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Lighting a candle? That's basic compared to these advanced tips.

Poop anxiety isn't the most heavily studied medical field, but some estimates say up to a third of people suffer from some kind of anxiety around going to the bathroom in a public place or another person's home. On the low end, they can feel ashamed or embarrassed. At the higher end, they may avoid social functions, public events, or leaving their own home entirely. This phenomenon also tends to affect women more than men. For some people the worry gets so bad that they constipate themselves or refuse to eat, all because they're worried of what people will think of them.

But you don't have to have extreme "shy bowel" to know the uncertainty associated with feeling a rumbly tummy while you're a guest in someone's house. There are a lot of unknowns to manage. How good is their soundproofing? Does their toilet actually flush properly? Will someone be waiting to go in right after me? Some people anticipate these worries and come up with elaborate rules and routines to leave as little evidence of their go as possible.

A guy took a simple question to social media: Should you always courtesy flush when you're a guest in someone's house? The answer sparked a huge debate about the secret etiquette of public pooping.


poop, bathroom, dancing, funny, humor, toiletThis dancing poop says pooping can be fun!Giphy

In a thread on the subreddit r/NoStupidQuestions, the OP asked: "My mother tells me that at other people's houses, when going to the bathroom, it's expected to do a 'courtesy flush'. Is this a real thing?"

For the uninitiated, a courtesy flush is when you flush halfway through your "go." The thinking is that it helps get rid of odors before they build up. Not only that did the poster's mother advocate for courtesy flushing, she insisted on a very specific ritual when visiting other people's homes:

  1. Always carry Poopurri and spray before you go
  2. Flush halfway through your session
  3. Flush at the end (obviously)
  4. Clean toilet bowl with wand... every time!
If it sounds a little extreme to you, you're not alone.

However, some commenters were extremely pro-courtesy flush.

toilet, bathroom, home, hygiene, cleaning, etiquetteWhite ceramic toilet bowl with cover. Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

"I’ve done the 'courtesy flush' thing for years… mainly to help minimize lingering odors more than any other reason."

"That’s good advice. First flush on delivery, second flush with clean up. Reduces odor and skid marks."

A few people noted that the courtesy flush is common in jails and prisons, of all places. Due to the tight (extremely tight) quarters, inmates are encouraged to repeatedly flush while they go. I don't want to know what the consequence might be for violating this code.

Others claimed the courtesy flush was a waste of water:

"Flushing twice seems very wasteful in my opinion. I would not like a guest to do that."

"No, please don't waste my water. But do make sure everything goes down."

"If someone did that at my house I'd be low key annoyed at them for wasting water."

Experts agree that the effectiveness of the courtesy flush is very much up for debate. Does it mildly lessen odor? Maybe. It's also a gigantic waste of water. Older toilets can use up to six gallons per flush—yikes! An extra flush is also questionable at best when it comes to sanitation—flushing poop with the lid open is known to spray bacteria all over the bathroom. Yuck.

"Everyone poops, I don't want my guests worrying about it," wrote one commenter. "Crack a window if it's like, lethally stinky, I guess. If you clog the toilet, the plunger is in a plastic tub right there. If you need help, cool, now we have a funny story."

The courtesy flush, however, was only the beginning of the OPSEC tips for pooping in public.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Some commenters were on board with OP's mother's idea of using the toilet brush if it's available:

"If there's some brown stuck to the porcelain after I flush, and if there's a toilet brush on hand, I give it a quick cleaning and a second flush. But not if things look clean otherwise," someone wrote.

Another commenter had an even more advanced idea: "You can also float a strip of toilet paper on top of the water before you poo. Gets wrapped in paper as you drop off your delivery and less likely to leave skid marks in the bowl."

Of course, commenters in threads all over the Internet sing the praises of Poo-Pourri, or even carrying a lighter with you at all times to burn up some of the stinky oxygen. And how's this for a pro-level tip?

"Tip for the courtesy flush.. if one who finds it hard to poop in a public bathroom because you don’t want people to hear you. Flush just right before you push and the sound of the water will cover the sound of gas etc and it will go right down with the water so very minimal smell."

I mean, all you can do really is clap at the social-anxiety-fueled ingenuity on display. The experts seem to agree here. Even Healthlinerecommends carrying air purifier spray, lining the inside of the bowl with toilet paper to absorb sound, and flushing several times to reduce anxiety worries.

The general consensus is that, when pooping at someone's house, basic etiquette applies. Clean up after yourself to a normal degree, but remember, as the saying goes: Everybody poops.

Some people are really protective over the bathrooms in their homes, which is their right. But if that's the case, they really shouldn't be having guests over and expecting them not to partake in normal human biological behaviors.

Some of the advanced tips shared by anxious-pooers might help, but try not to send yourself into a tailspin trying to cover your tracks. In extreme cases of bathroom anxiety, experts say cognitive behavior therapy or even antidepressants may be needed. But the rest of us might just need to read that world famous children's book again.

Health

Doctor breaks down how to recognize ADHD in adults. The symptoms may be surprising.

"75% of adults with anxiety actually have ADHD as the cause of their anxiety."

Doctor breaks down how to recognize ADHD in adults.

If it seems that everyone is being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), there may be a reason and it's likely not the reason people think. Diagnostic criteria were initially based off of how ADHD presented in white children who were mostly male, so if you fell outside of that box your diagnosis was often overlooked. This is especially true in girls who then turned into undiagnosed or misdiagnosed women.

But it's not just women who were undiagnosed since the criteria mostly included ways in which hyperactivity showed up—you know, the "H" in ADHD. But not everyone with ADHD presents with the stereotypical hyperactivity bit. ADHD specialist Dr. Heather Brannon breaks down ways in which ADHD is missed and how to identify it in adults in a TEDx Talk in 2021.

In the first few minutes of the video, Brannon drops a statistic that feels mind-boggling: "75% of adults with anxiety actually have ADHD as the cause of their anxiety." Even though I fit into that category, consider my mind completely boggled because I thought I was a rarity and my psychiatrist was a magician. Turns out, he was probably just up to date on his continuing education credits.

Brannon talks about how people who may express feelings of overwhelm, anxiousness, and tiredness and who are easily frustrated may actually have undiagnosed ADHD.

It's pretty easy to overlook ADHD that presents with more of the attention deficit part of the diagnosis than the hyperactivity part. When someone is having difficulty sitting still, talking so fast that you can barely keep up, and is constantly on the go, it's pretty easy to pinpoint there may be an issue.

But when the person is quiet, sits still but misses large chunks of conversations, or is chronically forgetful and sleepy, it's much easier to miss the signs, according to Brannon.

Brannon says many people feel bad about themselves without knowing why, so having an answer for why you're feeling this way can be helpful.

The video is really fascinating and may help others recognize signs within themselves or with loved ones.

Give it a gander below:

This article originally appeared two years ago.

Four young people glued to their phones.

A little over a decade ago, people began celebrating Dry January to get their drinking under control after the holiday season. It’s so popular that these days, it's customary for people to say they’re not going out to the bar or a club because they are taking a month off of the sauce. It’s a great excuse for people to stay sober, and most friends won’t give y a hard time for taking a month off.

A similar sentiment surrounds smartphone use, and with the advent of Phone Free February, nonprofits are now encouraging people to take the month to either drastically reduce their phone usage or refrain from using it altogether. For some, putting the phone away for 28 days is hard because they need it for work, but they can create strategies to curb their use of social media apps or texting during their free time.

What is Phone Free February?

“While phones help us achieve many important tasks, they are also designed to keep us hooked. This highly addictive design has us checking our phones an average of 221 times every day,” the Global Solidarity Foundation, an organization promoting Phone Free February, notes on its website. Jacob Warn from the organization told the Washington Post that the month is an opportunity to “get you to question what you need your phone for."

phone-free February, smartphone addiction, mental healthA couple glued to their phones.via Canva/Photos

Organizers hope that if people take some time to live phone-free, they can realize its grip on their lives. When people call giving up their phones or reducing their use a digital detox, they’re not wrong; every time we swipe through a social media app, we get minor hits of dopamine to the areas of our brains that respond to drugs like cocaine. Withdrawal from social media and other dopamine-creating apps is akin to getting off of a drug, so Phone Free February participants should consider that when deciding how they want to reduce their use.

“There is some benefit in a hard stop for some people, but I’ve also seen it backfire on people, so it depends on the person and what they want to accomplish,” Emily Hemendinger, MPH, LCSW, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, writes. Particpaints should also use the month to consider long-term smartphone habits.

“Are you wanting to just take the time off and go right back to interacting with it in the same exact way after a day, or week, or month, or is there a way that you can change moving forward? There are plenty of ways we can work on improving those habits, so they don’t drag you down,” Hemendinger adds. “Digital detoxes are fine, but if you’re going back to the same behavior, you may find yourself needing more and more of these detoxes.”

Are smartphones bad for your mental health?

Another great reason to take some time off from your smartphone is to improve your mental health. Excessive smartphone use has been associated with higher rates of anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and social isolation. It’s also thought to be one of the main drivers of the recent rates of self-harm in teens and young adults.

phone-free February, smartphone addiction, mental healthA family glued to their phones.via Canva/Photos

If that’s not enough for people to reconsider their relationship with smartphones, Dino Ambrosi, founder of Project Reboot, says smartphones dominate all our free time. If you assume that the average 18-year-old today will live to the age of 90, after calculating the average time they spend sleeping, going to school, working, cooking, eating, doing chores, sleeping, and taking care of personal hygiene, today’s 18-year-olds have only 334 months of their adult lives to themselves. "Today, the average 18-year-old in the United States is on pace to spend 93% of their remaining free time looking at a screen,” Ambrosi told Upworthy.

Just as Dry January is a time to recommit ourselves to healthy drinking habits, Phone Free February is a moment to step back and reconsider our relationship with technology. Most of us joined the smartphone revolution nearly 2 decades ago, and since then, they have had an increasingly tighter grip on our lives. But the convenience of having a smartphone also comes with a cost, and that’s the most valuable thing we have in our lives: time. How much should we spend staring at a screen instead of enjoying the real beauty surrounding us?

Feeling good.

In 2016, Amber Smith from Warwickshire, England, revealed something about herself that many of her Facebook friends didn't know: she suffers from crippling panic attacks.

Smith shared her story by posting two completely different pictures of herself and the powerful imagery was subsequently shared over 7,500 times.

"Top Picture: What I showcase to the world via social media. Dressed up, make-up done, filters galore. The 'normal' side to me.”

Woman poses in the mirror

Dressed up and ready.

Amber Smith on Facebook.

"Bottom picture: Taken tonight shortly after suffering from a panic attack because of my anxiety. Also, the 'normal' side to me that most people don't see."

Woman covers face in distress

Suffering the panic attack.

Amber Smith on Facebook.

Full post:

God knows why I'm doing this, but people need some home truths..

Top picture: What I showcase to the world via social media. Dressed up, make up done, filters galore. The 'normal' side to me.
Bottom picture: Taken tonight shortly after suffering from a panic attack because of my anxiety. Also the 'normal'' side to me that most people don't see.

I'm so sick of the fact that it's 2016 and there is still so much stigma around mental health. It disgusts me that so many people are so uneducated and judgmental over the topic. They say that 1 in 3 people will suffer with a mental illness at some point in their life. 1 in 3! Do you know how many people that equates to worldwide?! And yet I've been battling with anxiety and depression for years and years and there's still people that make comments like 'you'll get over it', 'you don't need tablets, just be happier', 'you're too young to suffer with that'

F*** YOU. F*** all of you small minded people that think that because I physically look 'fine' that I'm not battling a monster inside my head every single day.

Someone actually said this to me one day 'aren't you too young to be suffering with anxiety and depression? What do you actually have to be depressed about at your age?'' Wow, just wow.

I'm a strong person, I've been through my fair share of crap in life (the same as anyone else) and I will be okay. I have the best family and friends around me and I am thankful everyday that they have the patience to help and support me.
To anyone who is going through the same, please do not suffer in silence. There is so much support around - Don't be scared to ask for help.

This is why I can't stress enough that it costs nothing to be nice to others. Don't bully others, don't put others down and the hardest one of them all (as we have all done it at some point) don't judge another person. We're all human regardless of age, race, religion, wealth, job. So build one another up instead of breaking each other down.
Peace & love guys

Smith's before-and-after photos perfectly symbolize how panic attacks feel, because they often come on without any warning. People suffering from attacks can experience shortness of breath, heart palpitations, trembling, hot and cold flashes or myriad other debilitating symptoms.

According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, over four million Americans suffer from panic attacks, and although they are emotionally debilitating, they can be overcome through cognitive/behavioral therapy. According to Thomas A. Richards, Ph. D, "Today, panic attacks and agoraphobia can be treated successfully with a motivated client and a knowledgeable therapist."


This article originally appeared eight years ago.