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We lift weights to build muscles, head to pilates class to tone them, and foam roll or use a massage gun to help relieve tension. But there’s a muscle that many women don’t know they need to pay attention to until something goes awry—the pelvic floor.
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Subtractors, on the other hand, are the habits that chip away at your HRV, often without you realizing it. These include staying up late, eating heavy meals right before bed, drinking alcohol, or skimping on recovery after intense workouts. Even chronic stress, whether from your job, relationships, or endless scrolling, can be a major HRV drain.
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We all know that certain foods can cause bloat, but many people don’t realize that muscle dysfunction can also contribute to bloating. Research shows that patients with bloating have diaphragm muscles1
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What if your heart held the key to managing stress? Heart rate variability, or HRV, might be your body’s best-kept secret for staying resilient and bouncing back from stressors. Leah Lagos, Psy.D, psychologist and biofeedback expert, joined the mindbodygreen podcast to explain the power of HRV and what we can start doing today to optimize this powerful health metric.
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If you have allergies, asthma, or chronic sinusitis, this will be an absolute game-changer for you. If you have sleep apnea or insomnia—it’s a must-try. And the beautiful part? It’s free, it’s easy, and breathing is something you have to do anyway. Of all the health-boosting practices we recommend, breathing through your nose is by far the most accessible—no external barriers to be found.
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Self-hypnosis may sound like a suspicious concept, but according to David Spiegel, M.D., a Stanford psychiatrist and co-founder and chief scientific officer of Reveri, who’s been studying hypnosis for over 40 years, it’s actually an incredibly powerful and therapeutic tool if you know how to use it.
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Beauty & Health Editor
Hannah Frye is the Beauty & Health Editor at mindbodygreen. She has a B.S. in journalism and a minor in women’s, gender, and queer studies from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Hannah has written across lifestyle sections including beauty, women’s health, mental health, sustainability, social media trends, and more. She previously worked for Almost 30, a top-rated health and wellness podcast. In her current role, Hannah reports on the latest beauty trends and innovations, women’s health research, brain health news, and plenty more.
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It’s no secret that meditation can do wonders for your brain power and mental health. But try as you might, even a quick meditation routine can be difficult to pull off. If you struggle to keep up a daily practice but still want to reap the benefits of meditation, you may be in luck.
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The ideal Dinacharya (daily practices) for staying healthy occupy a generous amount of space in ancient Ayurvedic texts. A large part of the Ayurvedic literature details how to live in a manner that leaves no room for disease. The caveat is that if you worked every single practice into your life, you’d have very little time left to do anything else!
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In order to change our impact on the Earth, we need to change the way we relate to ourselves.
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We all know that sleep serves a number of different functions for our bodies, our minds, and our overall wellbeing. One of those functions is memory consolidation—and according to new research published in the journal Nature1, those memories get consolidated, in part, thanks to our breath. Here’s what to know.
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The Sahasrara, or crown chakra, is the highest chakra, sitting at the crown of the head. According to yoga and meditation guru Yogi Cameron, the crown chakra represents our ability to be fully connected spiritually.
“It’s the point at which the energy traveling up the spine from all the other chakras meet. It’s the last domino in the chakra set, and you must open all the other chakras before you can tackle this one,” Cameron explains, adding that few people will ever experience a fully opened crown chakra.
And as naturopathic doctor and Reiki master, Erica Matluck N.D. previously wrote for mindbodygreen, you can think of the crown chakra as our personal gateway to the celestial world. “The crown chakra is associated with the pineal gland, which is well known for producing melatonin, the serotonin-derived hormone that affects our sleep-wake cycles,” Matluck explains, adding, “The pineal gland of the brain is affected by the sun (a large celestial body) and directly connects the rhythms of the (microcosmic) human body to the rhythms of the (macrocosmic) universe.”
The crown chakra, then, is our connection to the divine, and to all that is. While not all of us will fully open it in our lifetimes, many of us will catch glimpses of the bliss that comes with an open crown chakra. However, that openness isn’t always easy to sustain, so even if you have a fleeting moment of blissful spiritual connection, you may find life has a way of stamping it out.
However, the more you understand this chakra and recognize the signs of an imbalance, the more you can hone it—and your spiritual connection.
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Sarah Regan
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Resting heart rate and heart rate variability are two terms you may often see associated with each other. And while they’re not the same thing, they do have a close relationship.
Resting heart rate measures the total number of heartbeats detected over one minute in the resting state, while HRV looks at time intervals between adjacent beats. And the greater the variation in those time intervals, the higher the HRV.
“Heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) are inversely proportional, meaning that when the heart rate increases, the HRV will go down,” says Twyman.
HRV is usually higher in younger individuals and those who are physically fit, notes Klodas. “So higher HRV is often seen in people with lower resting heart rates, and is usually an indicator of higher parasympathetic tone, a more efficient cardiovascular system, and better overall health,” she says.
On the flip side, lower HRV can increase mortality rates15 and make you more susceptible to the effects of stress and disease.
The major exception here is in people with arrhythmias. In that case, the intervals between beats have nothing to do with parasympathetic tone or physical fitness.
Twyman adds that if you want to get an accurate picture of what’s going on, it’s best to measure HRV when you are in a relaxed state, and your resting heart rate is at its lowest. “During exercise, when the heart rate increases with workload, the HRV will become very low as the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system is activated,” he says.
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Lindsay Boyers
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Plus, why spending time in green space is an antidote to loneliness.
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Emma Loewe
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Now that I’ve graduated mbg’s program, passed the board exam, and gotten my certification, I feel even more confident in my decision to build a career in health coaching.
From my perspective, we need health coaches now more than ever. There is finally a paradigm shift happening where doctors are recognizing that lifestyle, nutrition, sleep, exercise, and stress are all impacting their patients’ health in big ways. People need support in these areas that physicians don’t have the time, and quite often, the training, to give.
That’s because just telling someone what to do isn’t enough. It’s about providing support, motivation, and empowerment to help them stay accountable to their health goals. It’s about being in a client’s corner, rooting for them, and giving them the tools they need to be successful. That’s our unique role as health coaches—and it’s one I’m honored to provide.
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Kathleen Belonga
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Your pelvic floor muscles are the group of muscles at the base of your pelvis involved in urination, defecation, and sexual response. When they relax, they elongate towards the floor and the sphincters open. To help them relax, you can breathe in very deeply, all the way into your pelvis, so that the pressure of your breath helps them lengthen. If you do this when you go to have a bowel movement, it may enhance your emptying.
Additionally, consider elevating your feet on a stool when sitting on a toilet to defecate. Putting the body into a deep squat position helps to further elongate the pelvic floor muscles, enhancing emptying and reducing bloat.
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Maggie Abrams PT, DPT, WCS, NBC-HWC
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