I’m shy about pooping anywhere that is not my home ― so when I’m about to go on a trip, I think about how I’ll prep my bowels to open before my friends wake up.
After my morning coffee, I’m usually ready to go. But if I don’t happen to have access to coffee that early in the morning, I’ve done this enough times to know that drinking a bottle of water does the trick too. And after a couple of days, my body will be ready to go at 6 a.m.
There have also been times when I was consistently not pooping in the morning because I was out with other people, and eventually, my body started to regularly signal me to go in the evening.
It seems like the human body can be trained to shift its poop timing. How does this happen? And is it OK for us to do it on purpose? Below, gut experts spill all.
Why does my body give me the urge to poop at the same time every day?
“Most people have bowel movements when they wake up in the morning,” said Dr. Peyton Berookim, a gastroenterologist at the Gastroenterology Institute of Southern California.
This is because your circadian rhythm, the body’s internal clock, can influence your insides, causing your large intestine to contract more in the morning after you wake.
If you’re not a morning pooper, you may be wondering why your body goes like clockwork in the afternoon or evening. “Your body is used to a routine,” Berookim explained. If you’re waking up at a certain time, eating meals at certain times, going to work at a certain time and pooping at a certain time, your body and brain are going to start to settle into this routine.
“Having bowel movements at the same time each day, your body learns to anticipate the schedule, leading to a synchronization between your circadian rhythm and digestive system,” Berookim said.
Your environment also has an influence on whether your brain sends out the signal to evacuate waste.
“It may be more convenient when someone gets home, or in the morning before they leave the house,” said Dr. Siamak Tabib, a Los Angeles-based gastroenterologist and hepatologist. Your body follows your lead as far as when you “make room” for it to relieve itself.
Your brain learns to associate the environment you’re in with a place where it can poop. “Some patients say when they’re not home, they don’t have the urge,” Berookim said. “At home, you’re in your comfort zone. They say they walk in, they get the urgency, so that’s a mental thing.”
And many of us poop consistently after eating a meal. When you eat, your brain signals your large intestine to contract, pushing down waste so there’s room for the food coming in, Tabib explained. This is called the gastrocolic reflex. It may cause you to have the urge to defecate as quickly as 15 minutes after eating, or as much as several hours later. Each person’s bowels react differently to food, according to Tabib. The urge to poop after eating may be mild for one person and very strong for another.
Can you train your body to poop at a certain time of day? Is it OK to do so?
Gastroenterologists say that while it may not always be perfect, you can certainly train your body to poop at a different time.
What if you want to change the timing for a vacation, and then change it back to your usual timing when you return home? Doing this occasionally is OK, experts say.
What you want to avoid is chopping and changing the routine too often, Berookim said.
Changing the schedule frequently “can lead to constipation, and constipation can lead to bloating and abdominal discomfort,” he warned. “It may also disrupt the natural circadian rhythm, and then it makes it harder to establish a consistent routine.”
If you really want to, what are the best ways to do it?
It’s going to take time for your body to adjust to going at a new time of day, so you have to be consistent with your efforts.
“It may happen in a few days for somebody, but in general, it’s probably going to take more than that, usually a week or two, to really get that down to a more regular routine,” Tabib said. On top of that, “it takes some time to see what our body responds well to.”
Here are some tips on how to shift your poop timing, according to gastroenterologists:
Try to only go when it’s close to your goal time.
“A few days or weeks before whatever event that you’re planning for, try to plan your schedule as closely as possible to that schedule so your body can adapt,” Berookim said.
Usually, gastroenterologists advise against ignoring the urge to poop. But if you’re attempting to shift your poop schedule and you feel the urge to go outside of your goal time slot, ignoring it is a helpful strategy to train your body.
Take a fiber supplement.
Berookim suggested taking a psyllium husk supplement a few hours before your goal time window. Psyllium husk is a source of soluble fiber, which helps move your stools along the intestines.
“Fiber takes a while to work its way through [your digestive tract]. It may take two to three days to perceive the effects of it,” Tabib explained.
Observe your body after a few days or a week, to see if taking the psyllium husk supplement triggers you to poop closer to your goal time. You can always tweak the time that you drink the supplement, to bring you closer to the hour you’re aiming for, Berookim said.
Be sure to drink more fluids if you’re taking a fiber supplement, or you could end up with clogged bowels.
Sit on the toilet after eating a meal.
Try to line it up so your goal poop time occurs after you eat a meal. As noted above, eating triggers your large intestine to contract to push waste out of your body. “Usually we’d want to eat 20 or 30 minutes before the time that we want to go,” Tabib said.
But again, keep in mind that the effect of the gastrocolic reflex varies from person to person. You might feel the urge after 15 minutes, or it might not happen until hours later, Tabib said.
Include foods with fiber in your meals, making sure you have both soluble and insoluble fiber. Stay well hydrated, and drink more water especially if you’re eating more fiber than usual.
If your goal poop time is in the morning, drinking coffee can stimulate contraction of your large intestine too.
Sit on the toilet shortly after finishing the meal. Don’t sit for too long if nothing’s happening, Tabib said, as you risk developing hemorrhoids or a prolapsed rectum. Stay on the toilet for five minutes tops, then “get up, go move around, drink some water, and then try to come back again in 20 to 30 minutes and see if that’s successful,” Tabib said.
Otherwise, don’t stress it. If you gotta go, you gotta go ― even if you’re away from home.