Relaxing your pelvic floor muscles to have a bowel movement comes down to body positioning, breathing technique, and learning to release instead of push. The key muscle involved is the puborectalis, a sling-shaped muscle that wraps around your rectum and creates a kink to keep stool in place. When you bear down on the toilet, this muscle is supposed to relax and straighten the rectum so stool can pass easily. If it stays tight or contracts when it should be letting go, you end up straining against a closed door.
Why Your Pelvic Floor Tightens During Bowel Movements
When everything works normally, your puborectalis muscle relaxes during defecation, straightening the angle between your rectum and anal canal so stool can move through. At rest, this angle sits around 80 to 90 degrees, creating a natural bend that helps with continence. During a successful bowel movement, the angle opens to roughly 100 to 110 degrees, giving stool a straighter path out.
For some people, though, the pelvic floor muscles do the opposite of what they should. Instead of relaxing when you try to go, they tighten or contract. This is sometimes called dyssynergic defecation or pelvic floor dyssynergia. The hallmark symptoms are excessive straining and a persistent feeling of incomplete evacuation, like something is blocking the exit. If this has been happening regularly for months, it may be a pattern your muscles have learned rather than a one-off problem.
Change Your Position on the Toilet
The single most effective thing you can do right now is change how you sit. A standard toilet puts your hips at roughly a 90-degree angle, which keeps that anorectal kink partially in place. You’re essentially trying to push stool around a bend.
Elevating your knees above your hips mimics a squatting position, which straightens the rectal canal and requires significantly less effort to evacuate. Research comparing sitting, hip-flexed sitting, and squatting found that squatting resulted in the straightest path through the rectum and the least straining. A study on older patients found that using a footstool combined with leaning the upper body forward reduced evacuation time and increased the natural rectal pressure that moves stool along.
Here’s how to set it up:
- Use a footstool or step. Place it in front of your toilet so your knees rise above hip level. A 7- to 9-inch stool works for most standard toilets. Commercial options like the Squatty Potty are designed for this, but any sturdy stool or stack of books will do.
- Lean forward slightly. Rest your forearms on your thighs and let your belly relax completely. This combination of raised knees and forward lean opens the anorectal angle as wide as possible.
- Keep your feet flat. Pressing your feet into the stool gives your abdominal muscles something to brace against, which helps generate gentle downward pressure without clenching your pelvic floor.
Use Your Breath Instead of Straining
Straining, holding your breath, and bearing down hard are the most common ways people accidentally tighten their pelvic floor while trying to empty it. The instinct to push as hard as possible usually backfires because forceful effort recruits the very muscles you need to release.
Instead, try diaphragmatic breathing on the toilet. Inhale slowly through your nose, letting your belly expand outward. As you exhale through your mouth, gently bulge your lower abdomen forward and down, as if you’re inflating a balloon in your pelvis. This creates intra-abdominal pressure from above (your diaphragm pushing down) while keeping the exit relaxed. Think of it as widening and releasing rather than squeezing and pushing.
A useful cue: imagine your pelvic floor dropping or opening on the exhale, like an elevator descending to the ground floor. If you catch yourself holding your breath or clenching your jaw, those are signs you’ve shifted into a straining pattern. Reset with another slow inhale and try again.
Learn What Relaxation Actually Feels Like
One of the trickiest parts of pelvic floor dysfunction is that many people genuinely cannot tell whether their muscles are contracted or relaxed. This disconnect between what your brain intends and what your muscles actually do is the core of the problem.
A simple self-check: place a finger gently against your perineum (the area between your genitals and anus) while practicing the breathing technique described above. When your pelvic floor relaxes, you should feel that area gently bulge outward. If it pulls inward or you feel tightening, your muscles are contracting when they should be letting go. This isn’t a perfect diagnostic tool, but it gives you immediate tactile feedback about what your body is doing.
Clinical biofeedback therapy works on the same principle with more precision. A small sensor monitors your pelvic floor muscle activity on a screen, so you can see in real time whether you’re contracting or relaxing during simulated defecation. Patients learn to keep the pelvic floor muscles relaxed while gradually increasing gentle abdominal pressure. Success rates for biofeedback-based pelvic floor therapy range from about 51 to 83 percent, with one study showing over 80 percent of patients achieving meaningful improvement after three months of guided exercises.
Stretches That Release Pelvic Floor Tension
Chronic pelvic floor tightness doesn’t just show up on the toilet. It builds throughout the day, especially if you sit for long periods, carry stress in your hips, or have a habit of clenching. Regular stretching can help these muscles learn to lengthen and release.
- Happy Baby Pose. Lie on your back, grab the outsides of your feet, and pull your knees toward your armpits. This directly lengthens the pelvic floor while opening the hips. Hold for 30 to 60 seconds, breathing deeply into your belly.
- Child’s Pose. Kneel on the floor, sit your hips back toward your heels, and extend your arms forward. This gently stretches the pelvic floor and lower back. Widen your knees to create more space for your belly to drop between your thighs.
- Deep Squat (Malasana). Stand with feet slightly wider than hip-width and lower into a deep squat, keeping your heels on the floor if possible. This is essentially the natural defecation position and trains your pelvic floor to release under load. Hold for 30 seconds to start, building up over time.
- Wind-Relieving Pose. Lie on your back and hug one or both knees into your chest. This compresses the abdomen and encourages the pelvic floor to release, and it’s particularly helpful for trapped gas.
- Supine Twist. Lie on your back, draw your knees to your chest, and let them fall to one side while keeping your shoulders flat. This massages the abdominal organs and can stimulate movement through the digestive tract.
Doing even two or three of these for five minutes a day, especially in the morning before your first bowel movement, can make a noticeable difference over a few weeks.
Timing and Habits That Help
Your colon has its own rhythm. The strongest natural contractions that push stool toward the rectum happen in the morning, particularly after eating or drinking something warm. Working with this reflex rather than ignoring it makes relaxation easier because your body is already primed to go.
Try drinking a glass of warm water or having your morning coffee, then sitting on the toilet within 15 to 30 minutes, even if the urge isn’t strong yet. Use the elevated knee position and gentle breathing. Give yourself time without rushing or scrolling on your phone. Distraction pulls your attention away from the subtle body awareness needed to consciously relax your pelvic floor.
If you’re someone who regularly ignores the urge to go because you’re busy or not near a comfortable bathroom, that habit can gradually train the rectum to stop sending strong signals and the pelvic floor to stay in a holding pattern. Responding to the urge promptly, when possible, helps maintain the normal coordination between your brain and your pelvic muscles.
When the Problem Is Chronic
If you’ve been straining with most bowel movements for several months and the techniques above don’t help, the issue may be dyssynergic defecation. Diagnostic criteria for this condition require that the pattern has been present for at least three months (with symptoms starting at least six months earlier) and that testing confirms the pelvic floor muscles are inappropriately contracting during attempts to push.
This isn’t something you need to live with. Pelvic floor physical therapy, often incorporating biofeedback, is the first-line treatment. A pelvic floor therapist can assess whether your muscles are chronically tight, teach you targeted relaxation techniques, and use real-time feedback to retrain the coordination between your abdominal muscles and pelvic floor. Most programs run 6 to 12 sessions over a few months, and the majority of patients see substantial improvement.