Taking Steps on Your Wellbeing Journey: How Mental Health Impacts Pelvic Function

This Mental Health Month, we invite you to take steps – no matter how small – toward both mental and pelvic wellbeing. Connecting with your body, noticing tension, seeking gentle movement, and asking for help are all valid and powerful steps.

When it comes to mental health and pelvic health, the link is undeniable. Stress, anxiety and low mood can trigger a cascade of physical symptoms – especially in the pelvic region. Pelvic pain, urinary urgency, constipation, sexual dysfunction, and incontinence are just some of the ways our bodies reflect emotional distress.

This year’s Mental Health Month theme, “Taking Steps on Your Wellbeing Journey,” is about recognising that health is not an end point – it’s a process. At Sydney Pelvic Clinic, we see how every day small steps toward self-awareness, self-compassion, and pelvic physiotherapy can significantly improve both mental and physical wellbeing.

Why Mental Health and Pelvic Health are Connected

The relationship between mental and pelvic health is deeply connected via our autonomic nervous system. When you’re feeling calm and safe, your parasympathetic nervous system is in charge (rest and digest). But when you’re anxious or under stress, your sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) takes over.

This stress response increases muscle tone, especially in the pelvic floor, and heightens sensitivity to pain.

Over time, this can create tension, pain or dysfunction in your pelvic floor muscles. This creates a feedback cycle: pelvic dysfunction increases emotional distress, and that distress perpetuates tension and symptoms. Recognising and taking small steps to manage both aspects helps break this cycle. Research even shows that people with chronic pelvic pain are twice as likely to experience anxiety and depression.¹

SRC: birth trauma.org.au

Small Steps that Make a Difference

Here are five evidence based², practical ways to achieve both mental and pelvic well-being;

1. Awareness and acknowledgment
   Pause and identify what you’re feeling – physical discomfort, pelvic tension or emotional distress. Naming symptoms is the first step toward change. Practising mindfulness and present moment awareness are enormously beneficial in regulating your nervous system.
2. Connection
   Building and maintaining strong social connections with others is crucial for mental well-being. This can involve spending time with friends and family, engaging in social activities, or simply having meaningful conversations with people around you.
3. Be active
   Research shows a strong correlation between physical activity and increased wellbeing. Walking, swimming or gentle exercise help lower rates of depression and anxiety. Gentle yoga, breathing, mindfulness or guided relaxation can also help release pelvic tension.
4. Give
   Doing something for others is linked in research to greater levels of happiness. It helps to create connections in your community. Try doing something nice like volunteering, smiling at a stranger or buying a friend a coffee and notice how you feel. A sense of reward is almost inevitable.
5. Learning new things
   Continuous learning, whether through formal education, hobbies, or new experiences, can enhance cognitive function, boost self-esteem, and provide a sense of purpose.

Other benefits: Ensuring good physical health and adequate sleep are key factors to good physical health, which in turn regulates mental health.

How can Physiotherapy Help?

At SPC, we use evidence-based strategies, involving a top-down and bottom-up approach – addressing both your nervous system and pelvic structures. Your pelvic physiotherapist can help calm an overactive system while retraining your muscles and guiding you toward better movement, habits and mental self-care ³

Our pelvic health physiotherapists are trained to assess and treat both physical and emotional contributors to pelvic dysfunction. Treatments may include ³:

• Pelvic floor release techniques (manual therapy, pelvic floor relaxation exercises, dilators)
• Deep breathing and guided relaxation
• Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) for pain or urgency, or interferential for constipation
• Bladder retraining programs
• Mindfulness and body awareness exercises
• Whole-body movement therapy including Pelvic Yoga and Strength and Mobility exercises
• Self-care strategies and pelvic floor release workshops

Read More

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Conclusion

This Mental Health Month, we invite you to take steps – no matter how small – toward both mental and pelvic wellbeing. Connecting with your body, noticing tension, seeking gentle movement, and asking for help are all valid and powerful steps.

Consider booking a pelvic health assessment with SPC and explore how mental health steps, like mindfulness or movement, can support your pelvic health. If you’d like to learn more, sign up for our Pelvic Floor release workshop in October or call SPC to chat about an individualised assessment and support.

FAQs

1. How does stress affect pelvic floor muscles?
   Chronic stress causes pelvic floor tightness or pain, which can lead to urinary or bowel symptoms and chronic discomfort.
2. Can pelvic physiotherapy help with anxiety?
   Yes. By improving body awareness and teaching relaxation strategies, pelvic physiotherapy supports emotional resilience.
3. What if I experience setbacks?
   They’re expected. Stepping back sometimes is normal and can strengthen understanding and compassion. It’s about overall long-term progress, not day to day or week to week.
4. How can SPC help during Mental Health Month?
   SPC offers consultations that incorporate pelvic floor care and mental wellbeing supports, aligning with October’s theme of taking intentional, compassionate steps. See relaxation services linked above or book a tailored Physiotherapy assessment here.

References

¹ Siqueira-Campos, V. M. E., Da Luz, R. A., de Deus, J. M., Martinez, E. Z., & Conde, D. M. (2019). Anxiety and depression in women with and without chronic pelvic pain: prevalence and associated factors. Journal of Pain Research, 12, 1223–1233. https://doi.org/10.2147/JPR.S195317

² WayAhead Mental Health Month 2025: https://wayahead.org.au/mentalhealthmonth/

³ White, R. L., Vella, S., Biddle, S., et al. (2024). Physical activity and mental health: A systematic review and best-evidence synthesis of mediation and moderation studies. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 21(1), 134. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-024-01676-6

4 Daniëlle A. van Reijn-Baggen et al. (2022). Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy for Pelvic Floor Hypertonicity: A Systematic Review of Treatment Efficacy, Sexual Medicine Reviews, Volume 10, Issue 2, Pages 209-230. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sxmr.2021.03.002.