Are your bowels moving?
Moving your bowels means to poop. If you said "yuck," you're not alone. Most people don't want to discuss going poop. But moving your bowels is an important body function, so it's good to know what's normal and what's not.

Your bowels, also called the large intestine, are the lower parts of your digestive system. Your intestines finish the process of digesting food — a process that starts in your mouth and stomach and ends with you going to the bathroom. About 2 quarts (1.9 liters) of food and liquids pass through your body each day. They can stay for several days in your bowels, where your body absorbs water and salts. As water is absorbed, the digested food gets more solid and becomes a bowel movement (poop).

What's Normal?
Many people think that normal means having one bowel movement every day, but that's not always true. People are different, and so are their bowels. Normal for one person might be three bowel movements a day, and normal for another might be three bowel movements a week. If your bowel movements fit somewhere in that range, then you're on a normal schedule.

Constipation
Constipation means that you're not moving your bowels often enough, and your bowel movements are harder and drier than normal. Normal bowel movements should be soft and easy to pass. They shouldn't be dry, hard, or painful. If they are or you've gone for more than 4 days without having one, you may be constipated.


Can Stress Affect Your Bowels?
Sometimes, being worried or upset can give you either diarrhea or constipation. You might even have some combination of tummy pain, bloating (the feeling that you're pumped up with air), gas, diarrhea, and constipation.

You may have sensitive bowels — a common problem doctors call irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). IBS is also called spastic colon, mucous colitis, or nervous bowel.

Tummy pain is the most common problem of IBS. Also, people with IBS can have diarrhea, constipation, or both at different times. When someone with IBS passes a bowel movement, mucus (thick, slippery fluid that looks like egg white) can sometimes come out, too.

People with IBS often can feel better by changing their diets. They can also learn new ways to handle their worries so that they feel less stressed out.