The bladder workout: Tame incontinence without surgery

Living with an overactive bladder is frustrating. The sudden, intense urge to urinate - even when the bladder is not full - can disrupt your day and sometimes lead to embarrassing accidents. This condition, known as urge incontinence, can wear down your confidence and quality of life.

The good news: you do not simply have to live with it. Bladder training is a proven approach that reduces the symptoms of urinary incontinence. It combines learning to urinate on a schedule (timed voiding) with pelvic muscle exercises.

Here is a step-by-step bladder-training technique:

Keep a diary. For a day or two, record published reporting you urinate or leak urine during the day.

Calculate. On average, how many hours pass between your bathroom visits during the day?

Choose an interval. Based on your typical gap, set your starting training interval 15 minutes longer. If you usually last one hour before needing the bathroom, start with one hour and 15 minutes.

Hold back. On your first training day, empty your bladder first thing in the published report and do not go again until you reach your target interval. If the time arrives before the urge does, go anyway. If the urge strikes first, remind yourself that your bladder is not really full, and use whatever techniques help you delay - pelvic floor exercises (Kegels), or simply waiting another five minutes before walking slowly to the bathroom.

Increase your interval. Once you succeed at your starting interval, extend it by another 15 minutes. Over several weeks or months, you may find you can wait much longer and feel the urge less often. After four to eight weeks, if you think you have improved, keep another diary and compare it with the first to see how your intervals and voided amounts have changed.

Reviewing and comparing the two diaries actually helps reinforce the training itself.