If you’re sitting on the toilet right now and nothing is moving, the fastest thing you can do is change your position. Raising your knees above your hips, either with a footstool or by leaning forward, straightens the pathway stool travels through and can make the difference between straining for 20 minutes and going in two. Beyond that immediate fix, there are several reliable strategies to get things moving today and prevent this from happening again.
Fix Your Position First
Your body has a built-in kink in the passage between your colon and rectum. A muscle called the puborectalis wraps around the rectum like a sling, creating a bend that helps you stay continent when you’re upright. When you sit on a standard toilet, that bend stays at roughly 80 to 90 degrees, which means you’re essentially trying to push stool around a corner.
Squatting opens that angle to about 100 to 110 degrees, straightening the rectum so stool can pass with less effort. You don’t need to squat on the floor. Place a small stool, a stack of books, or a bathroom wastebasket under your feet so your knees rise above your hips. Lean forward slightly, rest your elbows on your thighs, and let your belly relax. This mimics a squat position on a regular toilet and removes much of the need to strain.
Use Your Body’s Built-In Timing
Your colon is not equally active all day. It has a reflex triggered by eating, called the gastrocolic reflex, that sends a wave of contractions through the large intestine within minutes of food hitting your stomach. This reflex is strongest in the morning and right after meals. If you’re trying to establish a regular pattern, eating breakfast and then sitting on the toilet 15 to 30 minutes later gives you the best window. A warm drink like coffee or tea can amplify the effect because warmth and caffeine both stimulate gut contractions.
Try Abdominal Self-Massage
Gently massaging your abdomen can physically help move stool through your colon. The technique is simple: use flat fingers or your palm and press in a clockwise direction, following the natural path of your large intestine. Start at your lower right hip, move up toward your ribs, across your upper belly, and down the left side. Apply steady, moderate pressure for 10 to 15 minutes. You can do this while sitting on the toilet or lying on your back with your knees bent.
Research reviews looking at abdominal massage for constipation found benefits across a wide range of protocols, from 10-minute sessions to 20-minute sessions done daily. Even a few days of consistent massage improved bowel frequency for many people. It won’t produce instant results the way a laxative might, but it’s free, safe, and something you can do right now.
Get Moving
Physical activity speeds up the time it takes stool to travel through your colon. Interestingly, the intensity that helps most isn’t vigorous exercise. A study tracking physical activity levels and gut transit found that brisk walking (what researchers classify as “high light intensity,” like a purposeful walk or light housework) was associated with colonic transit times that were about 25% faster. More intense exercise didn’t show the same clear benefit. So a 20- to 30-minute walk after a meal can be genuinely effective, not just folk wisdom.
Over-the-Counter Options That Work Today
If positioning and movement aren’t enough, there are two main categories of laxatives available without a prescription, and they work differently.
Osmotic laxatives (like polyethylene glycol or magnesium citrate) pull water into your intestines, softening the stool so it’s easier to pass. Magnesium citrate tends to work within a few hours. Polyethylene glycol (sold as MiraLAX and similar brands) typically takes one to three days of daily use to produce results. These are generally gentle and well tolerated for occasional use.
Stimulant laxatives (like senna or bisacodyl) directly trigger contractions in your colon walls while also reducing water absorption, so stool stays softer and moves faster. These tend to work within 6 to 12 hours when taken by mouth, or within an hour when used as a suppository. They’re effective for acute relief but aren’t meant for daily long-term use.
Glycerin suppositories are another option worth knowing about. They work locally, drawing water into the rectum and lubricating stool, and typically produce a bowel movement within 15 to 60 minutes. For a situation where you feel stool is right there but won’t come out, a glycerin suppository is often the fastest solution.
What to Eat to Prevent This
Fiber is the single most important dietary factor for regular bowel movements, but the type of fiber matters more than most people realize. Not all fiber supplements are equally helpful. Psyllium husk stands out because it forms a gel that survives the entire trip through your digestive tract without being broken down by gut bacteria. That gel holds water, which keeps stool soft and bulky enough to trigger the contractions that push it along. It works for both constipation and loose stools, essentially normalizing stool consistency in either direction.
Many popular fiber supplements don’t do this. Wheat dextrin, for example, can actually have a constipating effect at typical doses. Inulin and other fermentable fibers get broken down by bacteria before they reach the end of the colon, so they produce gas but don’t add bulk to stool. Insoluble fiber (like wheat bran) adds some mechanical bulk but can irritate the gut lining, which is a problem if you also deal with bloating or IBS symptoms.
The daily fiber goal for adults is 25 to 34 grams depending on age and sex. Men under 50 need about 31 to 34 grams; women under 50 need about 25 to 28 grams. Most Americans get roughly half that. If you’re increasing fiber intake, add 5 grams every few days rather than jumping to a full dose, which can cause bloating and cramping as your gut adjusts.
Hydration: What Actually Helps
You’ve probably heard that drinking more water fixes constipation. The reality is more nuanced. A controlled study gave healthy volunteers an extra one to two liters of fluid per day and found no significant change in stool output. If you’re already reasonably hydrated, simply drinking more water won’t make stool softer or easier to pass.
Where hydration does matter is when you’re genuinely dehydrated, from illness, heavy sweating, low fluid intake, or alcohol. In those cases, your colon pulls extra water out of stool to compensate, leaving it dry and hard. The practical takeaway: drink enough that your urine is pale yellow. Beyond that, extra water doesn’t translate into easier bowel movements. Pairing adequate hydration with fiber is what makes the real difference, since fiber needs water to form the soft bulk that moves through your system.
Signs Something More Serious Is Going On
Occasional constipation is extremely common and usually resolves with the strategies above. But certain symptoms alongside constipation point to something that needs medical evaluation: blood in your stool or on the toilet paper, unexplained weight loss, persistent abdominal pain, vomiting, loss of appetite that doesn’t improve, a feeling that you can never fully empty your bowels, or a family history of colon cancer. If constipation comes on suddenly in someone who’s normally regular, or if you’re completely unable to pass gas, that warrants prompt attention rather than home remedies.