Health Alert: Medical Expert Explains the Risks of Ignoring Nature’s Call

It’s natural to occasionally ignore the call of nature when we’re in public places or stuck in a meeting, preferring the comfort of our own restroom. However, making this a habit can lead to bowel issues, provoke painful hemorrhoids, and potentially form an unhealthy mental association with the process of defecation.

Naturopathic doctor Janine Bowring, ND, addresses this issue in her popular TikTok videos. She highlights the harm of routinely denying our body’s natural urges and the long-term effects of irregular bowel movements.

“When you get the urge to go, it’s because that upper sphincter has relaxed to let the poop flow out,” Bowring clarifies in one video. She explains that we have a second, voluntary sphincter which “we can allow to release when we have to go poop.”

Chronic refusal to listen to your body’s signals can result in a common issue: constipation. As Bowring puts it, when stool lingers in the intestines, “more and more water is becoming withdrawn and making that poop harder.”

The result is what Bowring refers to as “meatball poop” or “rabbit pellet poop.” These terms describe feces that are shaped like marbles or “long-shaped but lumpy”—signs of constipation, according to Healthline.

Contrastingly, a healthy bowel movement should be “log-shaped with some cracks on the surface,” and should be soft and easy to pass. Healthline refers to this as the “gold standard of poop.”

Unfortunately, abnormal feces, specifically pellet-shaped waste, can contribute to the formation of hemorrhoids. “You can also develop hemorrhoids because of the straining when you’re trying to pass this type of poop,” cautions Bowring.

Mayo Clinic describes hemorrhoids as “swollen veins in the anus and lower rectum.” They can lead to “painless bleeding,” detectable on toilet paper or in the toilet. A negative perception of defecation can develop from experiencing hemorrhoids, which in turn disrupts the “synchronization and rhythm of your body’s natural processes,” according to Bowring. This could result in less frequent bowel movements, which is not healthy either.

In order to prevent these issues, Bowring recommends that you listen to your body’s signals—”whenever you get that urge to go, you’re gonna go poop,” irrespective of your whereabouts. She also advises starting your day with ample natural sunlight to “train your brain and your circadian rhythms with nature to stimulate healthy pooping every day.”

Maintaining a regular bowel movement schedule is imperative for gut health. It helps to remove waste material from our bodies on a regular basis, while also preventing constipation.

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