Effects Of Regular Walking On Chronic Idiopathic Constipation

[Amazoniac]

I forgot to add above that sometimes impact can be helpful. Vibrating plates tend to move so fast that the person remains almost static in comparison with what happens to the body during a sprint.

One more pimp with long-walking habits:

One day, while taking one of his vigorous, therapeutic walks in the moist and fragrant woods around Breslau, Gerson noticed a tiny movement near the base of a tree. On closer inspection, he found it was a baby squirrel with a broken leg. Evidently it had fallen out of its high nest, or failed to complete a trial leap from high branch to high branch. Max took the young animal home and nursed it back to health. The squirrel, having been raised by the gentle doctor, became quite tame. It would happily travel everywhere with Max, surprising his colleagues by peeping out of the pocket of his overcoat at odd times, begging for a peanut.

 

[SuperStressed]

Yea, prolonged walking is the most sure-fire way for me to instantly improve gut motility during bouts of constipation. Effects last for multiple days. Running and other forms of HIIT sometimes exacerbate the problem.

FWIW Peat literally just spoke about this on an interview on the jodellefit youtube channel

 

[Aad]

walking is the best exercise on planet earth.

 

[TripleOG]

FWIW Peat literally just spoke about this on an interview on the jodellefit youtube channel

Nice.

Haven't listened yet, but caught a soundclip of this on Stan Efferding's instagram.

 

[Amazoniac]

- A common cause of irritable bowel syndrome and diverticulitis: Chronic distal colon distention from sedentary behavior and excessive dietary fiber

"It has become apparent that upright members of the genus Homo rely on gravitational force for normal function of the intestines, as the zero-gravity conditions experienced during space travel predictably result in intestinal obstructive symptoms [25]. Gravitational force acting upon the human body is necessary for normal distal intestine motility, although not entirely, as every physician can attest to the fact that nearly all bedridden patients become constipated, which explains standard orders in nearly every hospital for the use of laxatives in all patients confined to the recumbent posture. Normal distal intestinal function requires gravity but also a considerable time spent upright."

"Under normal circumstances, large intestinal contents are liquid at least until the beginning of the descending colon. Thus they require modest peristaltic force to propel them. Intestinal contents tend to be semisolid in most of this distal colon. The descending colon is aligned parallel to the spinal column and, hence, is vertical when upright. This allows gravity to maximally aid in transit and evacuation. Since formed stool requires far greater force generated by intestinal muscle to effect transit compared with liquid contents, when upright, gravitational force assists when it is needed the most. This helps avoid overwhelming the ability of the distal colon intestinal muscle, which results in overdistention and, over time, permanent damage to contractility, which further interferes with motility and eventual evacuation."​

 

[Amazoniac]

Frederico in 'Twilight of the Idols':

"One cannot think and write except when seated (G. Flaubert). There I have caught you, nihilist! The sedentary life is the very sin against the Holy Spirit. Only thoughts reached by walking have value."​

 

[Amazoniac]

Curtis Cate's 'Federico Nicci':

"With a Spartan rigour which never ceased to amaze his landlord-grocer, Nietzsche would get up every morning when the faintly dawning sky was still grey, and, after washing himself with cold water from the pitcher and china basin in his bedroom and drinking some warm milk, he would, when not felled by headaches and vomiting, work uninterruptedly until eleven in the morning. He then went for a brisk, two-hour walk through the nearby forest or along the edge of Lake Silvaplana (to the north-east) or of Lake Sils (to the south-west), stopping every now and then to jot down his latest thoughts in the notebook he always carried with him. Returning for a late luncheon at the Hôtel Alpenrose, Nietzsche, who detested promiscuity, avoided the midday crush of the table d’hôte in the large dining-room and ate a more or less ‘private’ lunch, usually consisting of a beefsteak and an ‘unbelievable’ quantity of fruit, which was, the hotel manager was persuaded, the chief cause of his frequent stomach upsets. After luncheon, usually dressed in a long and somewhat threadbare brown jacket, and armed as usual with notebook, pencil, and a large grey-green parasol to shade his eyes, he would stride off again on an even longer walk, which sometimes took him up the Fextal as far as its majestic glacier. Returning ‘home’ between four and five o’clock, he would immediately get back to work, sustaining himself on biscuits, peasant bread, honey (sent from Naumburg), fruit and pots of tea he brewed for himself in the little upstairs ‘dining-room’ next to his bedroom, until, worn out, he snuffed out the candle and went to bed around 11 p.m."​

 

[gaze]

Curtis Cate's 'Federico Nicci':

"With a Spartan rigour which never ceased to amaze his landlord-grocer, Nietzsche would get up every morning when the faintly dawning sky was still grey, and, after washing himself with cold water from the pitcher and china basin in his bedroom and drinking some warm milk, he would, when not felled by headaches and vomiting, work uninterruptedly until eleven in the morning. He then went for a brisk, two-hour walk through the nearby forest or along the edge of Lake Silvaplana (to the north-east) or of Lake Sils (to the south-west), stopping every now and then to jot down his latest thoughts in the notebook he always carried with him. Returning for a late luncheon at the Hôtel Alpenrose, Nietzsche, who detested promiscuity, avoided the midday crush of the table d’hôte in the large dining-room and ate a more or less ‘private’ lunch, usually consisting of a beefsteak and an ‘unbelievable’ quantity of fruit, which was, the hotel manager was persuaded, the chief cause of his frequent stomach upsets. After luncheon, usually dressed in a long and somewhat threadbare brown jacket, and armed as usual with notebook, pencil, and a large grey-green parasol to shade his eyes, he would stride off again on an even longer walk, which sometimes took him up the Fextal as far as its majestic glacier. Returning ‘home’ between four and five o’clock, he would immediately get back to work, sustaining himself on biscuits, peasant bread, honey (sent from Naumburg), fruit and pots of tea he brewed for himself in the little upstairs ‘dining-room’ next to his bedroom, until, worn out, he snuffed out the candle and went to bed around 11 p.m."​

he realized cleared bowels are the key to clarity, a strong will to power, creativity. Whats interesting is how he wasnt a fan of coffee, probably the most well known form of bowel clearing after milk and fruit. my guess is his observation of the typical "german" who ate heavy meals, alc, and coffee put coffee in a negative light in his mind due to the association. Or probably it just didnt work for him. Also its very admirable how he came to his dietary habits purely off observation. without any real science to back it up, its very impressive. Much like peat, highly observant, self confident people are rare. I know I for sure wasnt, but have been trying to practice that art

 

[Amazoniac]

- Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Mahler: They all loved taking long daily walks

"In 1885, Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky rented a cottage in a small village some 50 miles northwest of Moscow. After years of restless wandering through Europe, the 45-year-old composer found his new living arrangement a wonderful relief. “What a joy to be in my own home!” he wrote to his patroness. “What a bliss to know that no one will come to interfere with my work, my reading, my walks.”

Those walks were especially important. Before sitting down to work in the morning, Tchaikovsky took a short stroll, lasting no more than 45 minutes. Then, after lunch, regardless of the weather, he went out again. Tchaikovsky’s brother later wrote, “Somewhere at sometime he had discovered that a man needs a two-hour walk for his health, and his observance of this rule was pedantic and superstitious, as though if he returned five minutes early he would fall ill, and unbelievable misfortunes of some sort would ensue.”

Tchaikovsky’s superstition may have been justified—his walks were essential to his creativity, and he often stopped to jot down ideas that he would develop later at the piano. But then this is true of the majority of the composers in my Daily Rituals book—most of them required a long (and sometimes very long) daily walk to keep the ideas flowing.

Beethoven went for a vigorous walk after lunch, and he always carried a pencil and a couple of sheets of paper in his pocket, to record chance musical thoughts. Gustav Mahler followed much the same routine—he would take a three- or four-hour walk after lunch, stopping to jot down ideas in his notebook. Benjamin Britten said that his afternoon walks were “where I plan out what I’m going to write in the next period at my desk.” Working outside of Paris in 1971, Morton Feldman described his routine: “I get up at six in the morning. I compose until eleven, then my day is over. I go out, I walk, tirelessly, for hours.”

But the most extreme example is the French composer Erik Satie, who each morning would walk from his home in a Paris suburb to the city’s Montmartre district, a distance of about 6 miles. There he would visit friends, work on his compositions in cafés, eat dinner, and go out drinking—often missing the last train home, in which case he would walk back again, slipping into bed just before sunrise (and then getting up and walking back a few hours later). The scholar Roger Shattuck once proposed that Satie’s unique sense of musical beat, and his appreciation of “the possibility of variation within repetition,” could be traced to this “endless walking back and forth across the same landscape day after day.”

Of course, it is not just composers who take long walks. Søren Kierkegaard had his best ideas during his daily walks, and sometimes he would be in such a hurry to get them down that, returning home, he would write standing up before his desk, still wearing his hat and gripping his walking stick or umbrella. Immanuel Kant took a walk every afternoon at precisely 3:30. Milton walked up and down his garden most afternoons, for three or four hours. And, according to one biographer, “If it rained, he would swing himself to and fro in a seat suspended from the ceiling, pulling on a rope.”

Most artists prefer a solitary walk, but I ran across some figures who enjoyed company. Mahler liked to drag his wife along on his afternoon hikes. Ludwig Wittgenstein would ask a close associate to accompany him on his walks. “A walk with Wittgenstein was very exhausting,” wrote Norman Malcolm, in a memoir of his friendship with the philosopher:

“Whatever we talked about, he turned his mind to it with great seriousness and intensity, and it was a formidable strain on me to keep up with his thoughts. He would walk in spurts, sometimes coming to a stop while he made some emphatic remark and looking into my eyes with his piercing gaze. Then he would walk rapidly for a few yards, then slow down, then speed up or come to a halt, and so on. And this uncertain ambulation was conjoined with the most exacting conversation!”​

Whew! I could go on, but you get the idea: If you’re trying to generate creative work, you should really consider taking a daily walk—and maybe look into rigging up an indoor rope swing, too."​

It's such a recurrent theme.

This might interest you, @Wagner83. Good to find you around, hope that you're recovered.

 

[Wagner83]

- Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Mahler: They all loved taking long daily walks

"In 1885, Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky rented a cottage in a small village some 50 miles northwest of Moscow. After years of restless wandering through Europe, the 45-year-old composer found his new living arrangement a wonderful relief. “What a joy to be in my own home!” he wrote to his patroness. “What a bliss to know that no one will come to interfere with my work, my reading, my walks.”

Those walks were especially important. Before sitting down to work in the morning, Tchaikovsky took a short stroll, lasting no more than 45 minutes. Then, after lunch, regardless of the weather, he went out again. Tchaikovsky’s brother later wrote, “Somewhere at sometime he had discovered that a man needs a two-hour walk for his health, and his observance of this rule was pedantic and superstitious, as though if he returned five minutes early he would fall ill, and unbelievable misfortunes of some sort would ensue.”

Tchaikovsky’s superstition may have been justified—his walks were essential to his creativity, and he often stopped to jot down ideas that he would develop later at the piano. But then this is true of the majority of the composers in my Daily Rituals book—most of them required a long (and sometimes very long) daily walk to keep the ideas flowing.

Beethoven went for a vigorous walk after lunch, and he always carried a pencil and a couple of sheets of paper in his pocket, to record chance musical thoughts. Gustav Mahler followed much the same routine—he would take a three- or four-hour walk after lunch, stopping to jot down ideas in his notebook. Benjamin Britten said that his afternoon walks were “where I plan out what I’m going to write in the next period at my desk.” Working outside of Paris in 1971, Morton Feldman described his routine: “I get up at six in the morning. I compose until eleven, then my day is over. I go out, I walk, tirelessly, for hours.”

But the most extreme example is the French composer Erik Satie, who each morning would walk from his home in a Paris suburb to the city’s Montmartre district, a distance of about 6 miles. There he would visit friends, work on his compositions in cafés, eat dinner, and go out drinking—often missing the last train home, in which case he would walk back again, slipping into bed just before sunrise (and then getting up and walking back a few hours later). The scholar Roger Shattuck once proposed that Satie’s unique sense of musical beat, and his appreciation of “the possibility of variation within repetition,” could be traced to this “endless walking back and forth across the same landscape day after day.”

Of course, it is not just composers who take long walks. Søren Kierkegaard had his best ideas during his daily walks, and sometimes he would be in such a hurry to get them down that, returning home, he would write standing up before his desk, still wearing his hat and gripping his walking stick or umbrella. Immanuel Kant took a walk every afternoon at precisely 3:30. Milton walked up and down his garden most afternoons, for three or four hours. And, according to one biographer, “If it rained, he would swing himself to and fro in a seat suspended from the ceiling, pulling on a rope.”

Most artists prefer a solitary walk, but I ran across some figures who enjoyed company. Mahler liked to drag his wife along on his afternoon hikes. Ludwig Wittgenstein would ask a close associate to accompany him on his walks. “A walk with Wittgenstein was very exhausting,” wrote Norman Malcolm, in a memoir of his friendship with the philosopher:

“Whatever we talked about, he turned his mind to it with great seriousness and intensity, and it was a formidable strain on me to keep up with his thoughts. He would walk in spurts, sometimes coming to a stop while he made some emphatic remark and looking into my eyes with his piercing gaze. Then he would walk rapidly for a few yards, then slow down, then speed up or come to a halt, and so on. And this uncertain ambulation was conjoined with the most exacting conversation!”​

Whew! I could go on, but you get the idea: If you’re trying to generate creative work, you should really consider taking a daily walk—and maybe look into rigging up an indoor rope swing, too."​

It's such a recurrent theme.

This might interest you, @Wagner83. Good to find you around, hope that you're recovered.

You know, right after you wrote the previous post I was about to mention how composers often walked to toy with their ideas. Brahms is also one. I know at least one guy who did advanced geometry for a living, he noticed the same : the creative process benefits greatly from not only walking, but in general letting the mind wander where it wants to, rather than forcefully focus on a specific task (that is, switch between the two when you're stuck) ; dreaming was a valid option for many. Movement of the body creates movement of the mind. Namaste. Creativity or not, I often benefit from walking when something isn't right.

 

[Amazoniac]

letting the mind wander where it wants to, rather than forcefully focus on a specific task (that is, switch between the two when you're stuck) ; dreaming was a valid option for many. Movement of the body creates movement of the mind. Namaste.

If it's of interest, you can find more related information below:
- Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking (citations)

 

[Jib]

Squatting helps immensely.

Whole section on constipation here:

Health Benefits of the Natural Squatting Position

I've been using a "Lillipad." Converted to this after years of using "Nature's Platform," which is no longer in production. Personally, I like the Lillipad even more. And yes, that's spelled correctly. It looks nicer and more presentable. Not as obtrusive. And somehow feels better to squat on as well.

It isn't hard to assemble. If you know how to glue in dowels and use a screwdriver you'll be fine. It's a fantastic product and I'll probably get another one eventually. Always worried places like this are gonna go outta business, because demand is so low. Which truly sucks. If people only seriously considered the benefits of the squatting position, products like the Lillipad would be way more popular.

And by "products like"...I mean the Lillipad. Because it's the only one. The partial squat/raised foot platforms don't even remotely compare to the full squat position in my experience.

I've been using the natural squatting position in the bathroom for I don't even know how many years now. A lot. Once you get used to it, sitting down to use the toilet seems like a nightmare. Just way more straining than anyone should ever experience, not complete emptying, etc.

I do want to start walking more, as it seems to be helpful for health in general.

But constipation is not an issue for me, except on rare occasions. And I will say the squatting definitely helps with that. I remember just having to forego using the bathroom when constipated. With squatting, it might be a little more difficult, but things move along OK nonetheless, even though I can tell I'm having some issues. I think if I were seated, it would be physically impossible to do that without hurting myself. I knew someone who did just that and got some kind of severe hernia from straining very intensely. Not good.

Whole fruit seems to be very helpful for me, and Greek yogurt with raw honey. I don't drink much juice these days, but eat a lot of whole mandarin oranges and bananas, and some apples. I also have homemade granola regularly, which I make with organic rolled oats, salt, maple syrup or honey, and hydrogenated coconut oil. Maybe the beta glucan is helpful.

For anyone interested in the Lillipad:

Lillipad Squatting Platform

Not affiliated with them at all, just very happy with it, and for anyone struggling with bathroom issues, I cannot emphasize how much I recommend squatting. If you get one of these you'll never look back.

 

[Wagner83]

If it's of interest, you can find more related information below:
- Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking (citations)

Thank you.

 

[Amazoniac]

From those publications:
- Friedrich Nietzsche: the wandering and learned neuropath under Dionisius

 

[Amazoniac]

- Nikola Tesla's youth and strength at 78

"The most stimulating activity, to my mind, is walking. I walk never less than ten miles a day. This has kept me in good health, but it may in the end lead to my destruction, because I am a confirmed jay-walker."​

- Understanding Walking Meetings: Drivers and Barriers

"Working while walking has a rich history, especially in philosophy. Well-known examples of philosophers with a habit of walking were Aristotle, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Emanuel Kant. Aristotle's nickname was ‘peripatêtikos’, derived from the Greek ‘Peripatein’ or ‘walking’, which also translates as ‘engage in dialogue while walking’ [30]. To Nietzsche, walking was how he worked best. When writing ‘The Wanderer and His Shadow’, he walked for up to eight hours a day while taking notes for his book [30]. Kant, on the other hand, walked to escape, as “a distraction from work”. He described walking as a way to recover from sitting in the same place [30]."​

 

[SOMO]

BLOATED? TRY WALKING

Walking increases the speed of gastric emptying.

 

[Amazoniac]

- What you can learn from Einstein’s quirky habits

"Einstein's daily walk was sacred to him. While he was working at Princeton University, New Jersey, he'd walk the mile and a half journey there and back. He followed in the footsteps of other diligent walkers, including Darwin who went for three 45 minute walks every day."​

 

[GelatinGoblin]

Recommend this, definitely Thanks Amazoniac!

 

[Amazoniac]

- Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking

"Asking people to take a 30-min run to improve their subsequent seated creativity would be an unhappy prescription for many people. Thus, the current research examined the more practical strategy of taking a short walk."

"Attempts to improve individual creativity often involve training people in the steps of creativity including shifting perspective (Kozbelt, Beghetto, & Runco, 2010), trying something counterintuitive (Amabile, 1983), or, in the most direct fashion possible, simply trying to “be more creative” (Christensen, Guilford, & Wilson, 1957). While effective, these depend on diligence and the direct, perhaps effortful, manipulation of one’s creative processes. Rather than trying to improve people’s command of the creative process, we simply had people walk at a natural pace." "When people walk outside their natural stride, it demands more cognitive control (Brisswalter, Durand, Delignieres, & Legros, 1995)." "If successful, it is an easily adopted (and healthy) approach for enhancing creative output."

"In Experiment 1, while seated and then when walking on a treadmill, adults completed Guilford’s alternate uses (GAU) test of creative divergent thinking and the compound remote associates (CRA) test of convergent thinking. Walking increased 81% of participants’ creativity on the GAU, but only increased 23% of participants’ scores for the CRA." "Walking was selectively beneficial for divergent thinking, not convergent thinking."

"In Experiment 2, participants completed the GAU when seated and then walking, when walking and then seated, or when seated twice. Again, walking led to higher GAU scores. Moreover, when seated after walking, participants exhibited a residual creative boost." "[..]when people sat down after walking, they continued to be more creative even though they no longer needed to attend to walking."

"Experiment 3 generalized the prior effects to outdoor walking."

Spoiler

"Leg movement and external stimulation were not direct causes of increased creativity, given the residual effects of walking when seated. This implicates biological mediators that may range from circulatory to chemical changes."

"Experiment 4 tested the effect of walking on creative analogy generation. Participants sat inside, walked on a treadmill inside, walked outside, or were rolled outside in a wheelchair."

"Walking had a strong effect on creative production whether indoors or out." "Walking, rather than being outdoors, was the driver of novel, high-quality analogies. While research indicates that being outdoors has many cognitive benefits, walking has a very specific benefit—the improvement of creativity."

Spoiler

"Walking outdoors on a busy campus did not significantly increase appropriate novelty compared with walking indoors, although the more varied stimulation did appear to increase novelty. This suggests that walking may be effective in many locations that do not have acute distractions."

"The effects of outdoor stimulation and walking were separable." "[..]both walking and being outdoors independently increased novelty."

Spoiler

"Thus, walking appears to prompt high structure and novelty, whereas the outdoors seems to influence novelty."

"One concern is that being rolled in a wheelchair is unusual and may have suppressed creativity. [?] The wheelchair did not seem to bother or overly intrigue participants. A future experiment should test other ways of moving people through the environment (e.g., a slow golf cart). Regardless, these results do not imply that people who require wheelchairs cannot partake of the benefits found here. Walking is only one way to engage in mild exercise. For example, rolling oneself in a wheelchair may be equally effective."​

"Walking opens up the free flow of ideas, and it is a simple and robust solution to the goals of increasing creativity and increasing physical activity."​

 

[DB_2014]

I have IBS-C and chronic constipation. About a year ago, I started a job that requires me to walk 8 hours every morning, 5 days a week. Every morning, after the 2nd hour of walking at my job, I consistently have a bowel movement. On my off days, I often don’t walk at all and will consistently fail to have any bowel movements those days.

As with any remedy, I’m sure this won’t work for everyone. But walking is the only consistently successful method I have found for treating my own constipation.