Moment to Moment Relaxation - Can you relax too much?

[PagesOfTime]

Last week I read A HEADACHE IN THE PELVIS, and have since been doing moment to moment relaxation, but I have a few questions. This seems like it would be such a key in this process and has such a short description of it in the book. I read a few older threads that touched on this but couldn't really find my answers...

1. Am I doing it correctly? I've been trying to relax the pelvic floor which from what I understand goes from the bladder to the anus. I did the method where you try and urinate and basically try to go to that state without urinating. I seem to be very good at relaxing the rectal part, but not as much toward the bladder. The rectal part is so relaxed in fact that it has a feeling almost like something is coming out of the hole (but there's not), or it feels like I'm going inside out if you can imagine that. Is this part of the "golf ball in the rectum feel? Can the muscle be too relaxed? Or is this not even part of the pelvic floor? It doesn't feel natural, but if I've been clinching for so long, what do I know about what natural feels like? Is it possibly just swollen right around the hole..that's how it feels? It's not painful, but really uncomfortable, and irritating. It's been spasming too, but from my other posts, that can be normal after starting this process, and I just started the stretches a few days ago too.

2. Can you do too much moment-to-moment relaxation? For the past week, I've basically been trying to keep those muscles relaxed all the time when I'm standing, sitting, or laying down. The only time I've been letting them clinch is when I'm in some movement that needs to clinch them. I know it says in the book to do it 50 or 100 times a day, but if your goal is to make that your normal state, is it bad to try and over-achieve in this area? If it is better to just do it several times a day like that, how long should I keep them relaxed before I stop thinking about it?

Thanks in advance for any help with this confusion...

Note: Before starting this, I had developed severe pain, and extreme urination hesitancy, dribbling, etc.

Now 1 week later, I have noticed dramatic improvement in the pain area, the last few days have been pretty much pain-free, but the urination problems have not improved at all. If anybody has recovered from this using A HEADACHE IN THE PELVIS and had urinary symptoms, are they the last thing to improve, and how far behind to they travel?

[webslave]

The whole approach of treating trigger points and consciously relaxing the pelvic floor takes months and months to produce the full effects. Please persist and do not expect everything to get better immediately. Are you treating trigger points and performing stretches?

[PagesOfTime]

Currently I am just doing the relaxation and stretches. Seeing as I've only had this problem for a month and I'm only half way through my trial of antibiotics, I'm trying to see if I can work it out on my own first, as some have.

My main concern right now is that I'm relaxing the pelvic floor correctly though..

[HelpADude]

Part of the relaxation thing is ... well, not worry about if you are doing it "right" or not.

For me, relaxation, stretching, and trigger point work put a fast stop to my worsening symptoms. Today, I'm 100% symptom free (for about 3 weeks now). Yes, there was quite some time where is no change in symptoms and I got frustrated but make it a habit out of it.

I'm still doing relaxation and stretching everyday as something to help with my physical and mental health.

[scoobysnacks]

From what I've found the rectal part is really the main thing. The anal sphincter and urinary sphincter are one in the same. If you really try to think back what it felt like to pee normal, the muscle just by the anal sphincter (toward testicles) along with the anal sphincter all would open downward when you pee. I am finding that the type of relaxation you are talking about, along with TP massage, and vigorous stretching is helping me.

And yes I've had the inside out feeling as well, especially after massage. I continue on though, what is the alternative is how I look at it.

Good luck!

SS

[PagesOfTime]

Thank you so much for putting my mind at ease!

[LightningTree]

Hey pages,

Yeah, its not easy to do and is more of a life-changing thing, where you change your body posture for life.

Three thoughts:

(1) If it feels weird, its because you aren't used to doing it, and that is a good sign. Someone here likened the process to trying to "unlearn riding a bicycle", and I have always liked that analogy. It is very much like that. You are trained to clench the pelvis and trying to stop is like trying to consciously let yourself fall of a bike. Its not easy to do as it is a guarding response, just like staying balanced on the a bicycle is. Scoobie's point is a good one, because the muscles all act automatically in unison when you void (urinate or defecate), so getting to one group like the anal sphincter can help relax the other sphincters as well and put things in a more relaxed position. Really, you are 'taking advantage' of the relaxed state of the defecation posture to retrain yourself. In the end, you won't be using that posture. But its an excellent avenue to learn things from. To reiterate, you will not spend you life walking around as if you are about to defecate! :)


THe golf ball in the rectum sensation is an afferent sensation that literally feels like someone shoved a golf ball in your rectum. You would know it if you had it. Same goes for the bee-bee in the penis sensation.

The "pulling down" or inverted sensation is common with irritated pelvic floor muscles. They feel like they are being inverted or 'pulled out'. That will go away as the muscles get more rest from their constant irritation. If you feel a painless "inversion" of you anus, then get a mirror and check (so that you can see a doctor if your rectum has fallen out. ) But it is probably just a sensation from it being more relaxed than it has been in 20 years.

(2) There is a difference between being good at relaxing a muscle group and not having to constantly remind yourself to do so. Most people get good at the first part, but not so good at the second. That's why you have to keep it up for a long time. You have to retrain the state your body devolves to.

On this front, I've found "voicing" my anxiety helps. If I start to feel anxious, I breathe more heavily (without hyperventilating.) This, I have found, helps remind me to be in a muscle relaxed state.

(3) Finally, there is complex musculature above the pelvic floor. I recommend learning to trace it out in your mind, so that you can then start to associate internal feelings with different tissues. This is very hard to do. Infants learn to associate feeling locations with regions of the body. The pelvis is mapped to sensory regions, but the higher brain fails to learn to locate things properly, since in our healthy lives, our pelvises were largely silent. That is, made no sensations that got to our physical awareness.

There is a vase like muscle in you called the levitar ani, and that has to be trained to relax. This goes all around your pelvis. It is shaped like a bowl, or like a vase around the rectum. It attaches to your tailbone. It attaches to the pubis bone, it goes all around your rectum and up into your pelvis above your perineum.

There is also the iliopsoas. There is one on each side of your body. The psoas parts goes from your spine just beneath your rib cage, down through your abdomen (to either side of the belly button) and down into your pelvis. One attaches to the very top of each thigh bones. Its ilius part goes from the leg attachment and bottom of the psoas up to the back top of your but, and attaches to the bone up there on your back hips. That places it deep, but next to the...

piriformis muscles that attach on each side from the lower spine to the hip joint and can cause Sciatica. Because nerves run underneath and around cartilage.

The Gluteus maximus is on top of that. AS are two other parts of the gluteus system that are what you feel when you grab the back of your butt.

Then there are your leg muscles that connect up into the pelvic bones. There's the large muscle on the back of the leg, and then the sets of littler muscles that attach from the side of the leg bone into the hip for lateral flexion.

AND THATS JUST THE MAJOR MUSCLES INSIDE THE PELVIS.

Theres two layers of little triangle girder muscles on your pelvic floor. There are two muscles attached to your penis.

There are two or more tiny muscles that make up the connection between the bladder neck and the prostate. (The number varies in people, just like style of earlobes varies.)

The prostate itself is muscle-like, and so is the bladder.

Top it off with nerves that run through all of these tissues, a web of ligaments, and the fact that the course the nerves take varies between individuals, often do to the relatively late stage nature of sex differentiation in human fetuses. genitals dropping from the body cavity to an external position during fetal development... etc.
The pelvis is dynamically wired, and there is so much variation between individuals based on genetics, hormonal quantities, etc, its very hard to havge a single body picture.

(stops to give my fingers a break)

So you can see how complicated and personal it is, and how many different muscles and systems you need to learn to relax.

Start with the muscles you can touch and feel, to give you feedback on your progress. Then try to learn to 'feel' the other musculature and apply from there.

Thats my 2 cents. But I have only been partially successful with moment to moment. I can now pee between any two people I want to at a urinal. But it will be many more years, for example, before I can keep my levitar ani from scrunching up when I am in public.

[GP2]

Just read this & thought I'd comment.

Moment - to - moment relaxation is KEY to recovery I believe. David Wise in AHIP even stated that some men recover just from getting this technique right. It has been essential to my doing well this year.

I can sit all day and have bad pain for the first hour or two which gets better as the day goes on thanks to my patience with m-t-m relaxation!

Like with TP therapy as long as th perpetuating factors remain it will be harder to relax the muscles and consciously doing so will have a good effect but not as good as -

dealing with perpetuating factors.

I have previously suffered from severe social phobia as well as public speaking phobia. Lighting made me think about something above - I believe that my condition would have been worse if I was still anxious in social situations (at work, in pubs, everywhere) because subconsciously I would have been clenching all the above mentioned muscles.

BUT I got better socially & at public speaking a few years back & am generally a more relaxed person all round. How did I do it- like I tackle chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome - persistence, analysing & interpreting information & learning form every incident, some bravery & knowledge. I will talk about all this another time but for now my point is even if you can't get physical therapy treatment at the moment & whilst your practising relaxing those muscles tackle those areas (if you can) that cause you the most tension / anxiety.

You have to believe in yourself with this condition & I firmly believe that as I strip away the perpetuating factors of my chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome (IBS, repressed feelings / emotions, hidden rage at my parents, anxieties, perfectionism & self criticism, too much masturbation) then I will get better!

It may take time but my muscles will relax & no caffeine, trigger point treatment, stretching are all secondary to the real issue which is effectively changing who I am & how I deal with the world around me

[carld]

Gp2, great post, in my opinion this is the main cause of inflammation. Stress causes it and some men get it in their prostate and tension helps it along.