How Experiencing Emotions Affects the Pelvic floor

Mental and emotional health is a key factor that influences our overall health. In today’s fast-paced and often stressful world, we’re increasingly faced with demands on our performance, which can have a negative impact not only on our minds but also on our bodies. One area that can be indirectly affected by our emotional state is the condition of the pelvic floor. What do the nervous system and the pelvic floor have in common, and how does this manifest in our daily lives and relationships?

Stress, Emotions, and Relationships

A fast-paced, performance-oriented lifestyle and the constant pressure to achieve our goals can have a devastating impact on our emotional health. This constant pressure can cause our bodies to remain in “fight-or-flight” mode over the long term, leaving no time for rest.

The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are two components of the autonomic nervous system, which controls the body’s automatic functions. The sympathetic nervous system is active in stressful situations when the body needs to respond quickly to external stimuli, which is vital for survival. Conversely, the parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for relaxation and regeneration—it allows the body to rest and restore energy. However, if we frequently experience stress, our body remains constantly in sympathetic mode, which can have a negative impact on various bodily functions. That is why the mutual regulation or balance of sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve impulses is so important, as both are essential for every person’s survival and health. Intimate physical therapist Katka Hanuliaková explains this topic in more detail: “We live in a fast-paced, performance-driven era, and many people have forgotten how to regulate themselves, find peace, and relax.”

Our goal is not to be in a constant state of meditation; we also need to know how to activate the sympathetic nervous system and be able to cope with stressful moments or periods. However, many people remain in the sympathetic nervous system’s “fight-or-flight” mode for too long—or even permanently—and that’s when problems arise. This is reflected in a person’s life through the functioning of their relationships and emotions. It has been proven that in the rush and drive for performance, relationships take a back seat because an activated sympathetic nervous system prevents us from experiencing deeper emotions. Only when we are at peace and our nervous system is regulated do we begin to “process” what we have experienced, and once the nervous system is regulated, space is created for relational bonds and for deepening intimacy. A person who is focused solely on performance disconnects not only from others but also from themselves. They cease to perceive themselves and their basic needs.”

Don’t ignore yourself

One of our basic needs is the need to empty our bowels—urination and defecation. In our society, however, this is not considered “acceptable,” and because of stress and responsibilities, we’ve become accustomed to outright ignoring our own defecation reflex. When the impulse arises that our large intestine is full, we feel the urge to have a bowel movement, and that’s when we really should go. But we aren’t accustomed to having a bowel movement in public restrooms or at work. Many people save it for the safe environment of their own home, where they can relax. By doing so, we disrupt the functioning of our excretory system, and it also amounts to ignoring our own bodies and basic needs, which increases tension in the pelvic floor. And high tension in the pelvic floor causes a whole range of other health problems. This learned habit of ignoring our own needs can even lead to a disconnection from ourselves. We become insensitive to our own bodies and only react to stimuli that are already painful or alarming.

“A person who is not connected to themselves will find it very difficult to connect with another person or their partner. Such a person may have a sex life and engage in sexual intercourse, but it is not usually on a deep level. Let’s try to be more respectful of our basic needs, be more attuned to our own experiences, as well as our partner’s experiences and the needs of the relationship. “The foundation for this is the ability to slow down, relax, and regulate one’s nervous system,” Katka Hanuliakováadds, furtherelaborating on the issue of emotional health.

From an anatomical perspective, we can explain the impact of emotions on our body’s functioning in a fairly simple way. Our emotions are accurately interpreted by the central nervous system, which continuously receives sensory input from the environment. The nervous system responds to these sensations and sends signals to the skeletal and striated muscles. At the same time, the autonomic nervous system regulates the function of individual internal organs. The hypothalamus and the limbic system play the most significant roles in communication with the internal organs. The hypothalamus is a part of the brain that is highly sensitive to the emotions we experience. If these emotions become too overwhelming, the limbic system alters the activity and function of individual internal organs.

If we wanted to compare this anatomical functioning of the nervous system and the impact of experiencing emotions in today’s fast-paced, performance-driven world to something, we could describe it as driving a car. Imagine you’re pulling out of your driveway; at first, you drive slowly through the narrow streets, keeping to the 30 km/h speed limit.

At this speed, you’re relaxed; you even have time to take in your surroundings—who’s walking on the sidewalk, what kinds of trees are growing along the road. But then you get onto a faster road and, via the on-ramp, reach the highway in a very short time, where the speed limit is ninety plus, and in a very short span of time you accelerate your car to high speed. Our nervous system works the same way. For the first few seconds and minutes, we need to focus fully on the drive and “grip the steering wheel a little tighter”; we experience varying degrees of tension, no longer perceive our immediate surroundings, focusing only on the road and the car’s speed.

What happens later? However, if we drive on the highway for a longer period of time, we adapt, relax, stop perceiving the stress, and instead start communicating with the other people in the car and even notice the surrounding nature along the way. But after a while, the situation changes again, and we have to slow down from our high speed on the highway because we’re entering a village. And this sudden drop in speed, after driving so fast, seems unbearably slow; it makes us feel uneasy and irritable. And this is how our nervous system works as well—we can very quickly ramp up to a high-performance state, get stressed out, and remain in this state for quite a long time. But after such a period of high performance, we need to be able to regulate and calm ourselves in order to maintain our overall health. That’s why at Intimfyzio, we also help clients practice and train their regulatory abilities.