Instant Genius - You’ve been pooping wrong, but here’s how to fix it

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

Smelly, dirty and a bit embarrassing – we tend to treat our poo as a private matter, to be dealt with in the bathroom and then stringently ignored. But, while we may not want to discuss toilet time at the dinner table, our bowel movements can give us invaluable information about our wider health. In this episode, we speak to Dr Trisha Pasricha, a gastroenterologist, medical doctor and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, and the author of the upcoming, You’ve Been Pooping All Wrong. Trisha argues that we should treat our faecal matter with a little more curiosity and respect, as clues about our mood, diet, brain health – and more. She also explains how to upgrade your poops, in an effort to reach poophoria. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Music just as the artist intended. Visit nameadio.com to learn more. Hello, welcome to the Instant Genius podcast. I'm Hattie Wilmoth, a trends editor at BBC Science Focus. Smelly, dirty and a bit embarrassing. We tend to treat our poo as a private matter, to be dealt with in the bathroom and then stringently ignored. But while we may not want to discuss toilet time at the dinner table, our bowel movements can give us invaluable information about our wider health. In this episode, we speak to Dr. Tricia Psychea Psychea, a gastroenterologist, medical doctor and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the author of the upcoming,

You've Been Pooping All Wrong. Tricia argues that we should treat our fecal matter with a little more curiosity and respect as clues about our mood, diet, brain health and more. She also explains how to upgrade your poops in an effort to reach Poohphoria. Tricia, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Talk to me all about poo. I am delighted to be here. Thank you for having me talk about this incredibly exciting topic. So exciting. And I'm really, I'm really glad to be diving into all this kind of stuff around poo-pooh-poing habits, gut health, all the things we don't tend to talk about based on your book, you've been pooping all wrong. So first of all, let me start by asking quite a general question. Poo is something that happens behind closed doors. We ignore it, we don't talk

about it unless we're like two years old and we're potty training. But to what extent do you think, as a gastroenterologist, that poo is ignorable? Well, I mean, I don't know that everyone has to bring it up at the dinner table the way like I did in my childhood, because I had a father who was a gastroenterologist. I recognize that might be a little bit on the extreme end of things, but I do think it's something we shouldn't ignore and we should normalize like any other part of our health. Like there was this study that really struck me. It was done in the UK that showed that about a third of people who have bowel symptoms related to their poo or something else, they would defer or avoid talking to their GP entirely about it because of embarrassment. And when we think about pooping, it's not just like

a question of digestion or just going about your daily habits. Like all of that is true. Your day can be, you can make or break your day depending on whether you've had a good bowel movement in the morning. I fully believe that. But there's also like a more darker side of this story, which is that if we delay talking about our poop, talking about our bowel habits, there's been this rise. that we're all talking about, about early onset colorectal cancer. And those symptoms often get dismissed or missed in those first couple months, and we don't have time to waste. So not only are we missing an opportunity to improve our daily quality of life, but we're also potentially missing bigger diagnoses because we're ignoring or dismissing

or just not wanting to talk about poo, even with our doctors, forget about with our family members. Yeah, absolutely. And in your book, you talk about poophoria. Love that word. and that's entering my vocabulary. Can you tell me what pooforia is? Because obviously you've mentioned some of the darker things that bad toilet habits can mean, but also we're aiming towards something better than just okay. Like what does really good healthy pooing look like? What should healthy poops look like? You know, the aim is actually very simple. It is just to make pooing the absolute least of your daily concerns. And so about 40% of people, at least in America, find that their bowel habits disrupt their daily lives. Think about that. Your whole day is ruined

because you're worried about the bathroom. You're not sure if there's going to be a safe space to go. You may be canceling your plans. Or you may not go that day. And then you're just weighed down by this heaviness. It's like in the back of your minds. That's a huge chunk of the population. if you've achieved pooforia, which is the goal of this book, then you're not going to be worried about pooping. Like it's not going to be something you obsess about, but it's also not going to be something you even think about. You're going to go, have a lovely bowel movement, and it'll be the least of your daily concerns, and it will not interfere with the rest of your life. Okay, amazing. So let's talk specifics. What should poop look like? How often should it be

coming out of us? What's the basics that we should aim for here? Yes. And first of all, I am so glad we're having this conversation because as a gastroenterologist, I feel like I was so struck by how many fully grown adults don't know the answers to these very simple questions, right? And I think one big myth that I'd like to start with is that we should be pooping every day. That's something that I think we all, like, most of my patients will come in and, you know, and they'll be like, am I weird? Am I off? Because I don't go every day. And the truth of matter is that anywhere from going three times in one day to once every three days is totally within the range of normal. And conversely, there are some people who, like, they go every day, but they spend 20 minutes straining on the loo, like straining their eyeballs

out to have a bowel movement. I don't think that's normal. What I would consider a normal bowel movement is just two simple things. One, it should be comfortable and effortless for you. Doesn't matter how often that is really to me, but it should just be comfortable, effortless, no straining. You should feel fully emptied. And then two, it shouldn't interfere with your social life. Like it shouldn't be something that stops you from going out and having fun with your friends or making you worried about, oh my gosh, is the bathroom like nearby or not? If it's doing those two things, you're normal in my books. And some people, they're going to have three or four bowel movements a day.

And I would still consider that normal if they're happy with it. That same pattern in another person who finds that really distressing. Maybe that's not going to be normal for them. So normal is what's right for you. in terms of sort of like form and color anywhere within the browns, all very normal. But it's funny, one of the most common questions I get often accompanied by photos, people send me these photos, disturbingly in my DMs, but like my patients are certainly allowed to do this in my clinic.

But they said photos and they're like, hey, is this color weird? Right. And I usually say, we're all allowed to have a weird colored poop from time to time. the colors that scare me that would bother me that would make me say, wait a minute, we need to either go to the emergency room and we need to have a conversation would be anything that looks concerning for blood, so that's bright red, maroon, or even black tarry stool. And when I say black, some people are like, what about really, really dark brown? I'm not worried about really, really dark brown. And I'm talking about like the color of your smartphone screen black. That can be worrisome for blood

because blood when it mixes with the acid in your stomach can turn a little black. But it's a little bit of green, a little bit of yellow every now and then, I can live with that. If you're having other symptoms like pain or diarrhea or fever that changes the picture. But, you know, we often, we have these pigments in the foods that we eat that might give us a little purplish or blue poop from time to time. Like these anthocyanins can be in red wine. It can be in fruits and berries. You're a lot to poop the rainbow if, you know, you've eaten something a little off. But if you're not sure, I would say always run it by your GP. There is no reason to feel worried by yourself and not know the answer. It's just send them a quick, quick message and maybe even a quick photo. To what extent is good

pooping about the gut and what we eat? And to what extent is it just about our kind of general health? Yeah. I mean, I think that there is this like psychosocial aspect of pooping that you just feel better when you've had a good quick bowel movement and you go about your daily life. But there is, I think, your gut, is really this window of health to the rest of your body and what your poop looks like, how easy or difficult it is for you to poop, can often tell you about your risk factor for other diseases that you may or may not even have on your radar. And also in general, like, how well your diet is, right? So like one of the most, and this is going to sound so boring, because I'm sure everyone's heard this from their doctor, but one of the most predictable ways

to improve your poop is simply to eat more fiber. And we're, we're, certainly not doing that in Western countries. Like 95% Americans are not getting enough fiber in their diet. Once you do, you often find that your poop becomes a little fluffier. You might find that you went from pooping once a day. Now you're pooping three times a day and you're like, is something wrong with me? Like, no, there's nothing wrong with you. You just started meeting your fiber goal. Like embrace this new you. This is a wonderful thing. You're just going to be someone who poops more often. But it also tells us when you see that, when you see that softer, more effortless poop and you're not straining anymore, it actually tells me that you're meeting your fiber

goals, which is helping your pooping, but that fiber is feeding your microbiome. Your microbiome is then being able to produce short-chain fatty acids, which are anti-inflammatory, not just for your gut, but those short-chain fatty acids get absorbed in your bloodstream. They can improve your heart health. They can improve your brain health. Conversely, people who have struggle pooping, maybe they have constipation, they're straining. That can also be a sign, especially with other symptoms, of bigger diseases at play. Hypothyroidism, so your endocrine system can be disrupted and you can show up for the first time as trouble pooping. Parkinson's disease, which is something that I study in my clinic and in my laboratory at Harvard Medical School, one of the earliest signs is actually constipation.

It's not the tremors. It's not the difficulty walking or speaking that we think about with Parkinson's. it's constipation. And so when somebody comes to me in my clinic and they say, like, oh, I'm having trouble having bowel movements, I think about the whole picture. I think about, like, what does this mean in terms of you, just being able to poop? And like, how many minutes you're spending on the bathroom? You're bringing your smartphone in. I ask all those questions. But I also take a step back, and I ask a lot of other questions about their health to see if we're missing something bigger about what could be going on. So they're very, very closely linked. And you mentioned Parkinson's, and that That makes me think of the gut-brain connection, this gut-brain axis that we hear so much about,

this connection between our gut and our brains that kind of works both ways. Can you tell me more about that? Why, when we're stressed, that is going to the toilet so much worse, for instance? Yes, yes. You know, we've known about the gut-brain connection since at least the 1890s, so it dates really, really far back. But what we knew then and was sort of the pervasive theme for several decades afterwards was how the brain seems to influence the gut. Like for example, and I'll start in a very simple example, right now, if you and I were to talk about describing like a nice, warm, gooey chocolate cake, and I just feel like if you visualize that and you say, oh my gosh, like chocolate's melting, you can almost taste it in your mouth, like you might start to salivate. Your digestive process

begins in your head. There's almost no other organ in which just thinking about that thing will start to rev up that organ to do its job, right? Like your lungs, they're going to do its job. They're going to exchange air and blood the same rate, whether you're thinking about a beautiful mountainside or you're thinking about your daily commute. It's going to do that at the same rate, but digestion really begins in the head. And so early scientists begin to realize that our thoughts and our stress and even our anxiety and depression could really influence how our gut moved. And there was a series of experiments that they did throughout the 1950s and words that showed that when we're acutely stressed, meaning we're thinking about an argument we had,

or maybe you're waiting for your, this always happens to me. When I'm waiting for my turn at karaoke, suddenly I have to go to the bathroom. And I'm like, wow, 10 minutes ago, this was not an issue. Why right now? Right. Or maybe you're on a date. And the date's like, you know, really exciting and it's making you a little nervous. And then you feel these butterflies in your stomach. Well, what is that physiologically? And we found that through several studies throughout the next several decades that your brain is producing something called corticotrophin releasing hormone that acts directly on the gut to halt the stomach so it slows it down, stops it from emptying, which is actually also why when you're stressed you might not want to eat that much,

you might feel a little queasy. And then at the same time, it actually causes your colon to contract more quickly, that last part of the colon, which is also why you're feeling queasy, you don't want to eat while at the same time you need to go to the bathroom. So it's doing these two things. And that's sort of how we thought about the gut brain connection for a really long time, that when you're stressed, you're going to have these GI symptoms. Well, it wasn't until about maybe 30-ish years ago, give or take, that the field of neuro gastroenterology really was born. And neuro gastrogystinrology is the entire study of the gut-brain connection and especially that other part of the conversation, which is how the gut is communicating with the brain and what the gut

is telling the brain rather than the other way around. One of the major ways that these two, systems, the brain in your head, and then what I call the brain in your gut, which is the enteric nervous system, one of the major ways that communicate is through something called the vagus nerve. We've probably heard of the vagus nerve before because it's sort of the opposite of that nerve that gets activated during fight or flight, where we're really stimulated, our hearts racing. When we activate our vagus nerve, that's more of the rest and relaxation. Well, that's the main way that the brain and the gut communicate, but it turns out that 90% of that signaling is going from the gut to the brain. And we've uncovered over the last

several decades that things like depression and anxiety can actually begin in the gut. And they can influence our mood because the gut is producing neurotransmitters. It's inhabited by these microbes, trillions of microbes that they're not just like background actors. They're producing all of these metabolites and compounds, including short chain fatty acids that play a very active role in our health. And so that communication is two ways. and then sometimes we start this cycle where a problem or an issue that begins in the gut travels up to the brain and then the brain becomes activated. You might become more stress and then it fuels more problems in the gut.

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Visit focal powered by name.com for more information. So we've talked so much about gut health now. I want to move on to like, we're in the bathroom. Yes. We've got to go. We're going to sit down. What's going on here? like we all feel like we've been potty trained already. But from what your book is saying,

there are some ways which we're not necessarily pooping in the best way possible. So, so what should be going on in the bathroom? Walk me through it. Yes. Okay. So you're right that the last conversation you probably had about how to poop was like when you were three years old. I'm sure you don't remember it. What you were taught is probably whatever your parents told you was the right thing to do. And it was probably like very close to what your grandparents told them was the right thing to do. And today, sometimes the easiest places I start is just thinking about ways that our modern life has changed or even destroyed our natural pooping habits. So like let's take, for example, how you sit when you go to the bathroom. So you know your colon. It's this long tube

and it exits at the end through your sphincters. And that's where your poop comes out. And as poop is coming along through your colon, your colon and your whole digestive system, your intestines, they're moving all the time. They're pushing whatever you've eaten out throughout your body. But you have this final part of your colon called the rectum. The rectum is a little bit like this reservoir where the poop can actually sit and wait for you to say, okay, this is a socially appropriate moment. I'm going to let it all out.

Or wait a minute, this is not appropriate. I'm in the middle of a meeting. I'm presenting. You're going to hold it in. And this rectum is very accommodating. It's this nice, like big space. where you can hold that poop in there if you make this conscious choice not to go. The problem is there is this muscle that wraps around the rectum almost like a sling.

Like if you picture a silicone straw and now you put a rubber band across it and you choke it closed, you create this kink in the straw and that's called the pubo rectalus muscle. And it chokes the rectum closed. And in a way, this is good. You don't want to release those contents when you're not ready. but when we're sitting at this like 90 degree angle like we do look at we're just sitting at our desk chairs that's the way we sit when we go to the toilet that muscle has choked your rectum closed several thousand years ago people were squatting to go to the bathroom and when you squat

you actually straighten up that rectum and that angle the puba rectalus muscle relaxes and that tube is straight again so poo can just flow out more easily sometimes if you look at like little who are body training, they all like to squat because it's just the easiest way to do it. But we've decided, for a lot of good reasons, like don't get me wrong, I don't, like, squatting is not appealing to me either. But we've decided that the right way to do it is to sit on a chair. Like, better for balance. It's like, like, way less stress. You're not worried about falling into this hole on the floor. I get it. But we're actually like working against ourselves physiologically by creating this barrier. So sometimes the simplest thing, and this is just one of so

many examples that I tell people to do is just raise your knees above the angle of your waist. And you can do that with a stool. You can do that with a stack of books. You can even do it with high heels depending on how high they are. You can use anything. But once you do that, even healthy people, even people who don't say identify as having trouble pooping, the studies have shown that they're like, wait a minute, this is way easier. Why was I not doing this before? And so this is a simple thing. It's a man-made, self-created problem that works against our own physiology. That's one of so many examples. I guess I'll tell you one more, which is our smartphones, right? We all bring our smartphones into the bathroom. I am guilty. I don't know how you cannot, right? Because they're always on your person. Like, unless you leave it outside the door, which I would like really applaud you for. But when we bring our smartphones into the bathroom, this is a different way of behaving than our parents used to, like, when they used to, like, open, like, yesterday's newspaper and you'd have, like, that little stack of magazines by the side of the bathroom,

commode, like, you were probably spending a couple minutes, like, reading the classified ads, and then you do your business and you'd move on. With our smartphones, these have been specifically designed to hijack our dopamine and reward pathways. You can't stop scrolling. Like, I start scrolling, and I'm, like, so into it. And I get, like, I'll read this whole story about the latest celebrity divorce. And like 40 minutes later, I'm like, wait a minute, why did I come in here?

Right? And the problem that this creates is that we're on our smartphones sitting on this open hole that has no pelvic floor support. It's different from when we sit on a chair where we have that counterpressure. When we sit like this, haemorrhoids, which are just basically engorged veins, can form from that passive pressure. the longer we sit there, doing nothing productive, which is, I think, the big problem is we sit there and we get distracted from the task at hand, those hemorrhoids start to engorge. And if we do that every day or multiple times a day over several years, you're at increased risk of hemorrhoids. And that's exactly what we found when we did a study in my laboratory last year. And so when I see patients, you know, like I get it, I don't tell them, never take your phone into the bathroom.

Even though I think that would be closer to ideal, I say, why don't we just set a timer, set a timer for a timer for five minutes or just watch like two TikToks and call it a day, check in with yourself and say, did I actually accomplish what I came into? Am I even focused? Do I even remember why I came here in the first place? And if after five minutes, your answer is no, then just pull up your pants, put the seat lid down and either keep scrolling or take a walk and come back later. But you don't need to keep sitting in that position doing absolutely nothing. I want to ask now about some like troubleshooting scenarios, things that can go wrong, things that can trip us up, even if, if we're generally healthy poopers. So for example, on holiday, why is it that every time you go on

holiday, even if you're a regular kind of person, it all gets completely messed up and suddenly you're constipated, you're bloated, you're not going to the toilet, what's going on there? Yes, this is like one of the most under-talked about problems of vacation is that nobody can poop correctly on vacation. It'll, like, ruin your time there. And I think the issue is multifold. Like there's so many factors that conspire against your colon when you travel, right? And so one of the first is simply understand that your colon operates on a circadian rhythm. And again, the gut is so different from a lot of your other organs.

Like your heart is going to keep beating no matter what time of day it is. It might slow down at night and it does. But it continues to beat 24-7 or we have a big problem. your colon actually goes to sleep at night. It is quiescent while you sleep. And then when you wake up and you get these cues from the environment, triggered by melatonin, triggered by eating that first meal of the day, it wakes up and it buzzes with activity most strongly for the first one or two hours on waking.

Well, when you travel, that circadian clock in your gut gets completely shattered. And you're not only not waking up at the same time, maybe you're sleeping in, maybe you're jet lag, but you're also not doing a lot of the activities you would normally do at home that are secretly priming your gut for activity, right? So maybe in the mornings you drink a nice cup of coffee, even decaf coffee actually stimulates your gut. Maybe you take your dog for a walk, exercise stimulates your gut, and you're waking up on a consistent schedule, and then you have a nice, healthy breakfast, ideally. On vacation. Often the whole goal is to not exercise. The goal is to wake up and flop around on a beach and do nothing. And maybe also you're not drinking your cot like

you. There's no, there's not like the kind of drink that you drink in the morning. And you're doing it a difference. So that's part of why one, your gut just can't stimulate. And then if your gut is not producing those strong contractions like it normally does when you have a good routine, you, in order to have a bowel movement, you have to produce that extra force through your ValSalva maneuver. and you have to work extra hard to try to push it down when you don't have those contractions going for you. And then the other issues are that we're dehydrated, we're on vacation. Like people, like, usually when someone's like, I'm constipated in real life, like at home, the first thing people try doing is drinking more water. And I usually don't think dehydration is the biggest issue for most

healthy people. But when you're on vacation, it almost absolutely is. Like you're dehydrated. You're not eating as balanced and healthy meals as you do when you're at home. by design. Like when I go to Europe, I make a choice to eat pasta six meals in a row. And I'm doing it because I'm like, I deserve this. This is going to be the best food I'm ever going to have. And you're eating all these pastries. And you're having a great time. When you go on vacation, that's not the right approach. You should eat local food. You should indulge. You do deserve to relax and have a great time. But you need to aggressively seek out extra fiber and be very thoughtful about that. More fiber than you're eating at home. So that means that.

maybe at lunch, like you eat a bunch of salad because you're like, you know what, tonight, I'm going to just, I'm only going to eat refined carbohydrates. And like, good for you. But you'll have made up for it by eating fiber earlier in the day. If you don't do that, you're going to be in a world of hurt later. And then it's very common that I have people who will say, like, I went on vacation for a week and I didn't poop for five days. That's not fun for anybody. Then you're just bloated, uncomfortable. And you don't want to join your family and friends on all the activities because you're just wondering where and how you're going to get to the bathroom. Yeah, truly depressing.

And that's a really good tip, though, to load up on fibre at lunch so you can enjoy the pastor in the evening. I'm going to be taking that one with me. But let's move on, though, to so many other people experience, like, regular problems with pooping. For example, women on their period, period poops. What's going on? Why does that happen?

Yes. Can we talk about that? Thank you for bringing that up. Yeah. So, first of all, about one and two women. have GI issues related to their period. And we're just not talking about it. And the most common thing I see is constipation and bloating, leading up to it.

And then often while people are on their period, they have the worst diarrhea of their lives. And it feels horrible because you're on your period. You're shedding all this blood. And now you're having diarrhea. And the whole situation is really messy and uncomfortable. And the reason is twofold. One, progesterone. So it's related to our hormones.

progesterone can slow down the gut. And progesterone is rising and falling at different points during our menstrual cycle. And it falls during the period, during the part where we're shedding the uterine lining. The second issue is this compound called prostaglandins. Prostaglandins are made by almost every cell in the body. And they're especially important during your period because they're what's responsible for your uterus to cramp and to shed that lining. And that's what's causing all the bleeding. So we don't love prostaglandins for that reason because they cause the cramps.

But what they're also doing while they're causing your uterus to contract is they're causing your bowels to contract. They're what's responsible probably predominantly for the diarrhea that people experience. So sometimes people take, women take things like N-SED medications, which are these non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs when they're on their period. And those help with the cramps, they also can find that they actually help with the diarrhea because it'll help slow things down a little bit. But more often, I find people say that they, one, didn't even know that other women would experience these horrible symptoms, and two, that there

are more ways to treat it than meets the eye. Like, those nseds are just one way. You can actually treat a lot of the GI issues with the different types of birth control options, because these all contain hormones. You can also treat them with something as simple as low paramed, which is this anti-dial agent. So there are lots of ways to help with the GI issues, kind of depending on your situation. But it is like one of those things that we're, we don't love talking about our periods, like out loud at brunch as much as we should. And then we certainly don't love talking about our poop. And now we have these two things happening at the same time. It's like a topic that everyone wants to avoid. And yet it's so common. It affects like 50% of women. Okay, let's move on from period

poops. Runners runs. That's another one. Yes. Every runner knows exactly what you're talking about right now. Yeah, and I'm not going to pretend that I run because I don't, but I know people that do, and I've heard that it's a real pain in many ways. Why do people, when they run, get so many gut issues? Yeah, there's several factors at play. Like one exercise in general in a healthy range stimulates the gut, and that's actually a good thing. It's one of those things that we actually tell people who are struggling with constipation, we say exercise a little more. We know that exercising acutely, like so if we're just going for a run, going for one walk, can stimulate the gut. And then we also know that if you do it long term, if it becomes a habit, that that's more

likely to keep the gut prime and keep things moving. The problem can be that sometimes when you go on these longer term runs, or you do it at a higher intensity than you realize your body can handle, you can start to shunt blood away from the gut towards your skeletal muscles, towards the muscles in your legs, and to kind of keep things moving towards your heart. When that happens, that lack of blood flow to the gut can cause a lot of inflammation. So people who do like marathon runs or even just vigorous bicycling, a little bit above what their bodies are comfortable with, we've seen in studies that that actually is a factor that increases intestinal permeability

and allows for there to be more inflammation. Wherever there's inflammation, diarrhea will soon follow. And more disturbingly than the diarrhea, which is actually pretty common. like oftentimes halfway through a marathon, you'll see runners like have to pause and go use the bathroom. There's this phenomena where if that blood flow has really been moved too much away from your gut, people can bleed. Because your gut is, and ironically, you're like, I'm not getting enough blood flow, but actually that's damaging your gut. So what's there starts to bleed. And sometimes it's obvious.

Like sometimes people see bloody diarrhea after running. Like we, I've seen this in the emergency room after like the Boston Marathon and big marathons. Sometimes it's not obvious. is sometimes it's microscopic amounts of blood, and these people who exercise often end up developing anemia, and it turns out that their gut is the source. So what I tell people to do practically is, one, notice and respond to your own body's cues. Like, everyone's using these smart tools, which are so helpful, these like wearable devices that track your heart rate, track a lot of your movement. And I usually tell patients, if you experience this urge to go to

the bathroom or stitches, like any GI symptoms, nausea is very common when you're running. See if they seem to happen when your heart rate goes above a certain threshold. And so maybe what you're doing is healthy to a point and you're just pushing your body a little farther than you realize and then say, wait a minute, okay, when my heart rate goes above one, I'm making this up like above 200, that's when I start to find this problem. So I should just try to try to run a little bit more slowly or I should pace myself a little differently. That can be really helpful. And then I also think hydrating is so, so important. I mean, I think that's like underappreciated, not just because you're going to have these losses

from the diarrhea, but actually they found that hydrating and training for running with hydration can help prevent the GI symptoms in the first place because you just need that extra flow. So helpful. Again, not for me personally, but I will be passing all about information on. No, thank you so much. We've talked so much about poo. It's been. So interesting. I want to ask you, though, if there's anything, if there's only one thing that people can take from this conversation, what do you want it to be? Like one thing that they can do to improve their pooping habits. Oh gosh, so much people can work on. But I think I would say this. I want people to, one, respect their guts more and not think about it as this gross, like,

yucky entity. If you think about the gut, the way I think about the gut as a neurogesterologist, which is that I think of the gut as a brain, then suddenly you don't think about pooping as like, gosh, this like thing I have to do every day and I don't even want to talk about it. You treat your body with so much more respect. You would treat your gut with so much more respect about what you put into it, the way you talk about it, because we do that for the brain in our heads, right? if you're going to go for a bike ride, you'd certainly put a helmet on every single time, and you're so careful with your head. We're not like that with our guts, but our guts contain the same kind of nervous system

and network of neurons that constitute a brain. And so think about reframe your gut that way, and it'll transform your pooping habits and what you put into your body, which in turn can transform your gut health and your overall health. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius, brought to you from the team behind BBC Science Focus. That was Dr. Tricia Pesricha. To discover more about pooping, you can check out her book. You've been pooping all wrong, how to make your bowel movements a joy. If you liked what you just heard, then please consider subscribing to Instant Genius wherever you like to listen to podcasts. If you'd like to watch our presenters and guests speaking in person, then you can also check out

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