Are you struggling with back pain, fatigue, or stress?
People so often overlook their hips when trying to solve these challenges.
If that sounds like you, then this week’s video is for you. Because our hips aren’t just joints, they’re deeply connected to our nervous system, energy levels, and emotional wellbeing.
Here are 3 ways this new video might help you:
✅ Understand how your hips, pelvis, and lower back form the physical foundation of your posture and movement.
✅. Explore how they are also energetically linked to your sense of safety and stability.
✅. Learn how the sympathetic nervous system (your stress mode) and vagus nerve run right through this zone. And in Traditional Chinese Medicine, this area houses your Kidney energy, your deep life-force reserve.
Plus, practical tips for maintaining hip and lower back health, such as engaging in activities that stimulate the vagus nerve, stretching exercises, relaxation techniques, and more.
When our hip area is supported, everything else flows better: digestion, sleep, energy, and even emotional balance.
Join me to explore how chronic stress may be affecting this area of your body.
Are you ready to unlock the hidden key to your health and vitality?
Rather read the transcript?
here it is…
Do you ever feel like your body is holding onto tension no matter what you do?
This week, we’re unlocking the hidden connection between our hips, lower back, and our nervous system, and why this overlooked area could be the key to your better sleep, energy, and emotional balance for you.
You can imagine your body as a finely tuned orchestra where the instruments harmonise to create beautiful music. Our hips act as the conductor, coordinating movement, posture, signals between our upper and lower body, and even our emotions.
When our hips are open, supported, and in sync, the whole system flows, and our entire body performs effortlessly. But when they’re out of tune, uptight, unstable, or energetically depleted, the discord can show up as tension, pain, or emotional imbalance.
Hello and welcome. I’m Sarah Gowans, remedial massage, craniosacral therapist and emotional integration facilitator at BlossomingMe and the Healthy Learning Lounge.
Here we are a sanctuary for you to tap into and nurture your journey to health, wellbeing, and a positive mindset. We focus on helping you to clear stresses, tensions, and blocks that can hold you back from living your most fulfilling life.
In this opening week of our series, we’ll explore the intricate anatomy of our hips, their profound connection with our nervous system, how our pelvic girdle, lower back, and legs interact with our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, as well as both branches of our vagus nerve. And because we’re here at the start of winter here in Australia, and the Southern hemisphere will also touch on the traditional Chinese medicine, TCM wisdom, which sees the area of our hips and lower back as the home of our kidney meridian, our body’s energetic battery pack.
This is the first step toward unlocking a more balanced and vibrant you.
The pelvic girdle, our body’s central support system
We can think of our pelvic girdle as the foundation of a house. If it’s unstable, everything above it is at risk. This ring of bones, our pelvic girdle, hip bones, sacrum, and coccyx support our spine, anchors our legs, and holds our key organs. It’s a biomechanical powerhouse, yes, but it’s also an energetic hub.
This structure facilitates our ability to move and protects our vital organs, like our bladder and reproductive organs. Its stability is crucial for maintaining our posture as well as our balance.
And in TCM, our kidneys, which reside in our lower back, are said to store our vital essence. When we feel chronically depleted or tense in this area, it may not just be muscular. It could be our body’s way of asking for nurturing and deeper nourishment,
The sympathetic nerve chain, our body’s stress highway
Have you ever wondered why stress often leads to tight hips?
The answer lies in our body’s built-in alarm system. The sympathetic nervous system, SNS for short, part of our autonomic nervous system prepares our body for fight or flight responses.
This sympathetic chain is a series of nerve fiber bundles that run alongside each side of our spine. All the way from our head to our tailbone, and influence various body functions. Chronic activation of our sympathetic nervous system can lead to muscle tension. Particularly in our hips and lower back, as the body, readiness and hyper alertness.
The vagus nerve, which bridges our body and our mind
Could the key to our emotional balance and regulation be nestled deep within our core?
Our vagus nerve plays a pivotal role in our parasympathetic nervous system, supporting our body’s rest and digest functions. There are two main branches of the vagus nerve. The ventral vagal branch fosters safety, supports relaxation, and promotes social connection and engagement. While the dorsal vagal branch triggers the freeze response, reacting to stress and overwhelm by shutting our whole body down.
The vagus nerve extends from our brainstem. Through our neck and chest, all the way down our abdomen, and it touches nearly every major system of our body, including heart rate, respiration, digestion, and even mood. Its path near the heart, diaphragm, spine, gut, and pelvic organs makes the hips a crucial access point for restoring balance to our whole body.
The lower back and hip pain, the hidden connection
Is your lower back pain actually stemming from your hips?
The interconnectedness of our hips and lower back means that dysfunction in one area often affects the other. Conditions, like a dysfunction of the sacroiliac joint or osteoarthritis of our hips can lead to compensated movements and strain in our lower back. And this can result in pain and reduced mobility.
Hips, Energy, and Winter – TCM Wisdom
Why do the hips and lower back feel extra sensitive during winter?
In TCM, winter is ruled by the water element, which corresponds to the kidney and bladder meridian channels. This system governs our core vitality, our deep energy reserve. The kidneys are associated with fear, willpower, and our body’s capacity to recover from stress. Cold, overwork or emotional strain can deplete our kidney chi or energy.
Often showing up as tension or pain in our lower back and hips.
TeachMe Anatomy notes that our sympathetic nervous system dominates during periods of high stress and urgency, rapidly preparing our body for intense physical activity. Research also indicates that vagus nerve stimulation can help modulate pain signals and reduce inflammation. Contributing then, to our overall wellbeing.
Some practical tips:
“Activating the vagus nerve can shift our body from stress to calm, disconnection to connection” says neuroscientist, Dr. Steven Porges.
So to help you further, here are a few things that might help you this winter.
- Engaging in activities that stimulate our vagus nerve, such as humming, singing, or yoga, can each enhance our parasympathetic nervous system activity. Regular stretching and strengthening exercises, such as yoga, with exercises like bridges and pelvic tilts, can help maintain our stability, flexibility, and strength in our hips and lower back, our core, and pelvic floor muscles.
- Relaxation techniques like deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation meditations can also help settle our sympathetic nervous system overactivity.
- And one final thing to remember this winter is to keep our lower back warm, with a hot water bottle or a heat pack, or even a tucked-in shirt to protect our kidney meridian energy. Because as TCM practitioner Katie Brindle says, “the kidneys are our, the kidneys are our wellspring of vitality”.
In conclusion, our hips are more than just a physical hinge
They are a central hub for stress, movement, energy and emotion under the intricate relationship between our hips. And nervous system is crucial for addressing both our physical comfort and our emotional wellbeing. From a Western anatomical lens to Eastern energetic maps, the message is the same. By recognising the hips as a central hub, connecting our vital body systems, we can take proactive steps to support this area. Impacting our entire system and enhancing our overall health.
To help you even more
And to help you even more, I’ve created a video: “Meridian Magic” for easy meridian brushing through your Bladder, Gallbladder, and Triple Heater meridians. To help reduce your anxiety and your hip or back pain! Click this link: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/form/chwfqiGavmB85GE6U3Aa
And stay tuned for next week’s installment, where we’ll delve deeper into how these connections influence our emotional state, energy levels, and our ability to connect with ourselves and with others.
I hope you, found value in today’s video, and if you did, please like and share it. And join us next time for more tips to nurture your health, wellbeing, and positive mindset so that you can keep living your most fulfilling life.
From my heart to yours, Namaste.
Sarah xx
At Blossoming Me, we’ve worked with so many people who feel stuck in cycles of pain and frustration. But the key to lasting relief often starts with understanding your body, not just where you hurt, but why.
Book your appointment here:
About Blossoming Me
BlossomingMe offers a fully integrated approach to your wellbeing. Located on Sydney’s Upper North Shore. Sarah is our Cranio-sacral and Remedial Massage Therapist and health and lifestyle coach. She can help relieve those problematic knots, tightness and other specific ailments to promote a healthy recovery. These complementary massage therapies can be combined to suit your needs, and include: craniosacral therapy, shiatsu, acupressure, reiki, remedial, swedish, and body-mind-massage.
Our qualified Osteopath, Alexis, offers a drug free, minimally invasive, “hands on” treatment focusing on the musculoskeletal system with its associated muscles, tendons, ligaments, membranes, bones and joints. Alexis takes a functional approach. This means that she focuses on the way a component (body part, tissue or group of tissues) performs its role, as well as the way the body works, performs and integrates as a whole. Our team can support you to improve your posture and therefore your overall health.
ional advice or care. Please seek the advice of a qualified health professional before you make any changes to your health regime, before dealing with new symptoms, and, if something you have read here has raised any questions or concerns regarding your situation.