BAD NEWS: Doctors Warn on Danger of Peeing in the Shower
Doctors have revealed why peeing in the shower for both men and women is bad for your bladder – and outlined the correct way for women to go to the toilet sitting down
Urogynaecologist Dr Teresa Irwin took to TikTok to share her musings on the subject, stating that while it will empty the bladder correctly while standing up, it also trains your brain to release urine every time you hear water running.
‘You don’t want to do it all the time because what happens is every time you hear the sound of water your bladder is going to want to pee – because it’s used to hearing the sound of the water in the shower,’ she explained.
‘So whenever you’re washing your hands, washing the dishes, your bladder is going to be salivating so to speak because it wants to go and pee.’
Dr Alicia Jeffrey-Thomas, who is a Boston-based pelvic floor therapist, agreed with Dr Irwin, detailing the dangerous side effects that can come from peeing while standing under a running stream of water.
‘If you pee while the water is running then you’re creating an association in your brain between the sound of running water and having to pee,’ she told her 468,000 followers on TikTok in 2021.
Without a strong pelvic floor, this ‘could potentially lead to some leak issues when you hear running water outside of the shower,’ she added.
Not to mention people born with female anatomy ‘were not designed to pee standing up’.
Apparently even with one leg up in the ‘Captain Morgan’ pose Dr Jeffrey-Thomas modeled in the video, ‘you’re pelvic floor isn’t going to relax properly, which means we’re really not going to be emptying our bladder super well’.
‘So try to pee before you ever turn on the shower water and if you get the urge to pee while you’re in there try to ignore it,’ Dr Jeffrey-Thomas recommended.
The doctor referenced scientist Ivan Pavlov’s famous experiment with dogs that led to the discovery of the phenomenon of classical conditioning.
‘He rings the bell every time he puts food out for the dogs so eventually the dog starts to associate the bell (with food) and he starts to slobber even if there’s no food there,’ Dr Jeffrey-Thomas explained.
Courtesy: Daily Mail
