Tips to Manage Overactive Bladder

Feeling like you have to go to the bathroom all the time? Waking up at night multiple times? Social situations have you worried? Always thinking of where the bathroom is and IF there is one when you go out? Keep on reading.

The “normal” amount of times to urinate per day is 5-8 times, and this obviously changes if fluid intake is increased or decreased, including any diuretics such as alcohol and caffeine. However, the important part is more likely if you feel uncomfortable holding your bladder or feel you have to go so many times that it is affecting your day to day living or social and work life.

The first thing to know is that your brain plays an important role in controlling your bladder AND we can retrain the brain. The more you go to the bathroom, the more your brain thinks you have to go to the bathroom and it can become a habit. To retrain this habit, do the following:

1. When you get urgency, try doing belly breathing, focus on slowing down your breath

2. Walk slowly to the bathroom (no rushing allowed!) and change your clothes slowly before sitting down

3. Once doing the above a few times, work on delaying before you go to the bathroom - this could be as short as a few seconds. Over time, increase the time you delay before going to the bathroom. For some people, the urgency fades away and they wonder if they actually had to go in the first place!

4. You can also try distracting yourself by counting backwards from 100, or busying yourself with housework so your brain has something else to think of. Or you can focus on the breathing for a few minutes as you delay.

Over time, you will train your brain to not send signals to go to the bathroom which will also help the bladder properly relay to you when it actually is full so you know it was a time when you really did need to go and empty.

Practice this at home first and then in public, especially if you feel you will urinate yourself if you don’t rush to the bathroom. Most often, even if there is leakage initially, it should resolve if you continue to work away on the above strategies. If your urgency resolves but leakage remains, you may experience mixed urinary incontinence or urge incontinence, which is explained in a later article.

If you try these techniques and are still experiencing bladder urgency, book in with a Pelvic Floor Physiotherapist who can help you assess and treat exactly what is going on.