Most of these protesters, though, have never tried it themselves and therefore don’t fully understand the methods or benefits of using jade eggs to strengthen the pelvic floor. Fortunately, mindbodygreen tapped several holistic health experts to discuss the pros and cons of using jade eggs. Leave no stone (or egg, in this case) unturned, as they say! First, for those of you who don’t know what we’re talking about, let us explain: Jade egg practices are part of ancient Taoist sexual yoga methodology designed to help strengthen and tone the vaginal and pelvic floor muscles. The pelvic floor is a hammock-shaped muscle structure at the base of the pelvis. The pelvic floor supports our organs, helps us control retention and excretion through our lower end, and is intricately participative in our sexual pleasure and orgasms. Just like any other striated musculature, it is important to exercise the pelvic floor to maintain optimum health and function. Weight-lifting exercises can be applied to any striated musculature to improve its strength. The most commonly recognized way of exercising the pelvic floor muscles is through Kegels or vaginal weight lifting. But those aren’t the only options. Unlike Kegels, practicing with a jade egg addresses the interplay of the breath and the pranas (energies) of the pelvic region. Our pelvic floor musculature lifts or contracts against added resistance each time we sneeze, jump, cough, and laugh because our abdominal pressure increases during these activities. If we leak urine during any of these activities, it’s a sign that our pelvic floor is not able to contract fast enough and strongly enough to withstand the increased abdominal pressure. This condition is called stress urinary incontinence and affects one in three women. And the aging process weakens the pelvic floor musculature, just like any other musculature, unless we do regular strength training. Vaginal weight-lifting practices are especially recommended to redevelop the muscular tone of the vagina and pelvic floor and before giving birth to ease labor and to create a solid foundation to regain strength after the strain of pregnancy and labor. Many women have found that these exercises help relieve vaginal pain and dryness, and many menopausal women find that the exercises have helped them to naturally increase lubrication. This is what makes the practice holistic—meaning that it benefits both the physical body and the energetic body. Holistic healing is common in Eastern traditions and is very much in alignment with the theory behind acupuncture, reflexology, Tibetan medicine, and Ayurveda. But these practices were traditionally taught as a specific style of yoga, and qualified practitioners usually recommend using them for anywhere between 20 minutes and an hour. During this time, you should be doing specific pelvic floor practices in conjunction with the jade egg. The traditional approach is similar to vaginal weight-lifting exercises currently recommended by pelvic floor specialists today. Depending on the size of your jade egg, there can be an issue with retrieving them if you have a retroflexed uterus, simply because the egg can get trapped between the cervix and the posterior (back) wall of the vagina. To avoid this issue, we recommend using jade eggs that are drilled at one end, so you can tie a thread or string through them to pull them out when you are done.
