Are you sitting down for this?
Well, don't. Parking your butt on the toilet reportedly makes it harder to poop. You need to squat instead, according to a recent video by Business Insider.
Sitting creates a difficult angle for your waste to travel through, because the puborectalis muscle chokes the rectum, the video says. That apparently makes you strain and increases pressure on your abdomen.
Squatting is the more natural position, and the stopwatch proves it, too, according to the clip. Business Insider cited a 2003 Israeli study in which squatters evacuated their bowels in 51 seconds, while those who sat on a high toilet did it in 130 seconds.
Of course B.I. isn't the first to tell us we should be reverting to a more old-fashioned way of defecation. As proctologist Michael Freilich once proclaimed: "We were not meant to sit on toilets. We were meant to squat in the field."
The notion that the squat is more efficient gained momentum in the 1960s and '70s, Slate noted. "The ideal posture for defecation is the squatting position, with the thighs fixed upon the abdomen," declared the 1964 medical text "Gastroenterology."
Other than ripping out your current porcelain throne to leave room to squat, products like the Squatty Potty help you replicate the position while you're still on the commode.
We can perhaps partially blame Sir John Harington for our toilet posture problem. Encyclopedia Brittanica credits him with the invention of the flush toilet in the late 1500s.
Progress, eh?
H/T Design Taxi
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