Dr. Trisha Pasricha

And eating enough fiber is something that 95% of Americans are not doing.

And we know that that's something that will be associated with lowering our risk of dementia, lowering our risk of heart attacks, lowering our risk of colorectal cancer.

So even if you don't have GI symptoms, being regular, eating a high fiber diet is really, really important for you.

Yes.

So most people go to their toilet and they sit down at this 90 degree angle, which is pretty much exactly how we sit when we're sitting at our desk chair, sitting on our couch.

And that's not conducive to a healthy bowel movement.

Like our modern toilets are not designed for our actual anatomy.

Now, remember, you think about the colon, which is this long tube,

And at the end, I mentioned there's this part of the colon called the rectum, which is this reservoir.

Well, we all have this thing called the pelvic floor, which is this set of muscles that are right there at the finish line, and they have to coordinate and contract and relax in this right sequence in order for everything to exit.

Well, actually, there is this muscle in the pelvic floor.

It's called the puborectalis muscle, which when we are sitting like we are at our desk chairs, it

chokes the colon shut it acts like a sling around it almost like your body stepping on its own hose and that's a good thing when we're at work and we're like just trying to type this email but you really don't want that tube to be kinked when you're trying to poop and that's exactly what happens now the way that you can open that tube and relax that muscle is to squat and

Keep something around the toilet that will help you elevate your knees above your waist when you go.

And that could be a stool.

It could be a box.

It could be a pair of stilettos.

Whatever it takes, just elevate your knees as much as you can above your waist.

And they've done these studies that...

Obviously, not only is this very helpful to people who know that they have constipation, who experience constipation, but actually even healthy people, like that group of people who think they're doing it just fine, who are just living their lives.