One in seven Americans experience fecal accidents regularly, but most suffer in silence. Mel Robbins breaks down the most common gut problems she sees: straining for 20-30 minutes when normal should take five, chronic bloating, and food-triggered pain that stress often makes worse.
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One of the most common things that people come to my clinic complaining about is that they struggle to have a bowel movement. Mm-hmm. And that can mean a lot of different things. Some people can say, I go to the bathroom every single day. Great. But it takes me 20 minutes. I'm straining. It's hard. How long should it take? Less than 5, ideally less than 1 minute. Okay. It should be an in and out job. Wow. But if you're having a, a bowel movement every day, you might be told, you might believe that that makes me normal. But it's uncomfortable for you and you're spending 20, 30 minutes at a time, that's not normal. People complain about having discomfort, bloating, pain, cramps until they're able to have a bowel movement. And then for some people, the bowel movement helps those symptoms get better. Sometimes that's only momentarily and then they come right back and then they're there and they're there and they're building until the next bowel movement. Sometimes people complain about a lot of urgency, like, they're just interrupted by— they're at work, they're out with friends, and suddenly out of nowhere they have to go to the bathroom and they have to do it now. There are a lot of people, 1 out of 7 people. Okay, I want to just internalize this number. 1 out of 7 people poop their pants regularly in America. That's what the studies have shown. So people feel so isolated sometimes and embarrassed and ashamed when they have bowel accidents. It's actually more common than you think. And a lot of people are struggling and dealing with it, even if nobody like brings it up at your book club, a lot of people in that room will have experienced what you're experiencing. So sometimes people talk about that. Bloating, just plain old bloating, which is so uncomfortable. It's this feeling of distension that you're too— like, you, you eat just a little bit, but you feel so full and you feel gassy. That's a big complaint. And then there's another group of people who it's not so much having a bowel movement that's a problem, but eating is the problem. It feels like everything they eat causes them discomfort or even pain, maybe a little nausea, and they're not sure. They've tried everything. They've tried to eliminate all different kinds of foods. They've gone on all the different kinds of diets, and they can't seem to pinpoint why. What is it about food that's giving them trouble? These are the kinds of people who come into my clinic. And of course, as I said, a lot of them have anxiety and depression. Certainly a lot of them, stress fuels these problems and makes them worse. But oftentimes it's not the stress that's the primary problem.
