Top tips from our very own colonic hydrotherapist Claire McCarthy.
As a Colon Hydrotherapist I see a lot of clients who tell me they are struggling to do a decent daily poo. Constipation and irregularity are common complaints at the clinic.
It can be very frustrating when you can’t go properly (or at all) each and every morning like clockwork. Ideally the poo should pass easily without straining, it should be formed like a soft sausage, and leave you feeling complete/finished and ready to get on with your day. You should not have to get through an entire chapter of your favourite book as you sit on the loo waiting for things to move!
Here are a few simple things you can do to help yourself have a better bathroom experience. Let’s get back to basics:
- Elevate your feet. Place your feet flat on a footstool like a Proppr foot stool , that positions yourself into a squat. Sitting in this position on the toilet allows the bowel to straighten and unkink, and poo to pass more easily. When we sit on the loo without elevating our feet, the bowel is kinked and it’s harder for poo to pass. We have aesthetically pleasing stools available to buy at the clinic (see Proper above) to level up your toilet game, too!
- Hydrate. It may be tempting to sip on coffee first thing, but after being asleep what our body really needs is water. (Ideally, hydrogen-rich filtered water.) Before your coffee/tea/morning beverage of choice, try to get in at least half a litre of water. Adding some freshly squeezed lemon and/or a little bit of Himalayan or Celtic Sea salt to the water can help with digestion. It can also be helpful to have warm water rather than cold, so just add a little bit of boiling water till it’s a nice warm drinking temperature.
- Don’t rush. When we wake up first thing in the morning, it’s important to give ourselves time & space to just breathe, relax and tune in with ourselves. Ideally before we look at our phones or schedule for the day, before the monkey-mind inevitably kicks in. Even if we have a busy morning ahead, try to give yourself just two or three minutes of deep relaxed breathing or do a meditation to start the day so that our body gets a good dose of oxygen and receives a signal of safety. Bowel movements happen in a parasympathetic state of rest & digest (not in fight or flight).
- Delay food. It takes at least 12hours (often longer for most people) for a meal to pass through the digestive system. Before eating breakfast in the morning, give your body a break from the constant task of digestion and wait till you’re genuinely hungry to eat. Some people benefit from intermittent fasting in the morning, personally I find 14 hours since dinner is my ‘sweet spot’ when I feel genuinely hungry and my system has had enough of a break to eat breakfast. See what works for you. Try to avoid putting food straight into your body in the morning out of habit; instead tune in to your own unique hunger signals and try to make the most of the detox our body naturally goes through overnight while we sleep. Breakfast literally means to ‘break (the) fast’.
Coming in for a series of colonics is also a fantastic way to have better poos at home. Colonics strengthen and tone the bowel, aid in better digestion and clear the bowel of accumulated blocked waste.
To learn all about how colonics work here at pH Clinic simply click here.
