How often do you poop?

Hey everyone,

What a title! Although a incredibly important facet of human function it is a topic that not many of us are willing to talk about. How many times we go to the bathroom a day and how long food takes to go from mouth to anus tells us a lot of information about the general state of our digestive tract.

Ideally, according to Bernard Jensen, a naturopathic researcher we should have 3 bowel movements a day. The stool should be brown, float, no visible food remains and not smell foul. If your stool smells foul, has visible food or streaks the bowl, it indicated that you are in a degree of digestive distress.

Food should not reside in the digestive tract for a long time. If food is left in the digestive tract for too long, proteins will putrefy, carbohydrates will ferment and fats will go rancid. Not an ideal situation! Accoding to Dennis Burkitt, the ideal transit time (time from mouth to anus) should be around 16-24 hours. Many people take around 56 to 72 hours for food to leave the body.

To help these processes out, there are a few practical steps you could take. When you wake up, it is ideal to drink 1-2 glasses of clean, room temperature water and go sit on the toilet. This will train your body to have a bowel movement in the morning and the water will encourage peristalsis (the contraction of the large intestine). If you wake up between 5-7am this is ideal because according to Chinese medicine this is the peak time for the large intestine. Sitting at the toilet about 20-30 minutes after each meal will also help entrain this system. Also, when the urge comes, do not suppress it! This will entrain the body to hold and cause cause problems with the colon.

I hope this simple advice will help improve your health and demystifies what your toilet habits should be!!!

In Good Health

Paul