powders to keep myself healthy. We recommend it in the clinic all the time. This is my go-to and I am so excited to be able to be doing this giveaway once a month. So, like I said, I will drop that link in the show notes for this episode and for all future episodes. So each month we will be doing a giveaway for this $115 gift card. It's enough to get you started on whatever package you want to look into, whatever supplement you want to look into. I'm always an advocate of collagen. I'm always an advocate of multivitamins and definitely their reds and greens have helped in my gut health tremendously. So go ahead and subscribe and look out, and we will make those announcements. On September 15th is when the next giveaway will be. So be sure to subscribe, leave us a review and we appreciate all of you and thank you so much for sharing your time. Until next time, go out and be one strong mother.