Don’t Hold It In: Pooping Improves Cognitive and Athletic Performance

If you’re an athlete looking for a legal way to gain that competitive edge, consider taking a shit.

According to new research published in the medical journal Sports Medicine and Health Science, conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Taipei, taking a dump before exercising can improve performance. Which shouldn’t be all that surprising when you think about it, but you know, it’s nice to have it confirmed.

Researchers studied 13 triathletes who were tracked using the Stroop test, a cognitive challenge that measures brain flexibility in response time. The results showed that the athletes performed way better on the cognitive test after having voided their large intestines. The results were even better when the triathletes pooped after taking magnesium oxide, a laxative.

This is part of a burgeoning field of research about how your brain just works that bit better if your bowels are empty. A study from 2022, for example, found that patients in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease are more cognitively impaired while they are constipated.

Some of this might have to do with the billions of neurons and bacteria in our delicate gut microbiomes. A slight imbalance in your microbiota could affect everything from your mood to whatever neurological issues you may be suffering from. So it’s safe to say that if you’re backed up with poop, you’re more likely to have shit for brains.

The findings also suggest that emptying your bowels may help conserve some of your body’s resources so it can better direct blood and oxygen to, say, your brain and muscles instead of using them for digestion. The University of Taipei study’s lead author, Chen-Chan Wei, even previously published research showing a link between pooping before getting on a bike and increased physical performance.

A couple of caveats for the study: it was really small, so further research with a larger sample size would help to understand how the results might scale. Also, the researchers don’t want you to interpret their findings as a suggestion that you should regularly take laxatives as a performance-enhancing drug.

Don’t shit your brains out just to get half a percent better than you already are, basically. Taking a dump before a pickup basketball game isn’t going to turn you into the second coming of Michael Jordan, but if a potential extra rebound or two sounds good, then by all means, shit yourself silly.