Why Your Brain Needs to Poo, Too

It’s a different take on “everyone poops,” and it has to do with your brain.

In fact, Mark Freeman’s YouTube channel is all about brains — your brain, my brain, your mom’s brain and your neighbor’s brain. The basic concept: everyone has a brain. How are you going to take care of yours?

In one particular video, he suggests pooping.

“Brains need to poo, too,” he says in the video above. “Your cognitive digestive system works a lot like your nutritional digestive system. You’ve got to keep a great flow of things coming in and things going out.”

He compares keeping a mental illness or an issue hidden from others to that feeling of really having to go to the bathroom. You may be functioning and momentarily distracting yourself, but that feeling isn’t going to go away until you… well, relieve yourself.

And there’s science behind it, too. In the video, he cites a study called, “Physical Burdens of Secrecy.” According to the study, keeping a secret actually makes you feel like life, and even everyday tasks, are more difficult.

So, Freeman encourages people to open up about their mental illness. As he puts it, “mental constipation is not cool.”

The video above is a few years old, but Freeman updates his channel frequently with great information about understanding your brain. Much of the content is related to obsessive compulsive disorder.

In the move recent video below, Freeman compares having a mental illness to drowning.

“You can’t think yourself into swimming any more than you can think yourself into being healthy,” he says in the video above. “Both take action and practice and a lot of hard work.”

Check out more of Freeman’s channel for more helpful, easy to digest information about mental health. Just don’t get your metaphors confused and poo in the pool.