The best way to sit while pooping is with your knees raised above your hips, your body leaning slightly forward, and your feet flat on a low stool. This position mimics a squat, which straightens the path between your rectum and anal canal, letting stool pass with less effort. Most people sitting on a standard toilet are working against their own anatomy without realizing it.
Why Standard Sitting Makes Things Harder
A sling-like muscle called the puborectalis wraps around your rectum and pulls it forward, creating a kink. This kink is the anorectal angle, and it normally sits between 65 and 100 degrees at rest. That bend is useful. It’s what keeps you continent throughout the day. But when it’s time to go, the muscle needs to relax and widen that angle so stool can move through in a straight line.
Sitting upright on a standard toilet only partially relaxes that muscle. The anorectal angle stays relatively narrow, which means your body has to compensate with more pushing. Squatting, by contrast, flexes the hips deeply enough to fully relax the puborectalis and open the pathway. Research comparing the two positions consistently finds that greater hip flexion straightens the rectal canal, reducing the effort needed to have a bowel movement.
The Step-by-Step Position
You don’t need to squat on the floor. A footstool in front of your toilet gets you most of the benefit. Here’s the position recommended by the American Physical Therapy Association’s pelvic health division:
- Feet flat on a stool, placed about hip-width apart. This raises your knees above hip level, increasing hip flexion toward a squat-like angle.
- Lean forward slightly and rest your elbows on your knees. This tips your torso toward your thighs and opens the anorectal angle further.
- Let your belly relax. The gentle pressure of your thighs against your lower abdomen helps support the natural downward movement of stool.
One common mistake: lifting your heels off the floor instead of using a stool. Rising onto your toes actually tightens the pelvic floor muscles and makes things harder, not easier. Keep your feet fully supported.
If you don’t have a stool, sitting forward on the toilet seat with a relaxed posture still helps compared to sitting bolt upright. The key is getting your torso closer to your thighs.
What the Research Shows
A study published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology tested a toilet footstool with 52 healthy volunteers over four weeks. For the first two weeks, participants used the toilet normally. For the next two, they used a footstool. The results were striking: 90% of participants strained less with the stool, 85% reported feeling more completely emptied, and 71% had shorter bowel movements. On average, people without the stool took about 25% longer to finish.
The odds of feeling fully emptied were more than three and a half times higher when using the stool. These weren’t people with digestive problems. They were healthy adults whose normal bathroom routine improved simply by changing their posture.
Why Straining Matters
Pushing hard on the toilet isn’t just uncomfortable. It triggers what’s called a Valsalva maneuver, the same thing your body does when you bear down with your mouth and nose closed. This temporarily spikes your blood pressure and increases pressure in your abdomen and eyes. For most people, an occasional strain isn’t dangerous, but habitual straining over years carries real consequences.
Chronic straining is a well-established risk factor for hemorrhoids. It also appears to contribute to diverticulosis, a condition where small pouches form in the colon wall. One study comparing people with and without diverticulosis found that those who used sitting-style Western toilets had significantly higher rates of the condition (72% vs. 54%) compared to those who squatted. In statistical modeling, toilet type was an independent risk factor for developing diverticula, alongside hemorrhoids and irritable bowel syndrome. Researchers noted that placing a footstool during defecation may help protect against diverticula formation by optimizing the anorectal angle.
People with certain heart conditions, eye conditions like retinopathy, or recent eye surgery like cataract lens implants should be especially careful about straining, since the pressure spikes can cause complications in those areas.
How Long to Spend on the Toilet
Five minutes should be your upper limit. Sitting longer than that doesn’t usually help you go, and it puts sustained pressure on the veins around the rectum, which contributes to hemorrhoid development over time. If nothing has happened after five minutes, get up and try again later. Scrolling your phone on the toilet is one of the most common reasons people sit far longer than they need to.
Good posture actually helps with timing. When your body is properly positioned, stool moves more efficiently, and the whole process takes less time. The footstool study found that most participants naturally spent less time on the toilet once they changed their position, not because they were rushing, but because their bodies didn’t need as long.
Choosing a Footstool
Any stable, flat surface that raises your feet 6 to 9 inches works. Dedicated toilet stools (the Squatty Potty being the most recognizable brand) are curved to fit around the toilet base, but a yoga block, a short step stool, or even a stack of old books will do the job. The right height depends on your leg length and toilet height. Your knees should end up noticeably above your hips when your feet are on it. If you’re tall, you may need something higher than the standard 7-inch stool.