Hemorrhoids flare up when there’s too much pressure on the veins around your rectum, and several everyday habits can make that pressure worse. The main things to avoid fall into a few categories: foods that harden your stool or irritate the area, exercises that spike abdominal pressure, bathroom habits that keep you straining, and a few common remedies that can backfire.
Low-Fiber Foods That Lead to Straining
Constipation is the single biggest driver of hemorrhoid flare-ups, and a low-fiber diet is the fastest route to constipation. When your stool is hard and dry, you push harder to pass it, and that straining engorges the veins around your rectum. The NIDDK specifically flags these low-fiber categories as ones to cut back on: cheese, chips, fast food, ice cream, meat, frozen meals, and processed foods like hot dogs and microwavable dinners.
The fix is straightforward. Federal dietary guidelines recommend 25 to 28 grams of fiber per day for adult women and 31 to 34 grams for adult men, depending on age. Most Americans get roughly half that. You don’t need to overhaul your diet overnight. Adding a serving of beans, a bowl of oatmeal, or a few extra pieces of fruit each day can make a noticeable difference in stool consistency within a week or two. Increase fiber gradually, though, because a sudden jump can cause gas and bloating.
Spicy Foods and Alcohol
Spicy food won’t cause hemorrhoids, but it can make existing ones significantly more painful. Capsaicin, the compound that gives peppers their heat, isn’t fully broken down during digestion. It passes through your stool largely intact, and when it crosses inflamed or swollen tissue on the way out, it intensifies burning and pain. If you also have small tears in the anal lining (fissures), capsaicin getting into those open wounds is especially painful.
Alcohol is a problem for a different reason. It slows intestinal movement, making constipation more likely, and it dehydrates you, which hardens stool further. That combination means more straining and more pressure on already swollen veins. During a flare-up, cutting alcohol out entirely gives your body the best chance to heal.
Sitting Too Long on the Toilet
This is one of the most overlooked triggers. When you sit on a toilet, the ring-shaped seat leaves the anal area unsupported, and gravity pulls blood into the veins around your rectum. The longer you sit, the more those veins engorge. Scrolling your phone, reading, or just waiting and hoping something happens all extend that pressure window.
Try to limit your time on the toilet to 10 to 15 minutes at the absolute maximum, and ideally closer to one or two minutes per sitting. If nothing is happening, get up and try again later. Straining to force a bowel movement is one of the worst things you can do. If you find yourself needing to push hard regularly, that’s a sign your stool is too firm and your fiber or water intake needs adjusting.
Heavy Lifting and High-Pressure Exercises
Any exercise that spikes the pressure inside your abdomen can push blood into rectal veins and cause hemorrhoids to swell. Weightlifting is the most common culprit, particularly heavy squats and deadlifts where you’re bearing down with maximum effort. That bearing-down motion, sometimes called the Valsalva maneuver, creates a surge of pressure that’s essentially the same as straining on the toilet.
Sitting exercises like spinning and rowing can also be problematic because they compress the area directly. If you’re dealing with a flare-up, consider switching to walking, swimming, or yoga until symptoms settle. If you want to keep lifting, go lighter with more repetitions instead of maxing out. Breathing steadily through each rep, rather than holding your breath, helps keep abdominal pressure lower.
Stimulant Laxatives for Ongoing Use
When constipation gets bad, it’s tempting to reach for a laxative. That’s fine occasionally, but the type matters. Stimulant laxatives, the kind that force your colon muscles to contract (common brand names include Dulcolax and Fletcher’s Laxative), can cause your colon to lose muscle tone if you use them beyond the short-term directions on the label. Over time, that weakened colon actually makes constipation worse, creating a cycle where you need the laxative just to have a bowel movement at all.
Fiber supplements and osmotic laxatives, which work by drawing water into the stool to soften it, are generally safer for longer use. But the goal is to get enough fiber and water from your diet that you don’t need any laxative regularly.
Dry Toilet Paper and Rough Wiping
Aggressive wiping with dry toilet paper irritates swollen hemorrhoid tissue and can cause small tears that bleed and sting. If you’re in a flare-up, switch to unscented, alcohol-free wet wipes or a bidet-style rinse. Pat gently rather than rubbing. Scented wipes, soaps, and powders can contain chemicals that further irritate sensitive tissue, so plain and fragrance-free is the rule.
Ignoring Bleeding That Doesn’t Stop
Small amounts of bright red blood on the toilet paper are common with hemorrhoids and typically not dangerous. But if bleeding continues after a week of home care, or if your stools change in color or consistency, that warrants a visit to your doctor. Rectal bleeding can also be a sign of colorectal or anal cancer, and assuming it’s “just hemorrhoids” without confirmation can delay a diagnosis that matters.
Seek emergency care if you experience large amounts of rectal bleeding along with lightheadedness, dizziness, or faintness. A hemorrhoid that develops a blood clot, called a thrombosed hemorrhoid, causes sudden, severe pain and a hard lump near the anus. It sometimes needs to be drained by a doctor rather than managed at home.