The Do's & Don'ts of Retraining Your Bladder

Record what time you urinate, if you were able to fully empty your bladder, and when you leak throughout the day. It’s best to record daily diary entries starting from the moment you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night. Make a note if you wake at night to pee as well (a condition known as Nocturia). It’s also important to record if you leaked with a specific activity or if it was associated with a strong urge to urinate but you didn’t make it to the toilet in time.

Determine how many minutes or hours you typically wait in between urination during the day.

Increase the amount of time you wait to urinate by at least 5 minutes, working up to 15 minutes or longer. For example, if you typically urinate every hour, then you would wait one hour and 5-15 minutes before urinating again. If you are already able to delay more than 2 hours consistently between trips to the bathroom, this section doesn’t apply to you.

Start your morning by emptying your bladder and then start your interval routine for the remainder of the day. Even if you have the urge to urinate, try to stick with your interval schedule. If the urge to urinate is too strong, empty your bladder and start your interval again. Remaining as consistent as possible will help you stay on track for positive results.

As your body becomes accustomed to the interval schedule you have set for yourself over time, continue to increase your interval length over a period of weeks and months to decrease urination frequency and urgency. Urinating 6-7 times a day is a great goal to strive for because that is the average number of times people urinate a day. Urinating anywhere from 4-10 times a day can also be normal, it just depends on your body.

As you try out new intervals and work on urination frequency, record anything that might be important for you to look back on later.

An expert can help you build a personalized bladder retraining plan. A pelvic floor therapist will take the time to create a routine that works for you, as well as offer support and advice throughout your bladder training journey. Pelvic health physical therapists assess how well the pelvic floor muscle functions and can treat patients through pelvic floor biofeedback, muscle coordination training, breathing techniques, behavioral retraining and progressive loading exercises.

Taking the time to schedule bathroom visits, such as using the interval system outlined above, helps the bladder to better sense how much urine is present and whether or not you truly need to urinate. This leads to a decrease in urination urgency and frequency. Remaining on a schedule will help you see results and be a good indicator of your progress over a period of time.

Kegel exercises paired with other effective pelvic floor exercises take just a few minutes per day and can help strengthen the pelvic floor to better manage urination urges.

It can be hard to retrain your bladder and adjust to a new schedule. Go easy on yourself and keep trying if things get tough.

Try your hardest to stick to your urination schedule. It can be hard resisting the urge but overtime it will get easier and you’ll have to urinate less frequently.