Sitting properly when you’re on the toilet to do your business is just as consequential as, say, sitting up straight at your desk. Alicia Jeffrey-Thomas, PT, DPT, a pelvic floor physical therapist, says learning how to sit on the toilet with proper posture can promote bladder health and help your stream come more easily (no, really). How To Sit on the Toilet Properly “The proper position should be to fully sit with the knees slightly elevated. This opens up the angle of the pelvic floor muscles, opening the pelvic diaphragm,” says Maude Carmel, MD, an associate professor in the department of urology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. “This will make the evacuation of the bladder and rectum much easier. Common mistakes are squatting position and not fully sitting on the toilet.” Below, you’ll find a handful of tips for how…
Here’s Why Rocking Back and Forth To Poop Actually Works, According to Pelvic Floor Therapists
There’s nothing worse than feeling like you have to poop, only to spend 15 fruitless minutes on the toilet squeezing every muscle you can think of to move things along. As you watch the seconds tick by, it can be tempting to try just about any technique to speed up the process and get on with your day (especially since experts recommend limiting your toilet time to 5 minutes or less). This is when rocking back and forth to poop sometimes enters the picture—and for good reason. “Rocking can, at times, help with bowel evacuation,” says Melissa L McElroy, PT, WCS, a pelvic health specialist at ProRehab in Louisville, Kentucky. For one, it encourages voluntary relaxation of the pelvic floor, which will improve the sphincter‘s ability to open and allow passage of stool, says Julia Connolly, PT, DPT, an orthopedic…