This is why you keep running to the bathroom
Maybe you have noticed this before, or maybe this will be a revelation for you; when it gets cold outside, we have to pee more often. So what is the reason for our more frequent bathroom visits in winter?
Blood vessels
Even though scientists haven’t decided on one final explanation, one of the options has something to with your blood vessels. When it gets cold, your blood vessels will narrow. And of course, when something narrows, there will be less space within. Meaning that your blood doesn’t have enough space to flow freely. Your kidneys will work hard to take the water out of your blood, allowing the blood to move through your narrow blood vessels. But that water also has to go somewhere. So the water will be transferred to your bladder. And there it will cause you to get that irresistible urge to pee.
Bladder
When you have a sensitive bladder, you will already experience the need to pee more frequently. In winter, when it is cold, your bladder will tighten a little more due to the temperature outside. This will result in an even more frequent feeling of a full bladder, and with that, a more frequent urge to pee. This is especially true for menopausal women.
Mixed signals
Another possible solution is provided by researchers from Belgium. They claim that there are little receptors in our skin that keep track of the temperature around us. Whenever it feels cold, they will let our brain know that it is cold, causing you to experience a cold sensation. But recent research has found that these temperature trackers also play a part in the signals that tell us when our bladder is full. Sometimes these two messages (cold and full bladder) get mixed up, resulting in us running to the bathroom to pee when actually, we just feel cold.
All the theories still have to be researched more but if you already had suspicions that the cold was responsible for your peeing habits, you might just be right!
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