We've all been there, you feel the urge to pee and start to make your way to the bathroom. As
soon as that shiny porcelain bowl is in sight though, it's like your bladder goes on overdrive
and you suddenly feel like you're about to burst. You gotta get unzipped and on that toilet quick,
or you're going to start redecorating the bathroom walls with lemonade.
But why in the world do you have to pee more the closer you get to the bathroom?
For some people, this can be a very serious issue. Known as “latchkey incontinence”,
the phenomenon typically occurs when an individual suffering from an overactive
bladder returns home from work or running errands. As soon as they
press that garage door opener or stick the key in the lock, the bladder seems
to release the floodgates. Suddenly it's like the bursting of China's Banqiao Reservoir Dam,
only instead of killing 171,000 people the only casualties are your pants and entry way rug.
Other people who don't suffer from incontinence or overactive bladder
however still often feel the same sudden and desperate urge to pee as soon as they spot
the bathroom door. Scientists are actually unsure as to the cause of this phenomenon,
though they believe that it may be due to psychological conditioning.
In the 1890s Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov was researching salivation in dogs
in response to being fed. His initial hypothesis was that the dogs would begin to salivate as soon
as food was placed in front of them, however he quickly noticed that the dogs instead began to
salivate when they heard the footsteps of the assistant responsible for bringing them their
food. Pavlov used this realization to attempt to condition the dogs to salivate-
a completely uncontrolled response on their behalf- without any food being present.
First, Pavlov exposed the dogs to a metronome, which elicited no response except for a few
confused looks, as expected. However, Pavlov then began to expose the dogs to the metronome
right before giving the dogs their meal. Soon, the dogs began to salivate upon hearing the metronome
even without food being presented. Pavlov had unlocked a very important learning technique
known as the conditioned response- and his dogs were lucky to be involved in Pavlov's experiments
rather than later Russian experiments where dog heads would be transplanted onto different bodies.
You can probably already see the threads of this conclusion coming together. Unless you're from
Alabama, you were taught from an early age that the bathroom is the place to do your business.
It didn't matter if the bathroom was at home or at the movie theater or
your workplace- the bathroom is the one and only acceptable place to do your business.
Now, your brain is so conditioned to associating the bathroom with making lemonade or
dropping the kids off at the pool, that while the conditioning is not strong enough to force
you to have to pee, it is enough to make it unbearable if you already have to pee.
Sadly for most people who use public bathrooms the association between the actual toilet
and you doing your business isn't as powerful as the association with the bathroom itself.
That explains why when you use a busy public restroom the stalls
tend to look like someone had a urine supersoaker fight in there,
and kids- if you're playing urine supersoaker then take it from us, there's no winners, only losers.
People with severe incontinence or overactive bladders however can find this situation
unbearable, and the condition only gets worse with age. That's why doctors may sometimes
prescribe medications that help control the nerves of the bladder, or in extreme cases
may physically enlarge the bladder itself so as to relieve the pressure and need to urinate
long enough to actually get to a toilet. For the rest of you, rest assured that while you may have
a superman-like control over your bladder today, as you age that control erodes slowly but surely,
and one day you too will be leaking like a bad faucet upon the sight of a bathroom door.
While we're on the subject though, what if you aren't having trouble holding your pee-
but rather having issues with getting it out, specially in a public restroom?
Known as Paruresis, or shy bladder, this psychological condition affects a person's
ability to urinate around other people. For men the condition is especially troublesome,
as men's restrooms typically have rows of urinals placed closely together,
only making it more difficult to pee. The only option for most sufferers is to either hold it,
or lock oneself in a stall- something far easier for women to do than men in busy public restrooms.
The underlying causes of shy bladder are purely psychological in nature,
and the condition is considered a form of social anxiety. While the origin can
have different causes, the main causes are criticism during potty training,
being bullied as a child in a restroom, or sexual abuse. To make matters worse,
the condition is self-reinforcing, only becoming stronger each time you try to urinate and can't.
As your anxiety grows, your body floods the nervous system with adrenaline. This is
typically a good thing, as adrenaline can make you stronger and faster in a fight to the death
with a sabre-toothed tiger like our ancestors may have found themselves in. Unfortunately,
all this adrenaline also freezes up the muscles that allow you to pee,
which has the convenient side effect of keeping you from peeing all over
yourself in the middle of a fight. Then again, we wouldn't want to fight a urine-wielding warrior,
so maybe evolution should take a second look at the urine defense.
People with sly bladders can have three main triggers. The first and
most common is a lack of privacy. If a shy pee'er can't find some privacy,
they may find their bladder freezing up- even if just moments ago they were ready to flow like
the Yellow River in China. The fact that men's bathroom stalls don't always have doors- or walls,
if you live in some countries that haven't mastered not-pooping-in-holes technology-
is thought of as a big reason why shy bladder is more common in men than women.
Who is in the bathroom with you can also be a trigger. You may be just fine peeing
in the restroom at a Colorado Rockies game, though that's probably because the bathroom,
and stadium, will be empty because the Rockies are a terrible team. However if you actually go watch
a good baseball team play and use their bathroom facilities, you may find yourself freezing up
when you notice a stranger in the bathroom that reminds you of the step-dad that never hugged you
and was always overly critical of everything you did. For individuals with this trigger,
it's typically certain individuals- or types of individuals- who can trigger their shy bladder.
Emotions are also a major trigger, specially in public restrooms.
The feeling of needing to hurry up because of the pressing throng of people waiting their
turn at a public restroom can cause you to embarrassingly freeze up. Even just bringing
your own emotional baggage into the bathroom with you can make it difficult to pee though,
with anxiety, anger, or fear all working to psychologically block you from wee'ing.
Luckily, there's treatments available in the form of cognitive behavior therapy.
If affected by shy bladder, you can gradually overcome it by slowly being exposed to your
specific trigger. Over time your brain's anxiety response will get put in check,
and before you know it you'll be whizzing with the best of them in the most crowded of restrooms.
However, you can physically hack your body into urinating even when you don't want to-
or at least help it The first technique is to take a moment to relax as you're at the urinal or on
the toilet, for the ladies with shy bladders. Then reach behind you with one hand and lightly
tickle the top of your buttocks, right around where the two cheeks split. For most people,
the tickling sensation can relax the bladder and facilitate the flow of pee.
For the men, a second technique involves lightly tickling the tip of the penis by
rubbing it slightly in a circular motion against the tip of the palm. Presto,
you should be flowing as free as a river in no time. Why these techniques work is because the
muscles that control urination are intricately connected to your nervous system, and thus easily
hijacked. All it takes is some light pressure or a tickle, and your bladder will open up in no time.
We just recommend you do this inside the
privacy of a bathroom stall so you don't get extremely weird looks.
Now go check out What Does Heroin Do To Your Body, or click this other video instead!