Why do I poo in the morning? A gut expert explains

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No, you’re not imagining it. People really are more likely to poo in the morning, shortly after breakfast. Researchers have actually studied this.

But why mornings? What if you tend to poo later in the day? And is it worth training yourself to be a morning pooper?

To understand what makes us poo when we do, we need to consider a range of factors including our body clock, gut muscles and what we have for breakfast.

Here’s what the science says.

H_Ko/Shutterstock

So morning poos are real?

In a UK study from the early 1990s, researchers asked nearly 2,000 men and women in Bristol about their bowel habits.

The most common time to poo was in the early morning. The peak time was 7-8am for men and about an hour later for women. The researchers speculated that the earlier time for men was because they woke up earlier for work.

About a decade later, a Chinese study found a similar pattern. Some 77% of the almost 2,500 participants said they did a poo in the morning.

But why the morning?

There are a few reasons. The first involves our circadian rhythm – our 24-hour internal clock that helps regulate bodily processes, such as digestion.

For healthy people, our internal clock means the muscular contractions in our colon follow a distinct rhythm.

There’s minimal activity in the night. The deeper and more restful our sleep, the fewer of these muscle contractions we have. It’s one reason why we don’t tend to poo in our sleep.

Diagram of digestive system including colon and rectum
Your lower gut is a muscular tube that contracts more strongly at certain times of day. Vectomart/Shutterstock

But there’s increasing activity during the day. Contractions in our colon are most active in the morning after waking up and after any meal.

One particular type of colon contraction partly controlled by our internal clock are known as “mass movements”. These are powerful contractions that push poo down to the rectum to prepare for the poo to be expelled from the body, but don’t always result in a bowel movement. In healthy people, these contractions occur a few times a day. They are more frequent in the morning than in the evening, and after meals.

Breakfast is also a trigger for us to poo. When we eat and drink our stomach stretches, which triggers the “gastrocolic reflex”. This reflex stimulates the colon to forcefully contract and can lead you to push existing poo in the colon out of the body. We know the gastrocolic reflex is strongest in the morning. So that explains why breakfast can be such a powerful trigger for a bowel motion.

Then there’s our morning coffee. This is a very powerful stimulant of contractions in the sigmoid colon (the last part of the colon before the rectum) and of the rectum itself. This leads to a bowel motion.

How important are morning poos?

Large international surveys show the vast majority of people will poo between three times a day and three times a week.

This still leaves a lot of people who don’t have regular bowel habits, are regular but poo at different frequencies, or who don’t always poo in the morning.

So if you’re healthy, it’s much more important that your bowel habits are comfortable and regular for you. Bowel motions do not have to occur once a day in the morning.

Morning poos are also not a good thing for everyone. Some people with irritable bowel syndrome feel the urgent need to poo in the morning – often several times after getting up, during and after breakfast. This can be quite distressing. It appears this early-morning rush to poo is due to overstimulation of colon contractions in the morning.

Can you train yourself to be regular?

Yes, for example, to help treat constipation using the gastrocolic reflex. Children and elderly people with constipation can use the toilet immediately after eating breakfast to relieve symptoms. And for adults with constipation, drinking coffee regularly can help stimulate the gut, particularly in the morning.

A disturbed circadian rhythm can also lead to irregular bowel motions and people more likely to poo in the evenings. So better sleep habits can not only help people get a better night’s sleep, it can help them get into a more regular bowel routine.

Man preparing Italian style coffee at home, adding coffee to pot
A regular morning coffee can help relieve constipation. Caterina Trimarchi/Shutterstock

Regular physical activity and avoiding sitting down a lot are also important in stimulating bowel movements, particularly in people with constipation.

We know stress can contribute to irregular bowel habits. So minimising stress and focusing on relaxation can help bowel habits become more regular.

Fibre from fruits and vegetables also helps make bowel motions more regular.

Finally, ensuring adequate hydration helps minimise the chance of developing constipation, and helps make bowel motions more regular.

Monitoring your bowel habits

Most of us consider pooing in the morning to be regular. But there’s a wide variation in normal so don’t be concerned if your poos don’t follow this pattern. It’s more important your poos are comfortable and regular for you.

If there’s a major change in the regularity of your bowel habits that’s concerning you, see your GP. The reason might be as simple as a change in diet or starting a new medication.

But sometimes this can signify an important change in the health of your gut. So your GP may need to arrange further investigations, which could include blood tests or imaging.

Vincent Ho, Associate Professor and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • ‘Free birthing’ and planned home births might sound similar but the risks are very different

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The death of premature twins in Byron Bay in an apparent “wild birth”, or free birth, last week has prompted fresh concerns about giving birth without a midwife or medical assistance.

    This follows another case from Victoria this year, where a baby was born in a critical condition following a reported free birth.

    It’s unclear how common free birthing is, as data is not collected, but there is some evidence free births increased during the COVID pandemic.

    Planned home births also became more popular during the pandemic, as women preferred to stay away from hospitals and wanted their support people with them.

    But while free births and home births might sound similar, they are a very different practice, with free births much riskier. So what’s the difference, and why might people opt for a free birth?

    What are home births?

    Planned home births involve care from midwives, who are registered experts in childbirth, in a woman’s home.

    These registered midwives work privately, or are part of around 20 publicly funded home birth programs nationally that are attached to hospitals.

    They provide care during the pregnancy, labour and birth, and in the first six weeks following the birth.

    The research shows that for women with low risk pregnancies, planned home births attended by competent midwives (with links to a responsive mainstream maternity system) are safe.

    Home births result in less intervention than hospital births and women perceive their experience more positively.

    What are free births?

    A free birth is when a woman chooses to have a baby, usually at home, without a registered health professional such as a midwife or doctor in attendance.

    Different terms such as unassisted birth or wild pregnancy or birth are also used to refer to free birth.

    The parents may hire an unregulated birth worker or doula to be a support at the birth but they do not have the training or medical equipment needed to manage emergencies.

    Women may have limited or no health care antenatally, meaning risk factors such as twins and breech presentations (the baby coming bottom first) are not detected beforehand and given the right kind of specialist care.

    Why do some people choose to free birth?

    We have been studying the reasons women and their partners choose to free birth for more than a decade. We found a previous traumatic birth and/or feeling coerced into choices that are not what the woman wants were the main drivers for avoiding mainstream maternity care.

    Australia’s childbirth intervention rates – for induction or augmentation of labour, episiotomy (cutting the tissue between the vaginal opening and the anus) and caesarean section – are comparatively high.

    One in ten women report disrespectful or abusive care in childbirth and some decide to make different choices for future births.

    Lack of options for a natural birth and birth choices such as home birth or birth centre birth also played a major role in women’s decision to free birth.

    Publicly funded home birth programs have very strict criteria around who can be accepted into the program, excluding many women.

    In other countries such as the United Kingdom, Netherlands and New Zealand, publicly funded home births are easier to access.

    Newborn baby holds their parent's finger
    It can be difficult to access home birth services in Australia.
    Ink Drop/Shutterstock

    Only around 200 midwives provide private midwifery services for home births nationally. Private midwives are yet to obtain insurance for home births, which means they are risking their livelihoods if something goes wrong and they are sued.

    The cost of a home birth with a private midwife is not covered by Medicare and only some health funds rebate some of the cost. This means women can be out of pocket A$6-8,000.

    Access to home birth is an even greater issue in rural and remote Australia.

    How to make mainstream care more inclusive

    Many women feel constrained by their birth choices in Australia. After years of research and listening to thousands of women, it’s clear more can be done to reduce the desire to free birth.

    As my co-authors and I outline in our book, Birthing Outside the System: The Canary in the Coal Mine, this can be achieved by:

    • making respectful care a reality so women aren’t traumatised and alienated by maternity care and want to engage with it
    • supporting midwifery care. Women are seeking more physiological and social ways of birthing, minimising birth interventions, and midwives are the experts in this space
    • supporting women’s access to their chosen place of birth and model of care and not limiting choice with high out-of-pocket expenses
    • providing more flexible, acceptable options for women experiencing risk factors during pregnancy and/or birth, such as having a previous caesarean birth, having twins or having a baby in breech position. Women experiencing these complications experience pressure to have a caesarean section
    • getting the framework right with policies, guidelines, education, research, regulation and professional leadership.

    Ensuring women’s rights and choices are informed and respected means they’re less likely to feel they’re left with no other option.The Conversation

    Hannah Dahlen, Professor of Midwifery, Associate Dean Research and HDR, Midwifery Discipline Leader, Western Sydney University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Do We Need Sunscreen In Winter, Really?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small 😎

    ❝I keep seeing advice that we shoudl wear sunscreen out in winter even if it’s not hot or sunny, but is there actually any real benefit to this?❞

    Short answer: yes (but it’s indeed not as critical as it is during summer’s hot/sunny days)

    Longer answer: first, let’s examine the physics of summer vs winter when it comes to the sun…

    In summer (assuming we live far enough from the equator to have this kind of seasonal variation), the part of the planet where we live is tilted more towards the sun. This makes it closer, and more importantly, it’s more directly overhead during the day. The difference in distance through space isn’t as big a deal as the difference in distance through the atmosphere. When the sun is more directly overhead, its rays have a shorter path through our atmosphere, and thus less chance of being blocked by cloud cover / refracted elsewhere / bounced back off into space before it even gets that far.

    In winter, the opposite of all that is true.

    Morning/evening also somewhat replicate this compared to midday, because the sun being lower in the sky has a similar effect to seasonal variation causing it to be less directly overhead.

    For this reason, even though visually the sun may be just as bright on a winter morning as it is on a summer midday, the rays have been filtered very differently by the time they get to us.

    This is one reason why you’re much less likely to get sunburned in the winter, compared to the summer (others include the actual temperature difference, your likely better hydration, and your likely more modest attire protecting you).

    However…

    The reason it is advisable to wear sunscreen in winter is not generally about sunburn, and is rather more about long-term cumulative skin damage (ranging from accelerated aging to cancer) caused by the UV rays—specifically, mostly UVA rays, since UVB rays (with their higher energy but shorter wavelength) have nearly all been blocked by the atmosphere.

    Here’s a good explainer of that from the American Cancer Society:

    UV (Ultraviolet) Radiation and Cancer Risk

    👆 this may seem like a no-brainer, but there’s a lot explained here that demystifies a lot of things, covering ionizing vs non-ionizing radiation, x-rays and gamma-rays, the very different kinds of cancer caused by different things, and what things are dangerous vs which there’s no need to worry about (so far as best current science can say, at least).

    Consequently: yes, if you value your skin health and avoidance of cancer, wearing sunscreen when out even in the winter is a good idea. Especially if your phone’s weather app says the UV index is “moderate” or above, but even if it’s “low”, it doesn’t hurt to include it as part of your skincare routine.

    But what if sunscreens are dangerous?

    Firstly, not all sunscreens are created equal:

    Learn more: Who Screens The Sunscreens?

    Secondly: consider putting on a protective layer of moisturizer first, and then the sunscreen on top. Bear in mind, this is winter we’re talking about, so you’re probably not going out in a bikini, so this is likely a face-neck-hands job and you’re done.

    What about vitamin D?

    Humans evolved to have more or less melanin in our skin depending on where we lived, and white people evolved to wring the most vitamin D possible out of the meagre sun far from the equator. Black people’s greater melanin, on the other hand, offers some initial protection against the sun (but any resultant skin cancer is then more dangerous than it would be for white people if it does occur, so please do use sunscreen whatever your skintone).

    Nowadays many people live in many places which may or may not be the places we evolved for, and so we have to take that into account when it comes to sun exposure.

    Here’s a deeper dive into that, for those who want to learn:

    The Sun Exposure Dilemma

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  • What’s Missing from Medicine – by Dr. Saray Stancic

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Another from the ranks of “doctors who got a serious illness and it completely changed how they view the treatment of serious illness”, Dr. Stancic was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and wasn’t impressed with the treatments presented.

    Taking an evidence-based lifestyle medicine approach, she was able to not only manage her illness sufficiently to resume her normal activities, but even when so far as to run a marathon, and today boasts a symptom-free, active life.

    The subtitular six lifestyle changes are not too shocking, and include a plants-centric diet, good exercise, good sleep, stress management, avoidance of substance abuses, and a fostering of social connections, but the value here is in what she has to say about each, especially the ones that aren’t so self-explanatory and/or can even cause harm if done incorrectly (such as exercise, for example).

    The style is on the academic end of pop-science, of the kind that has frequent data tables, lots of statistics, and an extensive bibliography, but is still very readable.

    Bottom line: if you are faced with a chronic disease, or even just an increased risk of some chronic disease, or simply like to not take chances, then this is a high-value book for you.

    Click here to check out What’s Missing From Medicine, and enjoy chronic good health!

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  • Scarcity Brain – by Michael Easter

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    After a brief overview of theevolutionary psychology underpinnings of the scarcity brain, the author grounds the rest of this book firmly in the present. He explains how the scarcity loop hooks us and why we crave more, and what factors can increase or lessen its hold over us.

    As for what things we are wired to consider “potentially scarce any time now” no matter how saturated we are in them, he looks at an array of categories, each with their nuances. From the obvious such as “food” and “stuff“, to understandable “information” and “happiness“, to abstractions like “influence“, he goes to many sources—experts of various kinds from around the world—to explore how we can know “how much is enough”, and—which can be harder—act accordingly.

    The key, he argues, is not in simply wanting less, but in understanding why we crave more in the first place, get rid of our worst habits, and use what we already have, better.

    Bottom line: if you feel a gnawing sense of needing more “to be on the safe side”, this book can help you to be a little more strategic (and at the same time, less stressed!) about that.

    Click here to check out Scarcity Brain, and manage yours more mindfully!

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  • Can You Step Backwards Without Your Foot Or Torso Turning Out?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Walking backwards is often overlooked, but research shows it can enhance forward walking, especially in stroke patients; it has other benefits for everyone else, too. The physiotherapists at Fitness4Life Physical Therapy explain:

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    How it works: walking backwards heightens proprioception and stimulates muscles, improving balance and posture. Additionally, our daily lives tend to involve forward-leaning postures, causing upper back bending, and walking backwards helps counterbalance this.

    Extra benefits: training to walk backwards can reduce the risk of falls, as stepping back is a common movement that is often untrained.

    Exercise: try doing backwards lunges, to assess your skill and balance while moving backward. If foot rotation or torso rotation occurs during the exercise, then there’s room for improvement. Correcting these movements is then simply a matter of practicing backward lunges without turning.

    10almonds tip: any exercise is only as good as your will to actually do it. For this reason, dancing is a great exercise in this case, as almost all forms of dance involve stepping backwards (in order to have steps without travelling somewhere, forwards steps are usually balanced with backwards ones)

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  • Blackberries vs Blueberries – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing blackberries to blueberries, we picked the blackberries.

    Why?

    They’re both great! But the humble blackberry stands out (and is an example of “foods that are darker are often more nutrient-dense”).

    In terms of macronutrients, they’re quite similar, being both berry fruits that are mostly water, but blackberries do have 2x the fiber (and for what it’s worth, 2x the protein, though this is a small number obviously), while blueberries have 2x the carbohydrates. An easy win for blackberries.

    When it comes to vitamins, blackberries have notably more of vitamin A, B3, B5, B9, C, and E, as well as choline, while blueberries have a little more of vitamins B1, B2, and B6. A fair win for blackberries.

    In the category of minerals, blackberries have a lot more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. Blueberries are not higher in any minerals. Another easy win for blackberries.

    Blueberries are famous for their antioxidants, but blackberries actually equal them. The polyphenolic content varies from one fruit to another, but they are both loaded with an abundance (thousands) of antioxidants, especially anthocyanins. Blackberries and blueberries tie in this category.

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