Since the time you were tall enough to try to flush your toys down the toilet, you’ve been trained to sit to poop. Now you find out that you’ve been doing it all wrong. As if dealing with that realization isn’t enough, you now have to retrain yourself, without the help of your misguided parents, to squat, instead.
In place of the stepstool you used as a toddler to reach up to the toilet, you now have this gadget in your home that’s eerily similar but requires that you to squat down to the toilet. Before you start to think that the world has gone topsy-turvy, we have some advice to offer on how to adjust to your new Squatty Potty, and how to explain it to your friends and family.
Getting Your Head in the Game
You’ve been indoctrinated since a very early age by a cult of sit-poopers to poop a certain way; so don’t expect squatting to feel natural to you. If you’ve ever squatted to poop in the woods, that probably felt pretty cool, but squatting in a bathroom, even if the bathroom is equipped with a squat toilet, can feel awkward.
Timing is Everything
Accept the fact that you’re going to have some awkward moments, guys especially. When you wake up in the morning aiming at the ceiling, you may want to wait a few minutes and use your typical stand-and-shoot position to empty your water gun before squatting to drop your bombs. Fortunately for most guys, the bomb doors don’t need to be opened until later in the morning.
Assuming the Position
The good news is that you don’t have to squat entirely with a squatty potty. You can still sit. The Squatty Potty simply raises your legs to simulate squatting and put you in the proper position to deliver the package. Of course, if you want to do a bona fide squat, Squatty Potty can help with that, too. The objective is to achieve a position as close to a natural squat as possible by bringing your thighs up closer to your chest. Why, you ask? Well, that requires a brief lesson in human anatomy.
Your body has been cleverly designed to give you the power to decide when to poop and when not to. Many people mistakenly believe that the sphincter muscle is the sole gatekeeper, but this is not so. Two additional obstacles stand between your poop and the pond below. First, near the end of the colon is a section called the sigmoid colon that has a natural kink in it — imagine a garden hose folded over to stop the water flowing through it. The kink must be released to allow the waste to flow freely. A second obstacle is the puborectalis muscle, which maintains a chokehold on the rectum. Only squatting, not sitting, fully relaxes this muscle to clear the pathway to the anus.
This elegant design (or happenstance, depending on what you believe) has kept us from pooping while walking around while enabling us to squat and fully eliminate the solid waste from our bodies.
Giving Yourself Ample Time to Adapt
Becoming accustomed to squatting takes time, as many of our customers have noted. Be prepared to spend some time adapting to the following:
- Squatting tends to spread your cheeks, so to speak, removing another obstacle that stands in the way of your poop reaching its target; however, spread too far, and it can feel as though somebody jabbed a saber into your perineum. A shorter Squatty Potty usually solves this problem.
- Pants rolled down around the ankles can make it difficult to widen your stance sufficiently. If that’s the case, you may need to pull them up a little, keeping them below the knees, or you could always go au naturel the first few times.
- When your thighs are raised they no longer help to support you on the seat, placing additional pressure on your buns, which can cause discomfort for people with bony butts. Sadly, this just takes getting used to and is a minor issue compared to the many benefits of squatting.
- You may need to work on your aim; some customers have sprayed outside the target area while developing the necessary skill.
Coming Clean with House Guests
In addition to being a barely noticeable bathroom accessory, the Squatty Potty, when spotted, becomes a great conversation piece. The uninitiated may think, at first, that a nearby toddler is being potty trained. Others may think you use it as a stepstool to reach up to the ceiling or above the cabinets. Maybe they think you’re challenging your ability to aim from greater heights.
If anyone asks about it, the most interesting response is to ask them what they think it’s for. (Please, please post their responses below!) If you’d prefer to avoid that discussion, another option is to come clean; tell them what it’s for, why you have it, and how it has impacted (or removed the impaction from) your life. Offer to let them take it for a spin. Heck, everybody poops, no secret there!
