Kegel Exercises

Filed in archive General Health on March 7, 2007

Do you worry about incontinence? Afraid to sneeze or cough or laugh? A lot of that may be because of a lack of muscle control. According to the Information on Diseases and Conditions Blog, Kegel exercises can help:

It has been proven that strengthening your pelvic floor muscles will lower the possibility and even help prevent stress incontinence. To define incontinence it is the frequent or severe leaking of urine from the bladder. Sometimes this leaking can be caused by laughing, sneezing, coughing, or physical activity and is still referred to as incontinence.

You can strengthen these pelvic floor muscles by doing Kegel exercises. Cool Nurse says:

There are several ways to do kegel exercises. One method requires you to have a full bladder, sit on the toilet and start to urinate, then suddenly Clamp down and stop the flow. Start and stop several times in a row. If you can't cut off the flow of urine, but dribble on, you need to start kegel exercises for sure. From now on, every time you urinate start and stop all the way. This is often called "the faucet" and is a good indicator of your progress.

Check Cool Nurse for other ways.

An added benefit to doing Kegel exercises. It could improve your sex life. Sexuality at About.com explains:

Kegel exercises are designed to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles (also called your PC muscles ). Kegel exercises can be good for women who are experiencing incontinence (as a result of childbirth, medical treatment, or changes/stress on the body), and they have also been recommended as a way of changing how orgasms feel (some, but not all, women say it enhances their orgasms).