Lucy Devine
If you've ever peed in the shower, listen up.
A doctor has warned people to stop having a pee while the shower is running, and the reason why is pretty interesting.
Urogynaecologist Dr Teresa Irwin, who specialises in pelvic health and incontinence, explained to her TikTok followers that by doing so, we’re actually training our bladders to want to wee when we hear the sound of water.
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“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 said.
“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.”
It echoes the sentiments of Dr Alicia Jeffrey-Thomas, who took to TikTok last summer to warn her followers that having a shower wee could actually have 'huge consequences' down the line.
In fact, you might want to stop peeing while the shower is running, too.
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Dr Jeffrey-Thomas explained: “If you pee in the shower or turn on the faucet or turn on the shower and then sit on the toilet to pee while the water is running, you're creating an association in your brain between the sound of running water and having to pee.
"Combo that with pelvic floor dysfunction, either now or down the line and that's gonna potentially lead to some leak issues when you hear running water outside of the shower.
"Unfortunately, those of us that were assigned female at birth and have that anatomy, we're not designed to pee standing up... your pelvic floor isn't going to be relaxing properly meaning that we're not going to be emptying our bladder super well."
Offering her followers some advice, Dr Jeffrey-Thomas added: "Try and pee before you even turn on the shower or water and if you get the urge while you're in the shower, try to ignore it."
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She also pointed to scientist Ivan Pavlov's classical conditioning experiment, in which Pavlov was able to condition dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell as they’d been taught to associate it with food.
“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 said.
Noted!