Overactive Bladder May Lead to Mental Health Problems

Most people who haven’t struggled with overactive bladder (OAB) wouldn’t associate it with mental anguish. But a new study found that this inconvenient and stressful condition can cause frustration, anxiety, shame, and depression. Learning more about OAB, its effects, and coping methods can improve your physical outcome and mental outlook.

Social and Work Challenges

OAB symptoms revolve around annoying bathroom frequency. Needing to pee too often, you go at least eight times per day. Strong sudden urinary urges strike without warning. If you don’t rush to a toilet quickly, you may have an embarrassing leak. Overnight, you might awaken multiple times to urinate. Untreated overactive bladder can produce high-stress levels. Its symptoms can be detrimental to nearly every aspect of your life. Your fear of being unable to locate restrooms quickly and having accidents in public might make you give up visiting unknown places. Because staying home close to a bathroom is easier, you may skip favorite outings like shopping, movies, concerts, and travel. At work, your productivity might suffer due to persistent bathroom breaks. OAB may influence where you choose to work and how long you stay. In one study, around 16 percent of women and 19 percent of men reported that their bothersome bladder issues contributed to their job or work-hour choices.

Mental and Emotional Effects

You may experience some of these to OAB’s disturbing symptoms. Frustration: The number one consequence of worrying constantly about your aggravating and disruptive symptoms is frustration, according to over 1,100 surveyed middle-aged women. Anxiety: Unfortunately, you can’t predict where and when untimely urges will send you scurrying to a bathroom. Many OAB patients succumb to the incessant fear and anxiety of not being able to get there in time. Shame: OAB isn’t your fault. Around 33 million other Americans have this common medical condition. Yet many report feelings of embarrassment or shame over a private problem that they can’t always keep to themselves. Some admit feeling less attractive or self-confident. Depression: Studies show that suffering from overactive bladder increases your depression risk. Stressing over OAB might promote this mental disorder if you’re vulnerable to it. Depression could intensify low self-respect and social situation avoidance. Because it tends to reduce energy and motivation, depression can make you less likely to seek treatment for your bladder symptoms.

Reclaiming Your Life

If these difficulties sound familiar, expert advice can reduce your stress while increasing your well-being. Seek OAB treatment. You don’t have to live with needing to pee repeatedly at inopportune times. Consult a doctor or urologist for help managing your distressing life-disrupting symptoms. Generic Tolterodine LA calms unwelcome bladder contractions, which reduces frequency and urgency. Combining drug therapy with behavioral modifications can make your treatment more successful. Restrict caffeine, acidic beverage and food, and alcohol consumption. Do pelvic floor exercises. Recognize depression’s warning signs. Symptoms include ongoing sadness, emptiness, lethargy, irritability, and dwindling interest in once-enjoyable activities. You also might experience difficulties concentrating, eating and sleeping habit changes, hopelessness, worthlessness, and suicidal thoughts. Your doctor or mental health provider can diagnose and treat depression. He may prescribe a selective serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) like Pristiq (Desvenlafaxine). Prepare for public accidents. Avoid the embarrassment of unpredictable urine leakage wetting your clothes by wearing incontinence pads or adult diapers. Combining comfort with convenience, these products offer peace of mind. Learn stress-management techniques. Deep breathing and meditation can relieve mental tension. Stretch to relax constricted muscles. Regular exercise will decrease your stress while boosting your spirits. Stop negative thinking. Anytime you think you’re the only person with disturbing urinary challenges, realize that millions of your fellow Americans are coping with the same condition.

Control Urges With Mental Tricks

Overactive bladder may be a physical problem, but psychological management methods can help control your constant need to urinate and ease your stress over having accidents in public. These proven will increase your composure, sense of control, confidence, and well-being. Retrain your brain. Your brain should send signals to dictate when your sphincter relaxes, allowing urine to escape your bladder. But this process malfunctions in OAB patients. With practice, your brain may regain bladder control. Urinate on a pre-set schedule, lengthening the intervals in between gradually. If the urge to pee strikes too soon, the next two approaches may encourage you to disregard that impulse until it subsides. Divert your mind. Whenever you need to go at an inconvenient time, concentrate on a complicated mental task instead. Relax. Breathe deeply to clear your mind. Then imagine yourself on vacation. Activating all of your senses, create a relaxing mental image. If you’re picturing a beautiful beach setting, see the swaying palm trees, smell the salty ocean spray, hear the lapping waves, taste a tropical drink, and feel the warm sand. Be mindful. Choose to notice what you’re experiencing in every moment. Be aware of current sensations, feelings, and thoughts. Then move along to your next set of observations. Realize that urinary urgency is just a physical sensation you can recognize without letting it overwhelm your life.