An Evening Exhale for Your Pelvic Floor: A Somatic Bedtime Ritual
Makayla Mcintyre
Somatic Therapy Practitioner and Certified Yoga Teacher
You’ve made it to the end of the day… You’re starting to feel tired, you’ve had a long day or you’re feeling ready to rest. But, when your head finally hits the pillow your body can’t quite settle, your thoughts are racing, you’re questioning if you should go to the bathroom again before bed or feeling a subtle clenching in the pelvic floor. Unfortunately, the body, mind and nervous system can’t automatically switch off at bedtime. Most of the time when we try to fight this feeling, our instinct is to try and control the mind or our thoughts first. In reality, controlling the mind or thoughts never works as well as we think it does. What if we started with the body? Find softness and safety within the body and let the nervous system send the signal to the mind… “We are safe” or ‘It’s safe to rest and let go”.
Key Takeaways
Using softness and safety in the body to find quite in the mind
Why Evenings Matter: What if bedtime could become a space for healing, not just sleep?
The Somatic Bedtime Ritual
The Deeper Impact: What would it feel like to be more at home in your body?
The Missing Piece: Why Does the Pelvic Floor Hold Tension at Night?
Without the distractions of our everyday lives, bedtime can bring on the weight of emotional or stressful experiences from the day that we haven’t had time or space to process. For many, quiet and stillness allow the mind the ability to flood with thoughts, feelings, memories and more that we can no longer distract or numb ourselves from until It’s time to sleep. Alternatively for some, bedtime can bring a sense of fear or worry within the body or nervous system. Whether it’s fear around nighttime bathroom trips or fear of being alone with your thoughts. During the day our nervous system is built for “mobilizing” scanning to see if we are safe or in danger 24/7 and at night our nervous system shifts to processing the information we have received from the day, what we have learned, what made us feel safe or unsafe, emotions, physical sensations and experiences. If processing feels unsafe then the nervous system creates activation to stay in control.
Examples of bedtime nervous system activation:
Big yawns or sighs but not sleeping
Muscles twitching
Pelvic floor gripping or tension
Mind racing when the body is tired
Feeling more alert once you’re in bed
Waking up around 2–3am or many times throughout the night
Frequent bathroom trips
Why Evenings Matter: What if Bedtime Could Become a Space for Healing, Not Just Sleep?
Evenings are the natural transition from doing to being. Finding simple small rituals that work best for you to let the body know that you are safe and retrain the body to let go in the evening can help to improve this transition and activate the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest). Activating your parasympathetic response supports the release of pelvic floor muscles. How would your body respond if it felt truly safe to let go?
The Somatic Bedtime Ritual
Everyone’s somatic bedtime ritual should be unique and tailored to your preferences. Try each of these exercises individually before bed for a week. Then, choose 2-3 of your favorite's to combine together to create your ideal bedtime ritual. As you begin to incorporate these practices and rituals within your daily routine, I truly encourage you to practice consistency over striving for perfection. Let your ritual be simple, imperfect and consistent.
1. Arrive in Your Body
Placing one hand on your heart and one hand on your lower belly or pelvis.
Notice the sensations in your body or the rise and fall of your chest, without trying to change anything.
Take a moment to acknowledge that there’s nothing else that needs to be done today.
2. Butterfly Taps
Cross your hands over your chest and gently tap the left and right hand one side at a time.
3. Bee’s Breath
Inhale through the nose and on the exhale create a subtle hum with the mouth closed. This helps to stimulate the vagus nerve to activate the parasympathetic response.
4. Micro Movements or Legs Up the Wall
Subtle tilt or rocking of pelvis and hips
Slowly allowing your knees to fall side to side
Laying on your bed or on the ground. Extend both legs long against a wall or your bed frame for 2-5minutes.
5. Extended Exhale
Inhale for a count of 4 and exhale for a count of 6-8
This can be combined with the gentle movements above, legs up the wall or butterfly taps.
6. Orienting & Mantra
With a soft gaze slowly turn your head from right to left and simply notice your surroundings. Let your nervous system see that nothing is required right now and you are safe.
Repeat "I am safe" or “I can rest now” to yourself.
The Deeper Impact: What Would it Feel Like to be More at Home in Your Body?
Practising these rituals consistently can help to impact many things in your life aside from pelvic health and pelvic floor symptoms.
You may also notice:
Improved pelvic floor awareness
Reduced unconscious gripping of pelvic muscles
Better sleep quality
Nervous system regulation and resilience
Feeling more at home in the body
Are You Ready to Explore a Deeper Connection with Your Body and Pelvic Floor?
If you’re craving deeper support in reconnecting with your body, pelvic floor and nervous system, somatic therapy might be for you. Somatic therapy helps you reconnect to your body and send safety signals to your nervous system by combining simple practices such as breath, gentle movement and visualization. If you’d like to learn more about the somatic and nervous system approach to pelvic health, I welcome you to book a 15 minute somatic therapy discovery call at Proactive Pelvic Health Centre.