College of DuPage Nursing Student Nicholaus Coritana shared with Healthy Lombard that the moment you take your first bite into that slice of toast in the morning or that first sip of hot black coffee, you have signed one of the most important natural contracts of nature in accordance with your body: pooping. Or at least soon-to-be defecation, given that what comes in, must eventually come out. Nevertheless, such a common and natural event we all share and partake in is also unfortunately an area that requires much intervention; for the sake of maintaining a healthy gut of course. As important as it sounds, this intervention has little to do with what we expel from our bodies, but rather how we expel them. It’s as simple as how we choose to position ourselves when we sit and do our business that has an enormous impact on our overall digestive health.

Most Americans follow a similar way of sitting on the toilet; both feet planted flat on the floor with the knees and hips in a 90-degree fashion and sitting upright or slightly bent over. The issue with this posture is that it does not utilize our abdominal muscles and organs in an optimal way to defecate. This position causes unnecessary straining and even more so, overexertion of the pelvic muscles which can lead to several complications. Straining during defecation is one of the leading causes of hemorrhoids; swollen and inflamed veins around the anus or lower rectum, affecting nearly 1 in 20 people in the US (NIDDK, 2016). This same straining is also responsible for conditions such as chronic constipation, rectal bleeding, irritable bowel syndrome, and several other gastrointestinal related issues (Cleveland Clinic, 2021) Read more