S3 - Eppy 106 Dr. Haley Mitchell - Pelvic Floor

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:21] Speaker B: Welcome, welcome, welcome to the best podcast. I am so excited. This is such a special treat for me. This is your. This is your host, K Fler. Kelly's doing her JMT thing. So today I am joined by Dr. Haley Mitchell. I'm so excited. She and I are actually cousins, FYI. For those who didn't know, but Haley has been specializing in women's pelvic floor and we're going to talk a lot today about pelvic floor, about everyday habits, about all kinds of fun stuff. So I'm just kind of excited to jump in. Haley, do you want to say hi to the folks? [00:00:57] Speaker A: Hi. Hi, everyone. Thank you for having me here today. Katie, Excited to get to nerd out on all things pelvic floor? Heck yeah. [00:01:04] Speaker B: Let's start with just like a quick intro. First and foremost, have you listened to any of the podcast? I have. Are you a listener? That is shocking and I apologize for everything that my face is going to go red right now. [00:01:16] Speaker A: I love it. It entertains me while I'm doing all of the like, housework, sometimes yard work. All of the things. [00:01:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been a lot of yard work on my end these days. I know Scott's a regular. Dr. Scott. What's up, dude? I have an update for you. I have officially taken out quite a bit of the ivy in my front yard. I'll send you a picture, but talk to the family, talk to us about what's been going on in your summer. Give us a quick intro background for you and yeah, tell me how's your summer been? [00:01:46] Speaker A: Summer has been busy in all the fun ways. I am a mom of two. I've got a 4 year old and an almost 617 month old and so lots of fun summer trips around Oregon and lots of fun, you know, backyard, splash pad, park, hangs, all of the things. Yeah, I am excited about kind of moving into fall and the a little bit more of the cozy routine. [00:02:11] Speaker B: I thrive in fall. I am so excited. [00:02:14] Speaker A: Great British baking show is back. [00:02:16] Speaker B: It feels like life has a grounding exercise I get to look forward to every week. And yeah, we had a really fun fourth of July that was really fun to go to your house and barbecue and have some fireworks and yeah, it's just nice to be be close by family. Well, yeah, let's kind of start with your background. [00:02:31] Speaker A: First and foremost. [00:02:32] Speaker B: Talk about your education. Talk about what brought you to pelvic floor. Yeah. What keeps you in it. [00:02:39] Speaker A: Yeah. I've been a physical therapist now for 10 years and eight. Eight, almost nine of those years have been a specialty in pelvic floor therapy with an emphasis on sports medicine. I started off in school as your typical ortho sports medicine physical therapist. If you had asked me in college if I ever wanted to go into pelvic floor, I probably would have laughed in your face. But when I moved up to Oregon and took a job working with the general public, as well as our professional men's and women's soccer here, I was asked by my work if I would be interested in taking the first pelvic floor class. And I made zero promises. But I took the class and absolutely fell in love and went down the rabbit hole of all things pelvic floor. And how pelvic floor is often just such a missing link in our ortho and sports medicine patients as well, and more recently, the pregnant and postpartum population moving into treatment of men. And I actually just heard yesterday that my case study was fully accepted and completed and I am officially a. A fertility specialist for physical therapy in pelvic floor. [00:04:10] Speaker B: Wow, that's amazing. Congratulations. Thank you. Literally just learning that right with you guys. That's awesome. We'll definitely talk about that because I think I wouldn't have questions about your case and all that good stuff. But first and foremost, because last was it last week that we sat together in frame, we were in the brewery just like having lunch, chit chatting about like what we wanted this episode to be. And then I went home and started looking at what exactly pelvic floor is, because I had no idea. And I think that's probably a good place to start, is just like kind of expanding on what exactly is pelvic floor. And you know, this is not exclusively a women's issue. This is an everybody issue. Would love to just kind of expand and start at the top, if that's okay. [00:04:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the biggest thing to understand is everybody has a pelvic floor. Our pelvic floor is a series of muscles that is kind of shaped like a bowl that lives inside of your pelvis. So if you think about like your. Your two hip bones, your pelvic floor lives in between those hip bones. It's made of lots of different muscles, which I won't bore all of your listeners with and go that. That nerdy. But it has so many important roles in the body. So the muscular and ligamentous system of the pelvic floor floor helps to support our structure. So if you think about just like standing upright, sitting, those muscles and ligaments support the pelvis. The muscles and ligaments support the organs. So when we're looking at individuals with the vulva, you're looking at your bladder, your rectum, your uterus, and your vaginal canal. When we're looking at penis owners, you're thinking your rectum and the penis and the entire urinary tract. So it supports the organs that live within the pelvis. It fixes the trunk with upper extremity movement. So when we are thinking anything from baseball, volleyball, when someone's swinging a bat, when you're doing an overhead serve, even our runners, when you're thinking about your arms swinging side to side, in our everyday individual, if you are just exercising and moving your arms, doing a bicep curl, doing an overhead press, your pelvic floor has a huge role in helping stabilize your trunk and keeping your trunk still so that your arms can move on a stable base. The pelvic floor does sphincteric control. So. [00:06:43] Speaker B: Wait, say that again. [00:06:45] Speaker A: Sphincteric control. [00:06:46] Speaker B: Okay. [00:06:47] Speaker A: Okay. So we have our urinary sphincter, and we have our anal sphincter. And these muscles are part of the pelvic floor. So if you're in a crowded room and you don't want to pass gas, your anal sphincter needs to be able to contract to prevent that passing of gas. If you really have to go to the bathroom and you are not sitting on a toilet, your urinary sphincter needs to be able to contract so that you don't leak urine. It has my personal favorite sexual function. Oh, that's your personal favorite? Personal favorite. The pelvic floor not only supports the vaginal canal, the muscles of the penis that allow you to have an erection, that is all part of the pelvic floor. And your pelvic floor contraction is part of what you feel when you have an orgasm. So sexual function, it also works as a muscular lymphatic pump. So lymph is the fluid that moves around in our body, and the pelvic floor contracts and relax to help keep that fluid moving throughout the body. So we have two major lymphatic pathways in our groin. And if you think about, we need to be able to move fluid from our ankles back up to our heart, where things get recirculated that that fluid needs to be able to pass through that lymphatic system. The muscles of the pelvic floor help that happen. And then lastly, it resists intra abdominal pressure. So this is anything from like coughing, sneezing, to throwing around a ton of heavy weight. Your pelvic floor has to be able to react and respond to that increased pressure within our abdomen to help support you and help prevent your organs from falling out. [00:08:43] Speaker B: Nice. [00:08:43] Speaker A: That was very. [00:08:45] Speaker B: A really good way of describing all encompassing things that is all defined by pelvic floor. Like that's such a basic description. It feels like for such a all encompassing system that covers almost every part. [00:08:58] Speaker A: Of your body, it does so much and for so long we've chosen to just ignore this part of our body totally. It's taboo. [00:09:05] Speaker B: So let's talk about some of those taboos. And I do think it's kind of interesting to debunk some stuff just like right out the gate here. I feel like a lot of times I talk to people about pelvic floor and they just say Kegels. They like immediately go to what do you need to do? Do your Kegels. Talk to me a little bit about why that's not the best and why like some of the other debunking or other things that you've heard from, from clients in your experience. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Yeah, so I think there's such a lack of understanding of what we do as public floor therapists. [00:09:38] Speaker B: Totally. [00:09:38] Speaker A: And you know, even further a huge misunderstanding even within the medical profession of what we do. And so many times I will see an individual in the clinic and they have been told by their doctor, whether that's their primary care doctor or even their ob GYN that you need to do Kegels. And for those of you who don't know, Kegel is a pelvic floor contraction and a Kegel is the same for women and men. But Kegels aren't the whole picture. And I think more of today there's some really cool new research coming out by an individual named Julie Weave in the pelvic floor space where we're finding so much more that it's not weak pelvic floor muscles that are causing a lot of leaking issues, especially in our athletic population. And we're not talking about just like elite, elite athletes, individuals. We're talking about anybody who moves their body on purpose, anybody who exercises on purpose. So we're finding out a lot more that those individuals who leak or have some pelvic floor symptoms. It's not about a weak pelvic floor. It's actually about an overly tight pelvic floor. [00:10:54] Speaker B: Overly tight. [00:10:55] Speaker A: Overly tight. [00:10:55] Speaker B: Some people are working too hard. [00:10:57] Speaker A: People are working way too hard. And it's, it's not necessarily like sometimes, yeah, it's that somebody's been told to do Kegels. Their whole life, and they've been doing way too many Kegels, and that's causing pain, and it's causing issues. But our pelvic floor also is such a stress responder. There's this. I won't get too deep into research, but there's this really funny, really great research study that was done not too long ago where they put a bunch of people in a movie theater, and they all had internal probes. This is not, like, a weird thing. They're all. Not all sitting naked in a movie. People are covered. Think about it as like, a tampon with a cord. [00:11:39] Speaker B: Okay, fair enough. [00:11:40] Speaker A: Looks like a tampon, but it has sensors to pick up pelvic floor activity. Okay, so they're in a movie theater, and they are. They are measuring the pelvic floor's response to certain stimulus. And they found that with any more, like, stressful shows or any, like, stressful scenes that they're watching in a movie, the pelvic floor responds by contracting. So we think about an everyday world. We know our world's not stressful at all right now. Right. Everybody's feeling butterflies and rainbows and unicorns. Your pelvic floor responds to that. And one of the biggest tells I can. I talk to patients about all the time, because a lot of people have. They're not in touch with their pelvic floor. Right. They don't know if they're sitting there contracted. They don't know if it's relaxed. They don't know how to tune into that part of their body. Tune into your jaw. If you are clenching your jaw, if you are grinding your teeth, you are contracting your pelvic floor. When you clench your jaw, it closes another diaphragm in our body called the glottis, which is what helps produce sounds in our voice. And that glottis has a direct connection with pelvic floor floor. So when you are interesting, clenching your jaw, when you're grinding your teeth, you are clenching your pelvic floor. And if you're holding on to that tension all of the time, that generates pain. It restricts blood flow. It can cause this, like, backflow of nerve pain because of compression on the nerves that run through those muscles. And those nerves originate from our back and from our sacrum. And so there's this huge correlation between all of these other really common issues. Hip pain, back pain, abdominal pain. That often are. The true center of that is pelvic floor dysfunction. [00:13:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:33] Speaker A: So when we're talking Kegels. Kegels is an additional pelvic floor contraction. And so if you already have a tight pelvic floor, which we're learning again more and more that most people have a tighter than average pelvic floor and that that's causing the problems versus a weak pelvic floor, and you're doing Kegels, you're adding to the problem instead of these individuals really needing to learn how to relax their pelvic floor, how to let go of their pelvic floor. So I think, you know, right now, especially over the last five years, pelvic floor is having its moment in social media. And I think there's a lot of positives to that because it's bringing so much awareness to the world into this area of the body that has been ignored for so long. But at the same time there are a lot of people preying on vulnerabilities for a lot of people who have been experiencing these issues for so long and haven't had the right people guide them to the right people or have been too afraid to speak up and talk about it. And so understanding that with that movement, with the social media movement, I think in some way Kegels have become demonized too. And there is a time and a place for Kegels, but for the majority of the population right now, I think we all need a little bit more pelvic floor relaxation. [00:15:04] Speaker B: Fair enough. Yeah, that's interesting. Being that not everybody knows what a pelvic floor is, no one's really like talking about it widely. So if you're like me who is stressed all of the time, like I struggle with my inability to just like relax in the moment. I have a pretty big probability of like a really tight pelvic floor. So my. I have other questions. Like I know we talked a little bit about like cycle syncing and cortisol manipulation and how that can kind of steer you in the wrong direction. But I also want to kind of expand on how does one clue into their pelvic floor. [00:15:41] Speaker A: How do you. [00:15:42] Speaker B: How do I as just like a regular person walking around on a day to day, have a moment to like relax? And what does that relaxation technique feel like? Sorry, I like threw it a lot. [00:15:53] Speaker A: At you, but it's good. I think it's different for anybody. I think zooming out for a minute. I think everybody needs to look at their bodies because so much of the time we don't pay attention to an area of our body until it's dysfunctional and so we don't know what our normal is. I think this is when I took that very first pelvic floor course. One of the most eye opening things for me was how different everybody's anatomy looks. Like you're only really ever experiencing. Exposed to your own anatomy. Like. Yeah. In high school, Katie and I played soccer together. And so you are exposed to other naked female bodies, but it is not like you're looking at each other. Oh, absolutely not. Right? [00:16:42] Speaker B: Could you imagine? [00:16:43] Speaker A: Absolutely not. That's not something that you, like, share in a locker room. So oftentimes you don't know what normal anatomy looks like. And the fact is that everybody's vulva, everybody's penis. [00:16:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:58] Speaker A: Looks different. And so a lot. So many women, so many women I will see in the clinic, they have never looked at their own vulva. Never. [00:17:10] Speaker B: That's, I mean, like, it's not shocking to me, but that still is so awful. Like, it's not that it's not a taboo thing to get to know your body. And I feel like some, maybe there is some, like, bad shame. [00:17:21] Speaker A: It shouldn't be. [00:17:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it shouldn't be. It is though. Sometimes it's just it gets ingrained in us to like, not feel comfortable asking those questions or like even taking a little compact mirror and getting familiar with what's going on down there. You know what I mean? [00:17:33] Speaker A: So if you were a listener and you've never looked at your own anatomy, get a mirror, sit in front of your mirror, and I want you to look at your anatomy and, and understand what's normal. Like, right. There are, like, there are bumps, there's different colors, there's different size of labia. Like, penises come in different lengths, different girths. Right. Like, you need to understand what your own anatomy looks like. [00:18:01] Speaker B: Totally. [00:18:01] Speaker A: So that as your body changes, you know what your normal is so that you can advocate for yourself. Because if you don't know what your normal is. [00:18:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:11] Speaker A: Then you just have to assume that somebody else knows what your normal is. And normal is such a spectrum. And so you need to look at your own anatomy and you need to know what your normal anatomy looks like. [00:18:21] Speaker B: I know we talk about that a lot, like being your own advocate, especially in the medical field. Like they're. In my experience, it's always been like, trust your doctor. They know exactly what they're doing. And like, for the most part they do. But I have never been taught, I'm terrible at this, to like, be my own advocate when it comes to asking questions about like, hey, what's going on with X, Y and Z? This feels unnatural. Or, you know, I just feel like there needs to be a little bit more of a dialogue with the doctor versus what I'm used to. And that's very much like one sided feedback, which is probably why I don't. [00:18:52] Speaker A: Go to the doctor as much. [00:18:53] Speaker B: But. [00:18:53] Speaker A: Well, and I think a huge problem, particularly for women's health, is that women were never included in research for so long. [00:19:02] Speaker B: It's still very new. [00:19:03] Speaker A: It's still so weird to me. So new. And even though now women, it is like regulation that if it's not a specific study about men that women have to be included, there's still no funding. Right. So yeah, like if it involves a man, sure, we'll fund this. But like women specific studies, yeah, there's very little funding and that's only gotten worse recently. And so that's part of the problem is that we don't, we don't have a great understanding of a lot of these things. And so if we don't understand our own bodies, how can we then like contribute to what this range of normal is, what's abnormal? And we're, we're trying, but also part of the problem is it takes an average of 17 years for research to become medical practice. Whoa. [00:19:56] Speaker B: So 17 years. [00:19:57] Speaker A: 17 years. So even though we have all this new research and information coming out about menopause and perimenopause and even the menstrual cycle, that will not be well known knowledge by your health care professionals or be put into medical practice for 17 years. [00:20:15] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. [00:20:16] Speaker A: And so you don't, you cannot become part of that gap. You have to know who to go to, what to read, where to get your information, to get a better understanding of your body. So because your practitioners aren't going to be informed and certain people will, but I mean, in all fairness, your primary care providers are often seeing someone every 15 minutes. They're burnt out. They're dealing with insurance companies, they're dealing with broken health care system. They don't have, they're not going to spend all of their free time reading all of the new research for very, very specific, like areas of care. Right. They're generalized providers. And so you cannot count on your primary care physician being up to date on all of this stuff. [00:21:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:04] Speaker A: Because they don't have the time, they don't have the mental capacity. And you know, it's not a huge part of their job. And so finding a pelvic health therapist who, this is their job, finding a gynecologist who is passionate and up to date in these specific areas of research and field. I think it's important. [00:21:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:27] Speaker A: So finding the right providers is also really important. And I think it's really hard if you're not in the healthcare profession to understand, like, where those boundaries and different providers, like, who's in charge of what. [00:21:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:37] Speaker A: And to not just count on, like, hey, my primary care provider is a doctor, therefore they should know everything when it comes to the medical field, because it's just. It's not realistic. [00:21:45] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I know we live here in the Portland area. Like, I found it really hard to find somebody that I like just for general, like, writing scripts for my, like, flu or my ear infection, whatever. But I haven't found a gynecologist that I really like. [00:22:02] Speaker A: I got one for you. Okay, good. I love her. [00:22:05] Speaker B: Okay, good. [00:22:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I've got a wonderful guy. [00:22:08] Speaker B: Do you have, like, other resources that people can go to? I mean, I'm sure that we'll like, kind of recap the podcast too, but just right off the top of your head that you can say, go here and maybe look around or any resources that you want to just like, name on the pod. [00:22:21] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, so if you're looking for a pelvic health therapist, and hopefully we can link these because I'm. I will do my best, but I. There's different names. So the American Physical Therapy association, they have like a. They have a specific women's health. And they. They just renamed it, and I can't. I. It's. They just renamed it. I don't remember what it's called. No worries. But they have a, like, guide so you can find a. A licensed pelvic health therapist in your area. Pelvic PT Rising also has another guide to find a pelvic health therapist as well as the pelvic guru. And I can give you links so that people can click on all of these. But to find a pelvic health therapist in your area, and it also give you additional information about what their specialties are, because not all pelvic health therapists treat penis owners, so some only treat vulva owners. And, you know, some have different areas. Some are like, specializing in pre and postpartum. Others specialize in sports and orthopedics. So just also making sure that you're getting matched with someone who is going to be able to meet your needs. [00:23:41] Speaker B: Nice. Excellent. And then obviously we'll go ahead and put your Instagram there too, because I follow a lot of what you do and I will. I like when you post something on Instagram. Sorry, we're kind of deviating here, but you're doing a lot of like, slow movements and stretching and like, yes, weightlifting and stuff too, but it's never intimidating. Weightlift. You know, sometimes you, you see those people and they're just like 4 or 500, like dumbbells or whatever and just like really pushing it. And I just want something that's gonna like, keep my body loose and still strong and feel good. And I do find that a lot of your videos just like plug and play into a lot of what I'm doing already. So I highly recommend it. I do them on a week by week basis. I. How often are you coming out with new videos? Like, I just. [00:24:23] Speaker A: As often as you can, which is fair. Life gets hard way better. I used to try to do it at least once a week and I've been home with both of my children all summer and that has not happened. But hoping to start doing it a lot more regularly and continuing to post more pelvic floor specific resources. Yeah, but yeah, I, I think one of the best things you can do for your pelvic floor is movement. And my goal with movement is to make it accessible because it can be. It can be super intimidating to go to an exercise class for the first time or maybe working out from home is the best thing to fit into your schedule. But then like, what equipment do you need? And. And just realizing you don't need much Right. To move your body and also just like, yeah. Understanding that you don't have to lift heavy weights to get what you need out of fitness, especially from a women's health standpoint. When we're talking about. I could go. I won't go on a major tangent on like bone mineral density and muscle mass and how important that is for the aging female in particular. But just know that you do not have to be lifting at 80% of your 1 max to. To make gains in those areas and support health. And that's one of my goals, is to just make movement accessible for people. [00:25:47] Speaker B: Yeah, we do a lot of. Well, of the people that I talk to, which is like Kelly, her mom, my mom, all the girlfriends, all the people. Like a lot of people are cardio. Like they run, they do cycling, we're doing hiking. It's a lot of cardio. But I like that you add in some weightlifting. Some sometimes. Like there's a kettlebell that you use pretty often. There's like a couple of like squats that you do that I really like. Like the split squats that you do and the lunges and things like that. So I highly recommend everybody should be doing. [00:26:15] Speaker A: Doing resistance training. [00:26:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:26:16] Speaker A: Cannot live off of cardio. Everybody Resistance training. But it can be. It can be intimidating. [00:26:21] Speaker B: Yeah, it can be. [00:26:22] Speaker A: Know that it shouldn't be. [00:26:23] Speaker B: Well, I definitely like your videos, so I highly recommend them. We'll definitely put your Instagram on, like our post when we put this out. I guess now that we're like, we should probably get back on track. My bad. Let's talk about, like everyday takeaways, everyday habits that you do. Posture, breathing, bathroom habits. Do you have a squatty potty? I don't have one. Do I need one? Things like that. [00:26:47] Speaker A: Yeah. The answer to that question is yes. Okay, everybody should have a squatty potty. And why. [00:26:54] Speaker B: Tell me why I need a squatty potty. [00:26:59] Speaker A: So nobody can see this. So I won't scare you all with the demonstration. But our rectum has this muscle that kind of slings around the rectum and in the structure of normal toilets, that puts that muscle on tension. So basically think about it as like in. In order for water to come out of a hose. Sure. The hose ideally is like open, right. If you are watering your yard and you pull that hose around a tree and it gets compressed and kinked, water is not going to be able to flow as freely through that hose. So that's what you're doing with that muscle. When you, the posture that you sit on a normal toilet with, you are causing a kink in your rectal hose, which makes it difficult to empty your bowels. And then what people will do is a, they sit on the toilet for way too long. And when you're sitting on the toilet for too long, you're sitting on a hard surface and you're compressing muscle and nerves. So if you've ever like gone up from a toilet and your feet are like numb and tingly, you've sat on it for way too long. That is nerve compression. People. But also people will sit there and strain, right? They will push or like forcefully push to try to get to empty their bowels. And when you do that, you are bearing down into your pelvic floor, which. Doing that constantly, like doing that repeatedly over long periods of time is going to cause issues. And for, for men and women, and women tend to be a little bit more susceptible to these issues. But I mean, hemorrhoids are like, you can develop hemorrhoids from this, you can develop prolapse from this. So it's not. You should not have to strain to empty your bowels. And so what a squatty potty does is that it elevates your feet so that you're in a, like, deep squat position. And what that does is it unkinks the bowel holes, okay. So slackens tension on that muscle so that you can evacuate your bowels a lot easier. It stops you from straining, and ideally, I think, feel like most people sit on the bathroom too long because of phones versus, like, needing to evacuate their bowels. But, yeah, it stops you from straining. And it doesn't have to be like, Squatty Potty is the name brand, and they're fantastic. They even have a foldable squatty potty, which I highly recommend for travel, because when you start using one, you're gonna become obsessed with it, okay. And realize what a difference it makes. And then you're gonna be like, what do I do when I travel? They have a solution for that. They have a full squatty potty that, like, lays flat in your suitcase. And. But. So you can use yoga blocks, you can use a stool. Like, you can use whatever. But this helps put your pelvic floor and the muscles in an ideal position to evacuate your bowels so that you're not doing things that's going to cause pelvic floor dysfunction down the line. [00:30:09] Speaker B: Okay? [00:30:10] Speaker A: So, yes, you should have sway pie. [00:30:11] Speaker B: All right. It's on the list. It's on the Amazon. We're gonna make it happen. [00:30:14] Speaker A: I'll have a review, you know, a. [00:30:17] Speaker B: Little product review session around the holiday time frame. Yeah. [00:30:22] Speaker A: So I think other big things are, like, we talked about knowing the normal for your anatomy, like, knowing what is normal in terms of bowel and bladder. So you should be peeing every two to four hours or about eight times a day. And I will say that since the pandemic, I have seen a lot of issues on urinary urgency, and a lot of people have no idea that this is even, like, dysfunctional. But when a lot of people move from the work, from home space, you have such easy access to a toilet that you'll get, you know, an urge to go to the bathroom, and you immediately go. If you're doing that constantly and you're doing that more than every two to four hours, you have urinary urgency. So really, you should only be going pee every two to four hours or about eight times a day on average. And you should only be waking. You ideally, are not waking up at all in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, but a max of one time, okay. If you are waking up more than One time during the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. It's a dysfunction we call nocturia. Nocturia. Okay. Yeah. And I would say that if you're pregnant, you get. You get a pass on this. There are some mechanical things and hormonal things that happen that make that not possible. So. But you. Yeah. You should. Shouldn't be waking up all night to go to the bathroom. Leaking is never, ever, ever normal. Never leak. That's. It's never normal. I don't care what your grandma says. I don't care what your grandma says. Leaking is never normal. When you do get the urge to go to the bathroom, it should be controllable, meaning that you should be able to postpone going to the bathroom. When we're talking about pee here, people, we're starting with bladder. [00:32:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:13] Speaker A: 20 to 30 minutes. So if. When you have that first urge to go to the bathroom, you have to find a bathroom, like, immediately. That's a sign of pelvic floor dysfunction. [00:32:22] Speaker B: Okay. [00:32:23] Speaker A: And then lastly, you should be able to relax when you're going to the bathroom. And you should have. So you shouldn't have to push or strain to start the flow of urine. [00:32:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:34] Speaker A: And then when you. When the flow of urine starts, it should be smooth, Right. It should not. Look. So here's another thing. Look. Look at what happens. What's happening when you're peeing, right. You. It shouldn't spray. It shouldn't be like someone has a thumb on the hose and they're spraying water. It should be a steady string. Okay. As it exits your body. So all that. [00:32:54] Speaker B: We're getting very specific about how people. [00:32:56] Speaker A: Are peeing, which I'm here for. But you got to share what's normal. And nobody talks about this stuff. [00:33:00] Speaker B: Nobody talks about it. I know. [00:33:02] Speaker A: And then bowels. [00:33:04] Speaker B: Mm. [00:33:05] Speaker A: You should be having a bowel movement. This one is trickier because it's three times a day. Two. Three times a week. Wow. Which is a huge. It's massive. Right? When we're talking about a spectrum, that's a massive spectrum. [00:33:19] Speaker B: I cannot imagine just going poop three times a week. That's like seven days. That's crazy. [00:33:23] Speaker A: But for some people, that's very normal. For some people, it's normal. [00:33:26] Speaker B: Fair enough. [00:33:27] Speaker A: That's crazy. The things that. How you know, whether. Like, okay, what if I'm a three times a day? What if I'm a three time a week? Or, like, how do I know what's normal for my body? The consistency. And so I encourage you all to look up something called the Bristol stool chart. It's B, R, I, S, T, O, L, Bristol stool chart. You're gonna be looking at pictures of poop. [00:33:49] Speaker B: Yay. [00:33:51] Speaker A: And you should be a type 3 to 4 consistency on the Bristol stool chart. Okay. So if you are going to the bathroom three times a week and technically, like, based on numbers, that's normal. But when you go to the bathroom, if you're dropping petals, if you're dropping, like, deer nuggets, that is not normal. That is constipation. Even if you're going three times a week. [00:34:13] Speaker B: Okay. [00:34:14] Speaker A: And then deviations from your norm. So some people go like, hey, I'm an everyday, once a day pooper at home, but when I travel, I'm a three times a weeker. Right? So, like, that is not normal. That's constipation. Because it's a deviation from your norm. Got it. So it should have. It's all about consistency, the bowel consistency. It's also about consistency in terms of timing and frequency and then any deviations from what's normal from your body. So understanding, like, your normal bowel movements. And then, like, we kind of chatted about getting in tune. Like, how do you get in tune with your body? Like, how do you know it's normal again? So we just talked about, like, normal bowel and bladder. And like, how do you know if it's dysfunctional? How do you know if this is normal? How do you know if your pelvic floor is tight or if your pelvic floor is weak? [00:35:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:08] Speaker A: Right. So there are things in your body without being like, I can feel my pelvic floor, right? No, because there are things we just don't think about of what's normal, what's not normal. So clues that you have an overly tight pelvic floor is if you're constipated. Right. So if you are constipated, one of the reasons, and this does not mean, like, you absolutely have, but one of the reasons can be that you have a tight pelvic floor. If, even if you're using a squatty potty, if the muscle that slings around that rectum is holding onto chronic tension, you're gonna have issues evacuating your bowel because you have a kink in your hose that's not able to relax. And so constipation is a sign of a tight pelvic floor. If, when you do go pee or poop, if you don't feel like you fully emptied. Right. Like, if you still feel like there's stuff in there, and it's just not coming out. That's a sign of an overly tight pelvic floor. [00:36:07] Speaker B: Interesting. Okay. [00:36:09] Speaker A: If you have pain in your pelvis, if you have pain in your low back, if you have pain in your hips or, or your tailbone, all of those can be signs of pelvic floor tension. If you have pain with sex, whether that is with. If it's penetrative sex, whether that's initial penetration or with deep penetration, that is a. One of the biggest signs of pelvic floor dysfunction. And again, we've got some really cool new research coming out, especially in the sports medicine space, where we're finding that that is the biggest indicator of, like, the. The biggest sign of an overly tight pelvic floor is if you have pain with intercourse. [00:36:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:45] Speaker A: Pain with intercourse is never normal. Right. Never normal. Again, I don't care what your grandma says. I don't care what your grandma says. I don't care what your sister or your mom says. It's never normal. If you have incontinence, if you're leaking, right. If you're leaking pee or if you're leaking poop, both things happen. That can be a sign of an overly tight pelvic floor. And I think this is one of the big, like, myth ones, right? Like, people think if they're leaking feces or if they're leaking urine that it must mean that they're weak. Every. Without going too deep into the science, every muscle has a length, tension relationship. And if a muscle is overly tight, it can't generate force. It can't generate good force because there's nowhere for the contraction to go. Your muscles already in a contracted state. State, so it can't contract to generate more force. And that's what it has to do to be able to overcome increases in intra abdominal pressure. Interesting. So it. That's. You will. You can leak because your pelvic floor is too tight. [00:37:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that sounds. I mean, if it sounds to me like that would be. I don't even know how you would go about treating that. Can you help me understand how you would treat an overly tight pelvic floor? [00:37:57] Speaker A: Yes, we'll get into that. [00:37:59] Speaker B: We'll get into that. [00:37:59] Speaker A: But I want. I want to make sure everybody knows all of this size, because there's a. Things if you have, like, a really slow urine flow, like it's like a trickle instead of, like a. A steady flow, or again, if you're getting that, like, spray, or if you have to, like, sit on the bathroom. And it's like, it takes you time to get the flow of urine started. Those are all signs that you have floor. And this is for men and women. These are for both. And then urgency. So, like, again, we talked about normal for bladder being about every two to four hours. If you're having. If you have the urge to go to the bathroom, like, all the time, that is a sign of a tight pelvic floor and then painful urination. So a lot of times people go to their doctor thinking they have a uti again, men or women, and they get that urine test and it's negative. And they're like, but it hurts to pee. That's a sign of pelvic floor dysfunction. That's a sign of an overly tight pelvic floor. If you're having painful urination and you have had. You've been cleared for infection, those are all signs. And then for men specifically, that, like, you wouldn't see in a man or see in a female painful ejaculation problems having an erection. Because when the pelvic floor is tight, again, those muscles are contracted. You have nerves and our blood vessels that run through those muscles. So if your muscles are contracted, you're restricting blood flow. That is how you have an erection, people, is that blood flows to those muscles. It fills up the muscles like a sponge, Right. And that causes the erection. And this is the same for women, too. So women who have problems orgasming or have problems like feeling aroused or stimulated, that can be a sign of overly tight pelvic floor. Because if those muscles are in a contracted state, you are preventing blood flow from getting to the clitoris. And the clitoris becomes erect when aroused. And muscles of the pelvic floor are what pull back the clitoral hood. And so all of, like, tightness in these muscles, if they can't contract more, if they can't generate force to contract, then you're going to have issues with this. So there's so many signs. Again, it's not like you have to, like, be able to feel if my pelvic floor is relaxed or if it's contracted. All of these are signs that your body will give you that you of the possibility of you have an overly tight pelvic floor. [00:40:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:26] Speaker A: Let'S see. I'm trying to just. Oh, for men and women, like I talked about, like, hip and back pain and tailbone pain. Because the pelvic floor shares so much attachments and like, innervations, which is the nerves from, like, back and from hip and the pelvic floor has a direct attachment to the hip through another muscle, but reduced range of motion. Like, you could be one of those people. Like, I just have tight hips. Maybe you have a tight pelvic floor and that's the reason you can't get your hips to move. Or if you have back pain and you don't have, you know, this other history of back injury or anything, it could be referral from your pelvic floor. So just kind of understanding that you don't have to have pelvic pain, like, in particular to have pelvic floor dysfunction. [00:41:10] Speaker B: Interesting. So, I mean, like, I have tight hips, I have lower back pain. I. I just attribute it to being 35, going on 36 and just an old lady, but. And like, I do overuse it a lot. Like, I don't stretch it out enough. And then I go on like a four mile run and I come back and I'm like, oh, died. Probably should have stretched a little bit more. So I'm. Is there like a. It could be both. Right. Like, it's kind of hard to differentiate between, like a pelvic floor issue or like a reference that we're getting from it versus, you know, environmental or lifestyle things that we do. [00:41:46] Speaker A: Totally. [00:41:46] Speaker B: Okay. [00:41:47] Speaker A: And I think this is one of the reasons I fell in love with pelvic floor. PT is like, as an ortho therapist, I saw a lot of back pain, I saw a lot of hip pain. And you just like some patients. Yeah, easy peasy, straightforward. You get them better, you get them back to their life. But there are always these patients who are like, okay, I can get them 80% better, or I can get them 90% better or like 75%, but we can't. Like, there's something missing that we're able to like, bring their pain down to a three, but not a zero. And what I found in so many of those cases is that it's the pelvic floor. [00:42:22] Speaker B: Okay. [00:42:22] Speaker A: So it's not always the pelvic floor. There are times where it's just a hip injury, it's just a back injury. But clinically that's what I found. And one of the reasons I fell in love with pelvic floor is that, like, those patients I couldn't get all the way better. It's a pelvic floor problem. And now I think it's so cool because I will get so many referrals from other clinicians that are like, I've tried all of this and we've gotten them, yeah, like 50 better. I've got them 80% better. But, hey, well, know, you. You take a look and it's like, yeah, it's pelvic floor. It's. It can be, like, magic moments for these patients who have been in pain for, like, 10 plus years, and all of a sudden you, like, you address their pelvic floor and whoa. Like, they do. They look at you like you're a magician. And you're not a magician. You're a pelvic floor therapist. But, yeah, you could be a magician. That's okay. It's just cool. It's the connectivity of the pelvic floor. Floor. And it blows my mind also, which, like, how. How often we've. And how long we've ignored its role when it's literally what, like, connects our legs to our trunk, but we've just, like, looked at it as this black hole. There's just a black hole that we can talk about. So. [00:43:31] Speaker B: No, I love it. That's amazing. Well, we're kind of cutting it close on time. We're a little bit over. I know that we said 35. It's 43, but I think we should bring it home. Let's kind of talk a little bit about. A little bit about. Wow, I can't talk. Empowerment, accessibility. What are things that, like, I could start implementing tomorrow, I guess. Yeah. Like, what would be the biggest takeaways? And then, you know, I'm sure that this isn't the one and only episode that you're gonna be on. We're gonna have you back and talk more about pee and poop and penises and vaginas. [00:44:04] Speaker A: It's gonna be great. [00:44:06] Speaker B: But, yeah, what can we do as far as, like, implementing it today? What are some things that we can, like, take away and circle back on? [00:44:13] Speaker A: Yeah, we touched a little bit on social media. I think being an informed digester of social media is. Is really important. So we have a whole podcast on that for sure. [00:44:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:30] Speaker A: So there's. There's a big, like, trend in social media right now about, like, cycle syncing. [00:44:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:39] Speaker A: And when we're talking about, like, stress and pelvic floor and all these things, I think that people took it too far. I don't like cycle syncing because it generalizes the menstrual experience. It assumes that everybody has the same menstrual experience, that everybody is feeling super creative or super aroused or super depressed during certain parts of their cycle. And it's just. That's not true. Everybody's experience is different. And so I think when you pigeonhole yourself into. Like, I'm in this phase of my cycle. I can only do these things of exercise. Like, you could be limiting yourself. You could be limiting your potential. And it's more important to just tune into your body and, like, understand what feels good and what doesn't. And that's a big step into tuning in with your body in general. I do think one of the things that is super important is tracking your menstrual cycle, because it's a vital sign, and it can be a huge information store of if your body's out of whack. And again, so that's establishing a base of normal. You should know what your menstrual cycle is. And a hard part of that is a lot of women are on birth control. Right. And that impacts your cycle. And so another way that you can tune in with your body and how your body is doing is understanding, like, if. If you're stressed, if you're anxious, and then, like you said, what do you do about it? So everybody across the board should. Your biggest changes, the things that are going to make the biggest difference in your life, whether you have back pain, whether you have pellet floor pain, or a dysfunctional menstrual cycle, is focusing on sleep, focusing on hydration, stress management, and nutrition. [00:46:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:32] Speaker A: You get those things dialed. Like, you should dial those things in way before you even consider basing your workouts off of your menstrual cycle. [00:46:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:42] Speaker A: Because again, I just. I think that we've almost, like, zoomed too far in on the menstrual cycle, and now it's demonizing it. We have athletes who are afraid to go into a game when they're on their period. And that is. Yeah, exactly. That is not. That's not the intention. I do not want women afraid to move because they're in their luteal phase. Right. Like, that is. It's, don't be afraid to move your body. Right. [00:47:08] Speaker B: And so we, like, didn't explain cycle syncing super well. For those of you who don't know. It's just this trend that's going on the Instagram, the socials, where women are doing explicit workouts dependent upon what day of their cycle they're in. So, like, some days they're doing weightlifting, some days they're doing cardio. And it's a very regimented approach to exercising on a particular calendar, which we're saying is all limiting. It's very limiting. Yeah. [00:47:39] Speaker A: And it has been debunked in research. Now, like, there's a lot of influencers who will say that? Like there's research supporting this. No, the research does not. It does not support it. So it's been debunked. And that's not to say that some people do feel better and like they feel they want to lift heavier during certain phases of their cycle or they want to do like more yoga type workouts during other phases of, of their cycle. That's okay. I'm just saying that you should not restrict your, your body. [00:48:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:11] Speaker A: Based on your menstrual cycle. You should choose your workouts and meet your body where it's at on a daily basis. And the best way to do that is truly by targeting sleep, nutrition, hydration, stress management. All those things are going to be way bigger players when it comes to your pain experience. When it to. [00:48:31] Speaker B: Comes. [00:48:31] Speaker A: It comes to your, your human experience and the way you live in your body than, than zooming in way too far. [00:48:40] Speaker B: It's like a good time of the year too to like end of summer before like holidays get crazy. Just check in with yourself and do the five things right. Nutrition, sleep, stress management. [00:48:51] Speaker A: Shoot, I forgot the other ones. Hydration. [00:48:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that's it. Right? Yeah, we got it. We got it, people. [00:48:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Um, and I think one of the other big takeaways is we briefly touched on it. Like the pelvic floor is not a, it's not a female only problem. [00:49:09] Speaker B: Right. [00:49:11] Speaker A: It's also, I think one of the other myths is that it's, it's a pregnancy postpartum problem. Right. If you haven't had a baby, then you don't. Then that, that's for people who've had babies or been pregnant. And that's not true. Right there. A recent study came out that up to 80% of young female athletes have pelvic floor dysfunction. [00:49:33] Speaker B: What? [00:49:34] Speaker A: 80%? And these are. We're talking about people who have never been pregnant. Never. We're talking about high schoolers. [00:49:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:42] Speaker A: 80% up to 80 have pelvic floor dysfunction. [00:49:45] Speaker B: What? Oh my goodness. [00:49:47] Speaker A: Dependent on the symptom. So it's massive. But. So you can have pelvic floor dysfunction because of weakness elsewhere in your body. Right. Your pelvic floor can compensate hypermobility if you're a hypermobile individual. Oftentimes we see compensatory pelvic floor tension with that because it's trying to help your body stabilize itself. Any history of trauma if you have been sexually abused? I have. So many of my patients have seen some sort of history, which. It's awful, but it doesn't even have to be sexual abuse, emotional abuse. Again, if you have high stress, high anxiety, oftentimes you have a high tone, pelvic floor, chronic constipation, any life factors if perimenopause, menopause, those can cause fluctuations and dysfunction in pelvic floor. And then the big one in sports is reds, which is relative energy deficiency in sports basically not fueling. And again, you don't have to be an athlete. Anybody who moves intentionally or you know, there's so much pressure to like look a certain way. And if you are restricting your body's nutrition, that can cause pelvic floor dysfunction. Whether that's because of muscle or bone or hormonal fluctuations, that can be side effects of that. So this, this is not just a female problem. It's not a pregnancy or postpartum problem. It's an everybody problem. Everybody has a pelvic floor. [00:51:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:14] Speaker A: And I think, I mean it makes me so happy that this is starting to become less and less taboo partially in part to social media for women. But I think our men are still being left in the dark. [00:51:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:26] Speaker A: So many of them don't, don't know that their erectile dysfunction. Especially in our young guys. Right. Like our three 30 year olds where I've seen erectile dysfunction and it like it's oftentimes a pelvic floor dysfunction. And even more so I think men are, there's a bigger taboo to not talk about it because it's been so normalized in women where it hasn't been normalized in men. So it can, it oftentimes can even be more taboo, I feel like than women to talk about it. [00:51:54] Speaker B: Plus men are just like generally at least I feel like it's harder for them to get over the stigma of talking about X, Y and Z. Whereas women, we've had to do it at least I mean in my experience. Either that or we just like don't. You're not access to like the research. You just have to like kind of put yourself in that vulnerable position to talk about these stigma things. Stigma topics. But men, I, I find that very, very few men that I know are comfortable talking and being vulnerable in that kind of moment. So I, we could talk all day about that, but we'll skip it for now. [00:52:28] Speaker A: Go ahead. Sorry. Our other takeaways. Know your anatomy. Know your anatomy. Know your anatomy in terms of like what's normal, what's not normal. [00:52:41] Speaker B: Start with the baselines, which is sleep, hydration, stress management. [00:52:47] Speaker A: Nutrition. [00:52:48] Speaker B: Nutrition, yeah. It's got to be like an acronym or some Kind of fun thing for that. [00:52:54] Speaker A: And then, so I think that, and then if, and if you're looking for more specific, like, okay, how specific, I want to relax my pelvic floor, I would direct you to like social media. I have some, some fun reels on there of like different movement based circuits that you can do to specifically relax your pelvic floor. But we talked about how in touch the pelvic floor is with your stress and anxiety and so your stress management. And everybody manages stress differently and there's not a one size fits all. So finding what works for you. Some people love meditation. Some people love it. I suck at it. I have tried. I have tried so much, so hard. I suck at meditation. I have to, I should keep trying. But like for me, gratitude journaling has been a game changer and I am not journaler. It has been a game changer in the stress management. I think for me in particular, it's, it's so easy to focus on the negatives, especially when we're living in our current world, our current political climate. It's so easy to get caught up in the negatives of the world. And for me, taking a few minutes every day to gratitude journal starts my day off or sometimes I won't do the beginning of the day and I've just had a shit day and I make myself do it before I go to bed at night. And it, it's a game changer for me. [00:54:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:24] Speaker A: But for some it's not right? So you're breathing, you're diaphragmatic breathing. There's a really cool app called Breathing Zone. And it'll, it's. Instead of like having to follow a meditation, it'll just tell you to breathe in and breathe out. And fun fact for everybody, a breathing rate of 6 breaths per minute or less has a calming effect on your central nervous system. And six breaths start, don't start. Try to start off at six breaths. It's hard, it's very hard. But you'll kind of like find what breathing rate feels like natural for you. And then you can work on reducing that breathing rate. Relax your jaw, check in with your jaw. Relax your jaw. Your hip mobility again. Like I've got some circuits on my page that you can address for that. But your stress management, gratitude, journaling, meditation, diaphragmatic breathing, exercise. Exercise is again, we have some really cool studies coming out that exercise is more effective than antidepressants in the treatment of depression. [00:55:28] Speaker B: Oh really? [00:55:29] Speaker A: And so like that. And I'm not saying please, that is not Saying go off your antidepressants, people. I'm saying that like use exercise. In addition, exercise is just so important in terms of stress management in particular. [00:55:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:44] Speaker A: And we will not go down this rabbit hole. But for those of you reading all the like influencer posts, it's high intensity exercises spikes your cortisol and that's like exercise spikes your cortisol because it's supposed to. Yeah, it's supposed to. Our body is supposed to have a normal stress response and cortisol shouldn't be demonized. Like everybody should manage their stress. Cortisol isn't supposed to be like elevated over prolonged periods of time. But exercise does spike your cortisol because it's supposed to good in a positive stress response sort of way. [00:56:14] Speaker B: I think like maybe next episode we'll kind of talk maybe about some stress management things that we can do. Because I tend to bop around quite a bit. Like I'll do yoga and that's good for my breathing. And then I'll do some running and then exercise for sure. I'll do some journaling and then I'll kind of fall off the wayside. But in today's climate, having all the tools that I can to help with my stress is helpful. So maybe we can just expand on that a little bit more, knowing that it's only going to get worse. [00:56:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And we can expand on some objective measures for like how do I know if I'm stressed? Right. Because we don't always know or we don't always. [00:56:56] Speaker B: I feel like it's an ever present just like what level of stress am I at today? A three or a ten? Yeah. [00:57:01] Speaker A: And there's some really cool objective measures that you can actually track for that and to understand like what works for your body and what doesn't. And sometimes you gotta change it up. Sometimes one thing works one day and then it doesn't work the next day and you gotta change it up for sure. There's a lot that you can, can do, but in terms of that overly tight pelvic floor, managing yourself stress is one of the biggest things you can do. [00:57:20] Speaker B: I love it. Well, incredible. All of this has been really eye opening for me and I know we talked last Friday, like I kind of went online, did some research, but I have been kind of sitting and thinking and meditating on this this last week. It's, it's something that nobody talks about. It's totally normal. There are varying degrees of, you know, comfortability when it comes to these topics and I think that we should Just open it to a very candid discussion. Candidly. 30. About how to be aware and be better with our. Ourselves and are in touch with our body. So thank you so much for spending the time with us. And, yeah, I hope that it was fun. [00:58:00] Speaker A: It was a fun thing. I've always. I'm always game to nerd out on this. [00:58:03] Speaker B: I feel like we could have dived way deeper into the sex stuff. Maybe we will one day with all that good stuff. [00:58:09] Speaker A: You guys want to have better orgasm also? [00:58:12] Speaker B: That would be a great episode to do a follow up on, but, yeah. [00:58:15] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:58:15] Speaker B: Let's. Before we wrap up here, let's kind of do our gratitudes and grievances, if that's okay. I know, no pressure. I didn't give you a single heads up about this. My bad. But do you want to do a gratitude? Do you have a grievance that you want to start off with while I think about mine? Because I didn't prepare either. [00:58:32] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. Heavy week for grievance. I. I don't know that I've ever been more disappointed in humanity than I have this week. [00:58:47] Speaker B: Really, this week. [00:58:48] Speaker A: This week. I've. I don't know that I've ever been more disappointed in humanity as a whole. And that's a real rough one. That's a rough one. That is my grievance. I think that we. Yeah, I. [00:59:01] Speaker B: It's a tough week, though. [00:59:02] Speaker A: We had. It's a tough week. It is a really tough week. And. And I think that we all just need to remember that we're neighbors and that we are all. This is everybody's first time on Earth. I guess some people may not believe that in my economy, this is everybody's first time on Earth, and we are all doing the best we can. And, you know, it's really easy. It is so easy to sit behind a screen and attack someone, no matter what side of the fence they sit on. And maybe it's better to just keep your mouth shut. Yeah, maybe it is better to just keep your mouth shut and make yourself a better person, because if you make yourself a better person, you're gonna make the world a better person. Right? A better place to live in. And, yeah, that is my grievance. Maybe we all just need to shut up. [00:59:53] Speaker B: That's a good one. So it's been a really rough week this week. Especially this last. I'd say four years have been really tragic in terms of, like, our lack of empathy, regardless of who you are, like, the ability to put yourself in somebody else's shoes and think and think the way they would think. Like, I think that's just a skill set that people have no interest in doing anymore. And it's just really disappointing because at least how we grew up, you know, you're one of a community. You have to be one of a community. You can't just be like, one against another person or like, just disagree with them and blah, blah, blah. I just think that the empathy component of that for humanity is really dissolved and disintegrated, which is really disappointing. Yeah. [01:00:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:41] Speaker B: My grievance. So I was telling you guys in the beginning of the podcast, I'm gonna send a message to Scott right after this. I got a lot of my ivy out of the yard. I am so excited about like 50% done. I have a yellow jacket bite on my shoulder. I have like 25 spider bites and mosquito bites. So my grievances. [01:01:02] Speaker A: Bugs. [01:01:02] Speaker B: I am so over these freaking mosquitoes. And I'm so over having to like share my house with spiders and bugs and stuff. I'm just, I'm over it. So I'm having to nurse. They're all on my right ass cheek too. Like, it's just not cute. But anyway, that's my grievance. Let's move on to gratitudes. [01:01:20] Speaker A: Gratitudes. I am. I have a lot of gratitude in my life right now. I have a family member who for the last five years has been struggling with a very complicated health issue. And I think we are now at the longest amount of time in between surgeries that we've been for the last five years. Yay. So I'm stoked about that. [01:01:47] Speaker B: I love that. [01:01:48] Speaker A: So much gratitude. As much as our health system is broken and it's a total dumpster fire right now, there are still good practitioners out there and good people out there and that's. We got a second opinion and it has made all the difference in the world. So I am so grateful for that. And I am grateful for waking up to my kids smiles every day and the fact that I get to. I get to hold my kids and, you know, all of it. [01:02:18] Speaker B: Yeah, all of it. [01:02:19] Speaker A: I. I'm grateful for the small little smiles every day and the chaos that go along with it. [01:02:26] Speaker B: We love the chaos. [01:02:27] Speaker A: Cuz they're so cute. [01:02:27] Speaker B: Squishy. [01:02:28] Speaker A: I love them. [01:02:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for the rain. We had, like, what feels like our first bigish skin storm, kind of like a little mini storm this morning. And that was really wonderful. Just like get everything cleared off. No more dusty stuff. So it just feels like a really good transition to Sep. Transition to fall in September. So I'm just grateful. My house is great. My my husband's great, family's lovely, and they're willing to go on podcasts and chat with me. It's a good Sunday. So, yeah, just grateful we're almost in fall. I'm so excited it's gonna thrive. I'm so excited. I'm leaning into my cottage cords. [01:03:04] Speaker A: So excited. [01:03:05] Speaker B: Anyway, thank you all for coming here. Happy Candidly 30. [01:03:09] Speaker A: Whatever. [01:03:10] Speaker B: Anyway, I don't know how to, like, do our calling card out of here. [01:03:13] Speaker A: Have a great day, everybody. [01:03:14] Speaker B: Bye. That's all for today's episode. [01:03:31] Speaker A: Hope you enjoyed listening as much as we love you. [01:03:33] Speaker B: Follow us on Instagram @candidly30. [01:03:36] Speaker A: See you next week.