Have you ever secretly checked your phone for notifications during a work meeting? How about humming while in the shower or filing your nails while watching TV? Humans do two separate things simultaneously without so much as batting an eyelid. Why? Because we can, and because some of us enjoy multi-tasking.
But certain things apparently shouldn’t go together, like blowing your nose while on the toilet. Some experts think doing this often could lead to weak pelvic floor muscles, more specifically, pelvic floor dysfunction and even pelvic organ prolapse.
The muscles in your pelvic floor are kind of like the ground frame that keep organs like your bladder, uterus, urethra, fallopian tubes, ovaries, prostate, and rectum where they ought be in your body. Pelvic floor dysfunction is when trouble with relaxing and contracting your pelvic floor muscles leads to symptoms like frequent urination, straining to poop, leaking urine, fecal incontinence, and pain in your pelvic region or lower back. Pelvic organ prolapse occurs when an organ lowers into the vagina or rectum. It could manifest as pressure or fullness in your pelvic region, a bulge in your vaginal opening, groin or lower back pain, and (again) fecal and urinary incontinence. Moving onto multi-tasking on the toilet, how does that lead to these pelvic floor problems?
The connection between your pelvic floor muscles and nose-blowing
According to doctor of physical therapy who practices women’s health physical therapy, Allison Feldt (via YouTube), the problem lies in the fact that you’re doing two opposite things with your body at the same time — increasing your intra-abdominal pressure (to blow your nose) while initiating the pelvic floor-relaxing process of peeing.
“When you blow your nose (hopefully with a Kleenex), you are experiencing a downward pressure that puts pressure down on our pelvic organs,” explained the physical therapist. This downward push of your pelvic organs should be avoided while you’re peeing or pooping, per Feldt. “We sit on the toilet on a bowl that’s open and then, as we’re sitting and we’re trying to initiate the pee, if we’re pushing the pee down and out, that’s effectively going to push our bladder down and push the urethra down into the vaginal canal.”
While Feldt explained the scenario in the context of pelvic organ prolapse, other experts have talked about how doing these opposing activities could lead to problems with relaxing and contracting your pelvic floor muscles the way you ought to. Per board certified women’s health physical therapist, Marcy Crouch (via Today), pushing down on your pelvic floor muscles which aren’t “on” at the time could lead to a weak pelvic floor and even hemorrhoids. Before you go thinking you’re blowing your nose completely wrong, however, there’s more to the story.
Not all experts think the same about blowing your nose on the toilet
Interestingly, some experts think the human body is able to manage these conflicting activities just fine, especially if you’re not someone who is already experiencing pelvic floor-related issues.
In fact, according to physical therapist, Carrie Pagliano, blowing your nose on the toilet and experiencing symptoms like urinary incontinence, etc., is just indicative that you have pelvic floor-related concerns. “We have zero data to say that doing those things is going to give you a problem or not doing them is going to be preventative. We have no data. If you’re not having symptoms [and] you’re doing those things, don’t worry about it,” explained the expert.
What’s the final verdict then? Perhaps, this is a question for your own physical therapist or pelvic floor therapist. Maybe the lesson is to avoid multi-tasking on the toilet if you can, as much as possible. After all, toilet time is sacred time (for most). Why spoil it by blowing your nose? Maybe you’re better off wiping a bad runny nose and reserving the full-blown pressured nose-blowing for afterward. However, if you’re concerned about pelvic floor weakening, dysfunction, or prolapse, watch our for symptoms and see your doctor about them. That being said, did you know that sitting on the toiler for a long time is bad for you (nose-blowing or not)?