Bladder Habits 101

Have you ever wondered if you take too many trips to the bathroom? Or if you should be getting up at night to go to the bathroom? Or is this coffee making me have to go?!

If you’ve asked yourself these questions, you are not alone and you’re in the right place. Welcome to Bladder Habits 101.

There are well-established norms for good bladder habits. I would like to share some of them with you so that you can avoid very common pelvic health dysfunctions such as stress and urge incontinence and pelvic pain.

Have you ever paid attention to how often you go to the bathroom? Normal frequency of urination is emptying your bladder every 2–4 hours. There can be some normal variation in frequency depending on the amount of fluid intake and how much output you’ve had through sweat. But if you are urinating more often than every 2 hours on a regular basis, chances are your bladder could use some retraining. Bladder retraining can be accomplished independently in many cases or with the help of a pelvic floor physical therapist.

A bladder diary can be a useful tool for keeping track of how many times you go to the bathroom. In it, you can keep track of your frequency, fluid types and amounts. Once you have your baseline you can start to retrain your bladder simply by increasing the amount of time before emptying your bladder. Easier said than done right? Pausing to do some relaxation breathing while waiting until the urge subsides can be helpful in increasing your time between trips or taking your mind to your happy place for a while.

If you are unsuccessful with normalizing your frequency and decreasing your urges, you may have to seek the care of a professional. Note: It’s very common to have mild pelvic floor dysfunction after giving birth but it should normalize within a couple of months postpartum.

“Don’t be a Pusher”

When going to the bathroom, you should allow your urine to come out without pushing it to come out faster. When you push hard to make your urine come out faster on a regular basis you can put undue stress on your pelvic floor muscles. If you do this once or twice you won’t cause harm but if you make a habit of pushing, over time you may cause or contribute to what is called pelvic organ prolapse. Pelvic organ prolapse is a condition where your internal organs such as your bladder start to push or pouch into your vaginal or rectal wall. Pelvic organ prolapse can also be a result of chronic constipation or stressful labor during birthing.

“No JINCing”

No “Just in case peeing.” Did you your parents ever say “kids, better use the bathroom; you won’t be able to go for a while!” Many of us were set up to be prone to bladder urges by our well-meaning parents.

We have 16–17 different reflex loops between the bladder and the brain. When we make a habit of going to the bathroom before our bladder is full, we start to give our bladder permission to take over for our brain. Bladder function works best when it is regulated by the brain and not overtaken by the feeling of urgency from the bladder, when the bladder is not truly full. So NO JINCing!

Say No to Nocturia and Sleep Like a Baby

Finally you may find it surprising that you should not have to wake up from an 8 hour night of sleep to go to the bathroom until after the age of 65. If you are in the habit of getting up to go to the bathroom at night and you are younger than age 65 you have a good chance of being able to retrain your bladder to not interrupt your sleep.

Similar to the bladder retraining mentioned earlier, the goal is to convince your brain that it’s safe to go back to sleep without a trip to the bathroom and then relaxing enough to make it happen. Again, try relaxation breathing. Also, using a meditative breath count technique (counting in your head: breath in for a count of 6, hold for 4 and breath out for 8) may give you the edge you need to take your mind off having to go in order to fall asleep again.

In follow-up blog posts, I will cover other pelvic health topics such as: bladder irritants, how to activate your pelvic floor muscles for better bowel and bladder control, how to activate your other inner core muscles to develop “true core strength,” easy postural endurance training tips for good posture and breath support, safe exercise tips do’s and don’ts, and many other very useful health tips. Stay tuned!