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 (8 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

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

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 [2 favorites]

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 [4 favorites]

"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 [1 favorite]

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

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

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