Hold on: Doctors warn people to stop peeing in shower

Doctors have warned people to stop peeing in the shower. Photo / 123RF

Multiple doctors have warned men and women to stop peeing in the shower, revealing the long-term impact the habit can have on your bladder.

In a video on TikTok, urogynaecologist Dr Teresa Irwin shared her take on the controversial subject – explaining that while you will correctly empty your bladder by standing up, it can also train your brain to release urine every time you hear running water.

"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," Irwin 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."

Boston-based pelvic floor therapist, Dr Alicia Jeffrey-Thomas, had previously issued a similar warning, running through the "Pavlovian" side effects that can result from urinating while standing under a running stream of water in a 2021 TikTok.

"If you pee while the water is running then you're creating an association in your brain between the sound of running water and having to pee," Jeffrey-Thomas explained to her more than 468,000 followers on the platform.

If you don't have a strong pelvic floor, she said, this "could potentially lead to some leak issues when you hear running water outside of the shower".

Jeffrey-Thomas added that if you're born with female anatomy, your body is also "not designed to pee standing up".

Even with one leg up in the "Captain Morgan" pose she demonstrated, "your pelvic floor isn't going to relax properly, which means we're really not going to be emptying our bladder super well".

"So try to pee before you ever turn on the shower water and if you get the urge to pee while you're in there, try to ignore it."

In a separate video, titled How To Train Your Bladder, she advised adults to try to use the bathroom only "three to four times during the day but a minimum of two".

"Ideally, you should not be getting up at night," Jeffrey-Thomas explained, adding that if you're constantly giving in to the urge to pee, you're training your brain to send that signal to your body more often.