Bladder Health: Urge Suppression
Have you ever experienced an intense urge to pee? Maybe it was in a parking lot, while you were walking through the park or the grocery store, or while you are unlocking your front door. This is known as urinary urgency and it can become a very anxiety-inducing experience… but there is hope because urge is something we can learn to control.
What is urge suppression?
The bladder is in charge of letting the brain know how full it is and the brain should be in control of telling the bladder when it is appropriate to pee. Usually we can wait out smaller urge until the bladder is actually full, but sometimes the bladder can start sending intense input that sends us frantically searching for a restroom even if the bladder isn’t actually full! Urge suppression are techniques we can use to calm down this urgency so you have more control over your bladder.
How do you know if you are peeing too often?
For the average adult, peeing every 2-4 hours is considered the norm. Normal frequency is peeing around 4-8 times per day and around 0-1 times per night.
If you want to learn more about the healthy bladder habits check out my blog Bladder Health!
What are the goals of urge suppression?
The main goal of urge suppression is to improve your brains control over your bladder. Your bladder is what communicates to the brain and sometimes the bladder can get into bad habits which can decrease the power of the brain to control the bladder. With urge suppression we want to:
Improve your bladder’s capacity!
Correct improper peeing habits (like running to the bathroom if you have an urge).
Dissociate peeing from urgency (just because you have an urge, doesn’t mean you actually need to pee).
Break the cycle of urgency and frequency!
How to suppress an urge:
When an urge hits, the first thing we want to do is to sit or stand quietly to regain control. We can consider using gentle diaphragm breathing to help calm down the nervous system. When we have increased anxiety about peeing it can alter the perception of how full our bladder actually is and increase our desire to pee… even if the bladder isn’t even that full.
The next thing we can do is distract the brain. The more we perseverate on the fact that you have an urge, the bigger the urge to pee will become. We can think about doing the alphabet backwards, making a grocery list, or completing math problems in our head.
The third thing we can do is put a varying input into our nervous system. Here are some examples and you can play around with and see what works best for you:
Grounding
Place your hands on your thighs, place your hands together or place your hands on a surface that is near you. You can then press each finger down one by one connecting to the sensation. Is what you are touching soft or hard? Warm or cold? Focus on the texture and the color.
Apply pressure to the perineal area or clitoral area.
Check out this video on how to complete!
Curl your toes
Your feet are neurologically connected to your pelvic floor. By curling your toes you are telling sending a different sensation and input to the brain that decreases the sensation of urgency.
Complete gentle pelvic floor contractions (aka: Kegels) You could try completing 10 reps or hold a sustained contraction for a count of 10.
This is usually something I prescribe to someone after I know they are completing a pelvic floor muscle contractions correctly. I often find people will brace their core or butt instead of the pelvic floor or don’t have an ability to let go of a pelvic floor contraction.
The ultimate goal is to completely let the urge pass before you start moving. Once the urge dissipates you could slowly walk to the bathroom or if you are trying to extend the amount of time between voids you could consider waiting to go to the bathroom.
Ready to learn more?
Know that this is what I am here to help with. If you are experiencing urgency or incontinence and would like to learn more about how to have control over your bladder you can reach out to me here!
Cheers to a happy bladder!
In health,
Dr. Emma Lengerich
PT, DPT, OCS, CMTPT, Birth Doula
