You may be using your toilet all wrong with Sachin Patel

Hello, my friends. Hope you're doing awesome. I wanted to give you a very quick tip today. In honor of Functional Medicine Awareness Month. I want you to know that functional medicine isn't about just changing your diet. It isn't about taking supplements. It isn't about advanced testing. It's about helping your body function better. And that looks at it from every single perspective angle that we can, and taking the best practices that we can find from all over the world, and taking the best practices that we can utilize our anatomy in our favor, that we could use our physiology in our favor. We could use our environment in our favor. So today I want to talk to you about a really simple tip that you can implement pretty much immediately the next time you go to the bathroom. So that is the correct position when you're going to the bathroom. Most people do not realize this, but they have been going to the bathroom completely wrong. So in honor of this position, I'm going to get down into a squat. And so what that means is that when you're going to the bathroom, you want to have your knees higher than your hips. Now, everywhere in the world, except in developed countries, people go to the bathroom squatting. And what that does is it relaxes a specific muscle in your pelvis called the puborectalis muscle. That muscle attaches from your pubic bone, which is at the front of your pelvis, and wraps around your rectum. So when your pelvis is in a certain position, it prevents you from crapping yourself. However, when you're in a squatting position, that muscle relaxes. And that means that now you have basically the ability to use the bathroom in a much easier way where you're not fighting your anatomy. Imagine fighting your anatomy every single morning to empty your bowels. It makes no sense at all. So when I went to India, people would actually poop in a hole in the ground. And I thought that was the weirdest thing. And I thought they were the most backward people on the planet, only to realize that they were anatomically correct, that they were using the bathroom in the right position. So a simple tool that you can get. And there's some simple things you can do. You can put a couple of paint cans by your toilet. If you have no budget for this, right? You can put a couple paint cans underneath your feet, and that will raise your knees above your hips, and that will automatically tilt your pelvis backwards into what we call a posterior pelvic tilt. That relaxes that puborectalis muscle. And now your poop can go straight down without having a kink, without having pressure. When we force ourselves to use the bathroom, we're fighting our anatomy, right? So when you're sitting on a toilet, your hips and your knees are at the same height, typically. Sometimes, depending on how short you are, your knees might be lower than your hips. So then what do you have to do? You're fighting your body's anatomy to use the bathroom. So it's almost like you're creating extra stress on your body. You're creating back pressure. Back pressure can send bacteria in the wrong direction. It can create hemorrhoids. It can also create fistulas. And if you have anal fissures and issues like that, it can aggravate those things simply because you're not using the bathroom correctly. Now, remember, digestion isn't just heartburn, isn't just, you know, bloating. Those aren't just digestive issues. Digestive issues are also anatomical in nature. So if you don't chew your food properly, that's a digestive problem. If you chew your food too, if you eat too fast, that's a digestive problem. If you are anatomically not using your body correctly, that can create digestive problems as well. So, simple tip. You can apply this right away, maybe multiple times a day, depending on how many times you go. Take the pressure off of the situation. Bring your knees higher up above your hips, tilt your pelvis backwards, relax the puborectalis muscle, and now you have a straight shot down. Okay? So this is simple. You don't have to change your diet or anything. Certainly we could talk about dietary changes to help alleviate digestive issues, but we want to alleviate anatomical issues as well, because sometimes your anatomy could be working against you. And all of us can make that simple switch. And if you don't have constipation or digestive issues, you are foolish to be using the bathroom in an anterior pelvic tilted position or even a neutral pelvic position, because you are fighting your anatomy, and eventually you're gonna cause wear and tear unnecessarily. So this will save you time in the bathroom. This will spare you having to have embarrassing digestive issues, and it will allow you to be an ally with gravity and your body in helping elimination. Getting rid of the waste products that your body accumulates. Why would you make that any harder than it needs to be to eliminate waste and poop from your body? Okay, so unless you like holding on to crap, which some people do, right? Emotionally, sometimes we do that. Sometimes we do that anatomically by not using the bathroom correctly. But if you want to get rid of the crap that you're holding on to, bring your knees up a little bit above your hips. And you can thank me every morning from this point forward. Lots of love. Happy pooping. Talk to you soon.