Dr. Trisha Pasricha

Was it hard?

Did I strain?

Is the consistency rock solid or is it soft and floating?

All of these pieces of information tell you about how your gut is functioning as a brain, as an immune organ, as a hormone producing organ, and that has an influence on your entire health.

For me, a normal bowel movement has to do just two things.

One, it should be effortless.

You shouldn't have to be straining.

You shouldn't spend 20 minutes in there sweating, straining your eyeballs out.

Two, it should occur at a socially appropriate time.

Meaning you shouldn't be worried about going out to have lunch with your girlfriends.

You shouldn't be at work panicking when you're in the middle of a meeting and then not being able to give your presentation because of this.

You'll notice for me, I didn't say your bowel movement has to be once a day.

And that's what everybody seems to have in their mind.

Like once a day, we have it in our minds that this is holy.

This is like the only path to God.

It doesn't have to be that way.

There is a whole range of what would be considered normal in terms of frequency.

So my colleagues at Beth Israel did a study where they looked at this national sample of Americans who thought they had normal bowel movements and just said, well, how many times are you going?

And it turns out anywhere from three times in one day to once every three days.

is in the range of normal.