Surface Area of a Rectangular Pyramid. The surface area of a regular square pyramid is the sum of area of the base and area of four isosceles triangles. But for rectangular pyramid, with rectangular base, we can not use the standard formula of surface area because there is more than one slant height ($s_1$ and $s_2$).
Step 1. Drink plenty of water with your meals and between meals. Water helps soften your stool. If you do not drink enough fluids, your body will pull water from the colon, hardening the stools. Also avoid caffeinated beverages, which cause your body to lose water.
Daily use of stool softeners? I often heard in rehab (and see suggested on here) that taking stool softeners daily can greatly help with stool firmness for us in the SCI population. Recently I was reading the directions on the bottle (go figure), and it says that taking one or two tablets should induce a bowel movement in around 12 hours.