Causes of an inguinal hernia:

#1 – Poor pelvic posture (usually anterior pelvic tilt)
#2 – Weak muscles surrounding the inguinal canal
#3 – A diet that causes gas, bloating, and/or constipation
#4 – Poor Mobility and flexibility in the hips (especially the psoas)
#5 – Stress / tension caused by repressed emotions (especially anger)

What Causes an Inguinal Hernia? A hernia is a protrusion of an organ or tissue through the wall that usually contains it. Inguinal hernias are the most common variety of hernias. They take their name from the inguinal canal, which is where they form by pushing through a weak spot in muscles around your groin. Hernia symptoms vary depending on their size. They often include discomfort in your lower abdomen and groin area as well as pain when you cough or sneeze. There is usually also a lump that will protrude from behind the abdominal wall.

Over five years ago I developed an inguinal hernia. Being that I’m an all-natural type of guy, I didn’t want to take a surgical intervention. So I started my journey toward finding a natural cure. I started writing on this blog, posting videos on my youtube channel, and posting on Facebook and Instagram. Through those channels, I began talking to thousands of other people with inguinal hernias. What I noticed after talking to so many people is that there were five commonalities that almost everyone had at least a few of. I later came to realize that these five commonalities were the root underlying causes of the hernia. I realized that if I could fix these five root causes, I could fix my hernia without surgery.

#1 – Poor pelvic posture (usually anterior pelvic tilt)

Anterior pelvic tilt is when your pelvis is tilted a bit too far to the front of your body. This causes your butt to poke out toward the back and your stomach to poke out toward the front. The reason this usually happens is because of tight hip flexor muscles, weak hamstrings, or both. This was one of the first commonalities I found between those that suffer from an inguinal hernia and the first thing that I started to work on to fix. Many people that have APT have back pain also, which I had as well.

The reason that this is so important is If your pelvis is not in the correct position, it will cause undue tension on the muscles that comprise the inguinal canal, deforming it to a point that it can no longer hold the abdominal contents in place. Therefore, the pelvis must be in the correct position to hold the hernia contents back inside the abdomen.

#2 – Weak muscles surrounding the inguinal canal

In the time that I have been studying inguinal hernias, I have watched many hernia surgery videos. There is a common thing that I have heard the doctors say in many of them. It’s that the inguinal wall (which is the transversus abdominis muscle) is very weak and flabby. Also, the muscle arch fibers of the internal oblique are weak and flabby, and will not contract when the patient is asked to cough. The transversus abdominis is the inner sheath of abdominal muscles that lie under the rectus abdominis (the six-pack muscles). It wraps around your body from your spine on the right side to your spine on the left side.

Shows the location of the transversus abdominis muscle which makes up the inguinal canal where a hernia forms

It attaches to the inguinal ligament at the bottom front and the bottom of your ribs at the top front. View the video below to get a better idea of the anatomy of the inguinal region, and to see how a hernia pushes through the inguinal canal.:

So as you can see if you can strengthen those muscles (TA, IO, and OO) they will be able to hold back the abdominal contents. The problem is that to do this you would have to relieve the internal pressure that is pushing the abdominal contents (your guts) against the muscles constantly from the inside. This is done by fixing cause #3, eating a diet relieving you of excessive gas, bloating, and constipation.

#3 – A diet that causes gas, bloating, and/or constipation

You cannot think of the causes of an inguinal hernia without thinking about your diet. Does your diet consist of foods that create excess gas in your intestines, bloating in your stomach or constipation? If so, this is contributing to the pressure that you feel when your hernia is protruding. When your organs are full of gas, the pressure is naturally going to follow the path of least resistance, which is the weakness in the muscles surrounding the inguinal canal. If you can stop that from happening you will alleviate the pressure from the inside that is being exerted on the muscles. This reduction in pressure will stop the inguinal ring from spreading open, and while you strengthen the muscles, will make the hernia stay in on its own much easier.

#4 – Poor Mobility and flexibility in the hips (especially the psoas)

This cause of an inguinal hernia ties back to cause #1 a bit because if you have poor mobility and flexibility in your hips, your muscles are going to be pulling on your pelvis in ways that they should not, and it will make it much harder to keep the correct pelvic posture. Also, this is where the Psoas muscle comes in.

What is the psoas you ask? It is the only muscle that connects the top half to the bottom half of your body. All other muscles, either in the upper body or lower body, stop and connect at the pelvis. And you’ll never guess the path that this muscle takes to get from the upper body to the lower body………..

Directly behind the inguinal ligament and adjacent to the inguinal canal. It is considered one of your hip flexors and connects at the Femur (Thighbone) at the lowest point. It then runs up behind the inguinal canal and connects to the lower vertebrae of the spine. It’s one of the main muscles that help you stand upright.

Shows the psoas muscle. When under tension it becomes one of the causes of an inguinal hernia

So if the psoas is under constant tension being pulled like a rubber band, it is creating extra space in the inguinal region. If there is extra space in the inguinal canal, weak muscles surrounding the inguinal canal, and excess gas or bloating in your stomach and intestines, you can easily see how this is a recipe for disaster.

How can you make sure that the psoas muscle is not under undue stress creating extra space in the inguinal canal? The number one way is by relieving STRESS! which is one of the causes of an inguinal hernia that I will talk about next.

#5 – Stress / tension caused by repressed emotions

This is a tricky subject to explain. It would take an entire post or two for me to go into how I was able to deal with the repressed emotions being held in the unconscious mind that was causing tension in my psoas muscle, which in turn was causing my hernia to poke out.

The thing you need to understand is that stress and repressed emotions (usually repressed feelings of anger) cause tension in the body. Your unconscious mind will also cause physical symptoms in your body as a defense mechanism. This happens so that you do not bring those repressed emotions into the conscious mind. It’s your unconscious mind’s way of protecting you from mental pain. Think about a time when you had to do something that made you extremely nervous. All of a sudden your body creates the physical symptoms of a racing heart, sweating, shivering hands, etc. This is your unconscious mind causing physical symptoms as a defense mechanism to protect your conscious mind from feeling nervous. The same thing happens with your hernia, but it is a more long-term effect of deep-rooted emotions locked away in your unconscious mind.

I suffered from severe, and sometimes debilitating back pain for my entire adult life until I learned this from a book called “Healing Back Pain – The Mind Body Connection” by Dr. John Sarno. Once I figured this out, my back pain has completely gone away. Once I realized that I could apply this to my hernia as well, along with fixing the other four causes of an inguinal hernia, my hernia no longer pokes out.