Can a simple toilet stool help to prevent constipation, haemorrhoids and colon cancer?
We recently bought a toilet stool so our son could climb onto the throne by himself and half-joking, to try ourselves. We didn’t buy the infamous ‘Squatty Potty’ (we’d never heard of it back then) but a similar model that I like to call the Squeeze Easy.
Although I’d never thought about using a one before, now in my 40s I’m open to anything that might make my life a bit easier and a bit more fun. (I don’t get out very often these days).
A bit of research and practice later and I’m hooked.
As it turns out, using a toilet stool may actually be really good for us and our bowels! Here’s all you need to know about recreating the good old fashioned squatting technique – after all, it’s how we used to do it.
And you thought the 21st Century would be all about flying cars!
Squatting technique
Squatting is one of those things that we in the west just don’t do anymore. We have sofas, chairs and toilets.
From childhood, we’re taught how to use a toilet as soon as we’re done with the potty – much more sophisticated you see – thus unlearning the natural squatting position. I mean, when was the last time you had a good squat?
Yet, travel anywhere within Asia or India and you’ll still see many people squatting as a way of casually hanging out.
Squatting is how we humans were designed to go to the toilet and is indeed one of the most natural things in the world.
Cavemen did it. Kings and Queens did it, even your Great, Great Granny did it.
Thomas Crapper – He really did invent the toilet
Until that is, Thomas Crapper designed and built the first porcelain loo in the 1880s (no joke, look it up).
Fast forward to today and we’re lost without the comfort of a good clean seat and a quiet room. Ahhhhh.
But as with all things modern. That doesn’t necessarily mean better.
Muscles
In the gym, squatting is a compound exercise, meaning it uses more than just one set of muscles or joints at once.
Your core (abs and lower back), hamstrings (back of your legs), glutes (bum) and quads (thighs) will all be utilised in a squat position and if you’re not practising this regularly then these muscles are going to become less necessary and weaker.
However, for those who squat every time they go to the bathroom, those muscles are being practised daily making them much stronger and comfortable to use.
Crapper may have made us more comfortable and refined with his porcelain invention, but he also made us lazy and potentially affected the way in which our colon is used.
Squatting on the road
Over the past decade, my wife and I spent about four years travelling the world, much of it in Asia, India, Central and South America and so we experienced a lot of squatting and squat toilets.
If you’re not au fait with a squat toilet, they look like this. However, hardly ever as clean as this one.
Man, they were hard to use and sometimes I’d be constipated for days until I got to a good old Crapper.
My system just wasn’t used to it, you see.
I’ve been trained to sit like a King whilst laying the cable. At first, I couldn’t squeeze a drop out.
You might think that it got easier, but it didn’t. We simply got by as best we could until we encountered a good old western style John, where we could let it all out.
Oh, the relief…
The best of both worlds
Now, as a regular toilet stool user, I believe that it’s the perfect crossover between the two positions – the squat and the seated position.
With the (potential) benefits of a natural and healthy squat plus the ease and comfort of a western toilet, you can’t go wrong.
The science of using a toilet stool
According to SquattyPotty.com sitting on a regular toilet seat creates an “anorectal angle” which puts “upward pressure on the rectum, which creates the need to STRAIN in order to eliminate”.
We’ve been doing it all wrong!
They go on to compare the regular ‘Crapper’ toilet posture to a “kinked garden hose” with that of a straight hose which will naturally, spray more freely, quickly and completely (see illustration below).
In an interview with Men’s Health magazine, Squatty Potty creator, Robert Edwards claimed that “Squatting rather than sitting could help prevent things like constipation, haemorrhoids, colon cancer, appendicitis, IBS, hernias, diverticulosis, and pelvic organ prolapse.”.
You may find those claims hard to believe and in the same Men’s Health article Dr. Darren Brenner, a specialist in gastroenterology takes those claims with a pinch of salt, however, he doesn’t discount that using a toilet stool may be beneficial to colon health.
“It’s a harmless, potentially healthy sort of thing.” – Dr. Darren Brenner.
Raving reviews
However, you only have to scan the customer reviews on Amazon to see that most paying customers are raving about the benefits.
A. Dixon writes, “It gives me a feeling in my bowels as if I have found God and that I have expelled some almighty demon from myself.”
I don’t think a review can get much better than that. I leave that there.
How it works
A toilet stool waits patiently at the base of your toilet for you to get the urge, at which point you simply pull it out a little bit, plant yourself down as per usual, put your feet up on the step (so that your knees come up above your hips) and lean forward a bit to create a natural squat position.
Then you wait for nature to take its course and marvel at the speed and ease at which you just passed.
Like an Olympic diver. A triple pike and in with barely a splash. Okay, I made that bit up. It can’t turn your turd into an Olympic athlete.
Should you get a toilet stool or are they full of shit?
Here are my thoughts…
If a toilet stool really is going to keep our bowels healthy and as it is the most natural way. Then why not?
It’s hardly going to break the bank (unless you want the bamboo version) and even in our tiny bathroom, it curves around the toilet so well that we barely notice it.
You get all the comfort of your regular porcelain loo plus the (potential) health benefits of squatting without the trouble of actually getting down into a position that will make it difficult to check your phone.
Personally, it makes me feel a bit like a caveman too and I can still play the guitar on there, so our Squeeze Easy will definitely be staying.
Expel your own demons
If you fancy “expelling some almighty demons” yourself, you can buy the infamous Squatty Potty on AmazonUK or AmazonUS.
Happy crapping, cavemen.
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