How Lifestyle Changes Can Improve Bladder Health?
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Affecting around 1 to 4 million men and those assigned male at birth (AMAB) and between 3 and 8 million women and people assigned female at birth (AFAB) in the United States, interstitial cystitis (bladder infection) is a common disease. Under the circumstances, it’s vital that we take good care of our bladder health. Certain lifestyle changes and diet modifications can do wonders to our bladder health.
To know how we can handle bladder issues, it’s important that we know a bit about them. Let’s begin by forming an understanding of the bladder. A part of the urinary system, the bladder is an organ shaped like a balloon. With a muscular inner lining, a bladder is hollow. It can therefore expand when the kidneys filter waste producing urine.
Common Bladder Issues
A bladder can hold not more than two cups of urine. When your bladder is full, the nerve endings there send signals to the brain triggering the urge to pass urine. There are, however, certain things that can affect the working of this system creating bladder issues with the most common ones of these being:
Urinary tract infection (UTI)
Overactive bladder
Urinary retention
Urinary incontinence
Interstitial cystitis
Bladder infection
If you face any of the bladder issues mentioned above, you should seek immediate professional consultation. Many treatment options are available that can help reduce the chances of bladder infection and improve the quality of your life.
Now that we have an understanding of the common bladder issues, let’s explore lifestyle changes you can make to ensure a healthy bladder.
Lifestyle Changes for a Healthy Bladder
It’s common knowledge that drinking enough water improves bladder health, keeping bladder infections at bay. That said, certain lifestyle changes can boost bladder health and greatly reduce the risk of bladder infection. Let’s look into them.
Avoid Irritating the Bladder
Food and drinks that can worsen bladder issues are called bladder irritants. Alcohol, spicy food, acidic food, tomato-based food, caffeinated beverages, artificial sweeteners and more are the most common bladder irritants. It’s best that you maintain a diary keeping track of what you are eating. Notice if consuming a certain kind of food causes any issues. You’ll simply have to avoid taking such food to keep bladder infection away.
Plan Your Diet Strategically
Making wise diet modifications can have a major impact on your bladder health. An overhaul of what you eat is one of the most important lifestyle changes you can make for a healthy bladder. Make sure that your diet includes,
Healthy carbs and whole grains
Nuts
Lean proteins
Fruits
High-fibre food
Vegetables
Healthy fats
Apart from making diet modifications to include the above, make sure that you are careful about high-lactose and dairy food. Avoid processed food as well.
Visit the Bathroom Regularly
Of all the lifestyle changes you could make to keep bladder infection away, going to the bathroom at intervals of around 3-4 hours is surely one of the simplest. Make it a habit to go to the bathroom and try to urinate even if you feel no strong urge. You may weaken your pelvic muscles by holding your urine back. Use the bathroom regularly to improve bladder control reducing the chances of incontinence.
Relax While Urinating
When you put too much pressure on your bladder to urinate, it ironically gets more difficult to empty it. Some women tend to hover above the seat to void their bladders. It’s important that they cover the seat with toilet paper or sanitise it and relax while urinating. It’s important that our urge to urinate well doesn’t make us anxious and that we take it easy when urinating—one of the simpler lifestyle changes but effective.
Give Up Smoking
The harm that smoking causes to us doesn’t affect only our overall health, it affects our bladder health as well. The harmful chemicals in cigarette smoke can irritate the lining in our bladders increasing the risk of bladder infection and even bladder cancer. We know it’s easier said than done. Hence, we advise you to seek help from your healthcare provider.
Ensure Enough Physical Activity
Make the necessary lifestyle changes and ensure that you have enough physical activity. That shall help you prevent multiple urological conditions as well as bladder infection. Try to have 150 minutes of physical activity of moderate intensity every week. This should ideally be followed by two days of strength training.
Maintain Healthy Weight
For a healthy bladder, you should also maintain healthy weight. Well planned diet modifications and lifestyle changes can help greatly. Excessive weight increases pressure on your bladder raising the risk of bladder issues like stress urinary incontinence. Seek help from your doctor and other professionals if you are struggling to lose weight.
Empty the Bladder Completely
You risk bladder infection and pain if you don’t empty your bladder completely. Doing so helps improve your urinary tract system’s health. Hence, every time you use the toilet, make sure that you empty your bladder completely.
Bladder infection and other bladder issues are commonly occurring ailments. It’s imperative that we take good care of our bladder health and avoid risking being afflicted by bladder diseases. Making necessary and important lifestyle changes suggested here go a long way in helping fight bladder ailments.
Make sure that you eat healthy so you have a healthy bladder. If you find any food to be affecting your bladder health, diet modificationsbecome necessary. Maintain overall good health and live an active life. You can always seek professional guidance for a healthy bladder, so you stay clear of bladder issues.
