5 Healthy Reason to Use a Squat Toilet
When you think of a squat toilet, it’s all too easy to picture a dirty hole in the ground complete with flies buzzing around and that smell you’ll never quite forget. But the squat toilet isn’t all holes in the ground and eye watering stenches. In fact, the squat toilet is still the best and healthiest solution to our toilet needs. And an installed squat toilet has all of the advantages of a good standard toilet – including plumbing and a foot plate rather than a seat. The toilet is merely installed lower down in your bathroom making it easy to squat rather than sit.
Here are five reasons everyone should at least consider a squat toilet – your health will thank you for it.
It Can Help to Eliminate Constipation
As well as a bad diet, bad toilet posture can lead to constipation. Sitting not only means you are fighting gravity when using the toilet, it also means that your internal valves don’t open correctly and it can leave kinks in the rectum. All of this can lead to constipation as your body tells you it need to alleviate waste but it isn’t in the correct position to do so.
Squatting is the body’s natural waste alleviating position and is therefore the most effective position for opening the valves and tubes up and makes a bowel movement much easier.
It Can Help Prevent Some Colon Diseases
Faecal build up in the colon has been linked to many colon diseases, including cancer of the colon. When you sit to remove waste, you will often find that you don’t eliminate the waste completely which leads to the build up. Squatting on the other hand, allows your body to completely eliminate the waste from your colon.
It Can Reduce Haemorrhoids
Haemorrhoids (or piles as they are often colloquially known) are inflamed veins in the anus and/or rectum. These veins can bleed, itch and become very painful.
Increased pressure in the rectum is one of the main causes of haemorrhoids, and this increased pressure is often caused by having to strain to eliminate waste from your colon. When sitting or standing, the rectum kinks to keep waste inside – i.e. to maintain continence.
However, when we try to eliminate waste in a sitting position, we are effectively fighting this muscle. Squatting on the other hand smooths out the kink and allows easy elimination without the need to strain and risk inflaming the veins in the anus and rectum.
Using a squat toilet can prevent haemorrhoids from forming, but don’t worry if you already have them – it’s not too late. It is entirely possible for haemorrhoids to heal when the squat position is adapted long term for waste elimination.
It Can Reduce Urinary Tract Infections in Women
Similar to bowel movements, it is easier for the body to eliminate urine when in a squatting position. As the flow is faster and stronger when in a squat position, the bladder empties completely, reducing the traces of stale urine left in the bladder which is one of the leading causes of urinary tract infections in woman.
It Can Prevent Pelvic Floor Issues
The pelvic floor is the name given to the system of muscles, ligaments and connective tissues which support the rectum and the bladder (and the vagina and uterus in women too). If the muscles and nerves in this area are weakened or damaged, it can cause prolapses (where the pelvic organs drop) which can lead to bladder or bowel incontinency.
Squatting to eliminate helps to keep this area functioning as it should, while sitting can promote prolapses in the area according to research by Dr Jack Kruse, a health coach and neurosurgeon based in Nashville.
It really does seem like squat toilets are the way to go – after all, it’s how our bodies are designed to eliminate waste.