Could Yoga Help Your Incontinence?

Could Yoga Help Your Incontinence?

Yoga is known to help improve the health and strength of your pelvis, which in turn can help control your bladder. Recent research in the US suggests that Yoga can reduce your urine leakage by up to 70% after just six weeks! Because incontinence is associated with anxiety and depression, women suffering from incontinence may benefit from yoga's emphasis on meditation and relaxation. Therefore Yoga has also been linked to help relieve stress related incontinence. ‘Yoga is often directed at mindful awareness, increasing relaxation, and relieving anxiety and stress,’ said first author Alison Huang, assistant professor in the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. The US researchers recruited 20 women who were 40 years old and older and who suffered urinary incontinence on a daily basis. Half of these women were randomly assigned to take part in a six week yoga therapy programme and the other half were not. The women who took part in the yoga programme experienced an overall 70% reduction in the frequency of their urine leakage! The group that did not start yoga therapy only had a 13% improvement. Most of the observed improvement in incontinence was in stress incontinence, or urine leakage brought on by activities that increase abdominal pressure such as coughing, sneezing, and bending over. Here at Incontinence UK we think it’s worth giving Yoga a try to see if it will help with your bladder control and even if it doesn’t at least you will be relieving the stresses of everyday life!