What can you learn from your bowel movements?
I have been practicing Ayurveda in San Diego for the past 2 years. One very common question I ask everybody is: "How is your Digestion?" - This question is usually followed by some more specific questions. According to Ayurveda knowing one's digestion provides a very important key to his overall state of healthiness. After food is digested it forms, what is termed as 'ahar rasa' which is converted to assimilable form to give nourishment to all the 'dhatus' or tissues in the body. The portion that is not converted into ahar rasa is called 'kitta'. Through transformation process kitta is eventually formed into stools or 'purisha' and urine or 'mutra'. Both these elements have to be eliminated from the body after a certain period of time. Stools are one clue to the state of our body in a certain time frame.
So, next time please pay attention to this very important business of elimination.
A healthy person should have bowel movements everyday. They should be well-formed, soft, like a banana and should float. Slight stink is ok but something overpowering to make you hold your nose is not ok. There should not be too much strain involved in pushing it out. And most of all, you should feel complete when you are done.
Here are some more questions and guidelines and what they mean.
It takes 12 hours for food to be fully digested which means the waste created should be eliminated in about that much time. When this is not part of a daily routine every morning it indicates some elements in the digestion process are compromised. With some folks the time in the morning does not permit them to have leisure Bowel Movement in the bathroom and the urge to go is suppressed. According to Ayurveda, all this can result into illnesses if allowed to continue over a period of time.
Q: When you do go, do the stools sink to the bottom or do they float?
Floating stools are good stools since all the nourishment has been absorbed by the body and the water element separated out properly. What's left is solid waste that the body is eliminating.
Q: Do you feel complete after you go?
The feeling of completeness relates to complete evacuation. When you feel incomplete that means the element (Vata) responsible for moving it out is not functioning properly.
Q: Do you have to strain?
To strain a little to push stools out is ok, but when you have to use lot of strain indicates (vata) element responsible for the process of elimination is not functioning well.
Q: Do your stools stink?
There can be some smell as some excess vata element created during digestion is let out but if it is overpowering, it indicates compromised digestion process.
Q: Are your stools hard and fall like pebbles? Sometimes?
Every diet needs certain amount of 'snigdha' element or unctuousness, moistness for creating good quality tissues. Dry stools could indicate that snigdha element is missing in the diet but it could also mean there is already dryness existing in the digestion system.
Q: Do you see food particles in your stools?
Digestion happens with the help of Agni element which does transformation, when Agni is not functioning at an optimum level some food remains undigested and unassimilated. This is seen in the stools.
Q: Are the stools often runny?
There are a couple of reasons for this. After the assimilable part and waste part of food have been separated, the waste portion goes into further separation and liquid and solid wastes are formed. If this last separation is not performed efficiently, you might find more liquid in your stools. Second reason, the agni element is not doing its job properly. Agni is too high and because of it digestion is speeded up there isn't enough time given for the separation of the ahar rasa and waste. This results in liquidy stools and at the same time body does not get proper nourishment.
If this happens regularly there could be a greater issue of an organ not functioning at an optimum level.
All of above situations can be rectified with proper diet and lifestyle. Sometimes herbs are recommended to balance elements involved in the digestion. If there is a long-standing issue certain cleansing treatments would be beneficial.
This in a nutshell is the story of stools.