how often should i have a bowel movement?
One needs a bowel movement roughly one to three times a day,
depending on the daily food intake. Normally, you should eliminate four-
fi fths of your food intake over an eleven- to nineteen-hour period of time.
Every eight hours there is a peristaltic urge triggered by the gallbladder.
If a bowel movement is achieved on waking at 7:00 a.m., then the next
one should be at approximately 3:00 p.m. Candida and other bowel fl ora
imbalances can severely hamper peristalsis, much as liver and gallbladder
dysfunction do. Many people fi nd that having a meal triggers a bowel
movement. The reason is that the fi lling of the stomach triggers the
emptying of the colon. This idea to many people seems horrendous and
ridiculous — they feel they don’t want to give away that much! Nor do
most of us check the amount of time that food takes to pass through. Try
swallowing some sunfl ower seeds — the white seeds show up well against
the other colors of the fecal matter and are a useful way to measure the
amount of time food takes to pass through your system.
nutrition
Eat a diversity of food types according to your individual needs. One of
the most important things to remember is that all foods must be
completely digested in order to move successfully through the colon.
Consuming plenty of water and fi ber will help enormously.
herbs
See chapter 6 for information on colon cleansing. Drinking aloe vera
juice will soothe, heal, and help to repopulate bowel fl ora in all
conditions. Liver and kidney cleansing may also be benefi cial.
natural healing
Try keeping a footstool in the bathroom. This is useful because we are
really designed to squat when having a bowel movement — a position not
encouraged by the design of most modern Western toilets. Using a
footstool will help align your body in a more natural position.
As with all bodily functions, the spinal column provides nerve supply,
and the lower vertebrae, if misaligned, will cause problems in the bowel.
Therefore, consider a visit to an osteopath or chiropractor in order to
make sure that your vertebrae aren’t hindering the correct fl ow of
impulses and fl uids.
Massage will help, especially along the whole length of the intestine,
body systems 163