How to Show Your Bladder Some Love

3 Common Habits to Remove From Your Routine ASAP!

Are You Training Your Bladder For Good or Evil?

• The bladder is one of the most habit forming organs of the body! The question is: are your habits training your bladder for good or for evil?!  Here are a couple of signs that you might be training your bladder for evil: 

• going more frequently than every 3-4 hours during the day 

• getting up to pee during the night (this is alright 1x/night if you are over 65) 

• leaking any urine ever, even just a couple of drops 

• strong urgency and feeling like you have to rush to the bathroom 

• feeling like you have to pee even when you don’t

• weak stream or difficulty starting the stream 

While these are common symptoms, they are not normal. Don’t worry! It’s not too late to trade evil bladder training habits for healthy ones.

3 Bladder Habits to Take Out of Your Routine ASAP:

1) Hovering

We’ve all been there. You’re in a dirty bar bathroom or God forbid, a porta potty *gasp* and the seat isn’t quite… clean. But it’s the only option! And you really gotta go! What do you do?  

Please, please, please never let “hover” be the answer to this question ever again! Find some toilet paper or paper towels and line it like a nest if you have to. Your butt needs to be fully on that seat!

Is this you on that public toilet seat?

Have you ever noticed that it’s harder to start the stream when you are hovering versus when you are sitting fully? That's because you are using all of the muscles around the pelvic floor (gluts, abs, thighs) to hold your air squat. When the muscles around the pelvic floor are engaged, the pelvic floor automatically engages. To urinate properly the pelvic floor needs to relax completely! 

You may be thinking, “Chill out lady, what’s the big deal? I can relax enough to get the pee out and move on with my life.” The problem is there is a very important neurological reflex between the bladder and the pelvic floor. The reflex works in an inverse relationship so that:
-When the pelvic floor is relaxed, the bladder is contracting (yes, the bladder has a muscle in it!) This is what is happening when you urinate. The bladder is contracting to get all of the urine out, and the pelvic floor is relaxing to let it out. 

-When the pelvic floor is contracting/ holding tone, then the bladder is relaxed- this is what is happening normally throughout the day to keep us from leaking. 

Can you see where hovering confuses this reflex? When you hover, it is impossible to let the pelvic floor relax completely, but you’re also asking the bladder to contract, which confuses the system and could lead to incomplete emptying, urgency or leakage. 

So next time you see your friend about to hover, help save their bladder! Either make a nest together, or go outside and pop a squat.

2) JICing

You’re about to leave the house to go on a long car ride. What did your mom always tell you to do? “Go pee, just in case!”

You’re about to go into a long class or meeting at work. You don’t really have the urge to pee, but you know you're going to be in there a long time. Do you go “just in case?”

You’re about to head into the movie theatre and again you don’t really have to pee, but you know it'll be at least two hours and don't want to have to get up during the movie. Do you stop in the bathroom “just in case?”

Do you pee in the shower? Even when you don’t really have to go?

If you find yourself going “just in case,” aka JICing, you are not alone! So many of us were taught to do that since we were little kids. The problem is we are setting our bladders up for urinary frequency if we empty them before they are full. 

The bladder is one of the most habit forming organs of the body. Let’s say it’s only about ¼ full when you empty it before you go into the movie. The next time it's ¼ full, it’ll remember that last time it was emptied at this level and may give you an urge even though it’s not really full. When we empty prematurely over and over again, we continually tell the bladder that we don’t need it to fill all the way before it gives us the urge. 

The only times that I permit JICing is right before bed or in my office when we are about to do an internal exam. Otherwise, the more you can avoid the dreadful JIC, the better!

3) Doing Kegels While You Pee 

How did you learn to do a kegel? Did it sound something like, “it’s the muscles that stop the flow of urine?” It’s true, the pelvic floor muscles can stop the flow of urine and they can prevent the flow of urine from starting. In fact, I use this cue all the time because people innately know what it feels like to stop the flow of urine and squeeze around their urethra. 

However! Actually practicing kegels while you are urinating can be very harmful. It is okay to do once or twice if you are just curious, and you can’t help yourself. However, for the same reason that hovering is not healthy, doing kegels while you pee should be avoided. When you do a kegel, it sends a message up to the bladder muscle to make it relax. We don’t want that when the bladder should be contracting with all its might to get the urine out. This could mean that you still have urine in your bladder and get up and walk away, starting a cycle of incomplete emptying, because the bladder gets used to not contracting completely. 

As you educate all of your friends to avoid hovering, JICing and doing kegels while they pee, please remember that there is help if they've been utilizing one of these habits for a long time and are suffering with urinary dysfunction. In pelvic floor physical therapy, we can retrain the pelvic floor, and we can also educate you on how to retrain the bladder itself! I see people with urinary urgency, frequency, incontinence, trouble emptying and even pain with urination very frequently, and I would be happy to help answer any questions you might have about your own bladder habits!