Weird bathroom thing

December 16, 2024 2:18 PM

Why do I always need to use the bathroom as soon as I’m in bed?

My bedtime routine is as follows: use the bathroom, wash my face, brush my teeth, get into bed. Then I lay there for about 15 minutes trying to convince myself that I don’t need to use the bathroom since I just did, get up and go again, nothing happens (or very minimal) because I literally just went, then I get into bed and everything is fine.

I don’t get it. If lying down is the trigger, then how come the second time I go back to bed, I don’t feel that? It’s so weird. It doesn’t happen every night, and it seems worse around my period. But there just seems to be this weird thing where as soon as I go to bed, I feel like I have to go to the bathroom, even though I just went. Has anyone ever heard of this? Dr. Google has nothing.

posted by ficbot to Grab Bag (15 answers total)

I have no real answers for you, but you're not alone. My best guesses are a mix of:

- Maybe actual peeing just stimulates something around those parts that creates a slight feeling of needing to pee even afterwards, but the brain pays less attention during the day than it does at night - when lying still in the dark there's no other sensory stimuli for distraction. (And second time around, you've not just been actually peeing, more time has elapsed since you peed, the sensory thing has died down a bit).
- I was raised to always use the loo when you have the chance, in case you don't see one again for a while, and maybe this, plus a certain tendency towards low-level anxiety, plus the above mentioned slight feeling of needing to pee even post-pee, makes my brain think "You thiiink you're all comfy and ready to sleep, but wouldn't it be awful if you had to get up and pee again, don't you think you might need to do that, huh, huh?" until it's easier to just get up and prove it wrong (and the second time, the weight of evidence has tipped in favour of just letting me go to sleep).
- Conditioning - somehow this is just what I do now and my brain always says "you're lying down first time round, best get up again!" and it's just easier to cut the circuit short by doing it, than lie there trying to talk myself out of it (which increases tension, which in turn increases the sense of needing to pee).

Or maybe there's a genuine physical reason and I've simply over-reasoned it out post-hoc!

Anyway. These days I now have to put in some really stingy eyedrops before I go to sleep every night, so I always need to get up again anyway to wash my face and reduce the stinging after they've settled in, so I have a built-in reason to go back to the bathroom, so it's just part of the routine.
posted by penguin pie at 2:42 PM on December 16, 2024

I get this sometimes and I always figured it was because my body started to relax.
posted by edencosmic at 2:48 PM on December 16, 2024

I often do this, too. I've always just assumed that it is the same reason I sometimes check my front door lock more than once before I got to bed, and why I sometimes fluff up my pillow after lying down even though my pillow is already fluffy. I've always just assumed these actions are an attempt to burn off some stress so I can get to sleep.
posted by SageTrail at 2:51 PM on December 16, 2024

Try to pee like 30-90 min before you start that routine, then pee again after you do the bedtime thing.

If your bladder is full, waste is stored in your blood, and immediately starts to fill your bladder when it's emptied. Thus planning on two pees spaced out a bit may help—good luck!
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:55 PM on December 16, 2024

"Urinary retention" is a thing. You may be retaining a bit after the first try, which you then feel as soon as you get into your reclining position. Maybe make an effort to relax and take some extra time to make sure the first pee is complete.
posted by JimN2TAW at 2:56 PM on December 16, 2024

This happens to me too, especially if I'm more anxious than normal. (Do you have anxiety? If so, it often increases before your period.) There is a connection between having anxiety and an overactive bladder. (If I'm anxious, this either means I pee a lot more than usual, or get a lot more SIGNALS to pee than usual, even if there's not much in my bladder.)
posted by leftover_scrabble_rack at 3:57 PM on December 16, 2024

It can also just be a habit thing, which you may be able to change—that habit could be related to an association between peeing and running water from washing your face and brushing your teeth before bed, or it could be a timing-based habit. You could try doing the running-water things a bit earlier, peeing then, then going straight to bed when you start to feel tired after that.
posted by limeonaire at 4:24 PM on December 16, 2024

Saaaame. Mine seems tied to being convinced that if I don't go at the last possible chance before falling asleep I'll wake up needing to pee overnight- I don't think that is actually physiologically true but my body sure has gotten on board with the superstition.
posted by wormtales at 5:17 PM on December 16, 2024

I have this too, and when I asked my doc about it, she suggested stopping drinking beverages earlier in the evening so that when I do pee before bed it's been awhile since I had any liquid, and I really empty out a full bladder. I do sorta feel like this works when I achieve it, but I also almost never achieve it because I like to have tea before bed and a glass of water next to the bed. She didn't really explain why it happens, though, and I like the theories above. I've just embraced that peeing 2x (or 1 plus an extra sit on the toilet) is part of my body's going to bed process and not a symptom of a health problem.
posted by luzdeluna at 8:58 PM on December 16, 2024

If this were a riddle, I'd say it's because you sleep on a heated water bed.
posted by hairless ape at 9:47 AM on December 17, 2024

This happens to me all the time - but really only started in my early 40s. Who knows if age is a factor too?
posted by Lescha at 10:23 AM on December 17, 2024

It used to happen to me, and it was 100% mental. I managed to break the habit (accidentally, I forget how although I know I've talked about it here before, something to do with some medication I was temporarily on I think) and it's no longer an issue.

I have other times that I haven't managed to break the habit on but am slowly working on getting rid of them.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:10 PM on December 17, 2024

You might try altering the order of your routine, make using the restroom the last thing you do before you lay down. I have to do it in that order or I have to get back up, too. In my case, it is definitely anxiety related.
posted by jet_pack_in_a_can at 7:30 PM on December 17, 2024

It's a common perimenopause thing (the elasticity of your bladder is degrading and the re-positioning is the trigger to go again) and yes it does get worse on your period. I was just discussing this with my nurse today!
posted by DarlingBri at 7:18 PM on December 18, 2024

Follow-up to DarlingBri. I'm a man and get the same thing. It's annoying but not so bad as to see a urologist. My surmise is that when I lie down, the weight of my internal organs shift and press differently on the bladder.

As I age, there are far worse things to deal with.
posted by tmdonahue at 5:21 AM on December 19, 2024