Needing toilet breaks during the night is associated with common TV habit

Recent research has found that needing toilet breaks during the night is more common among those who binge-watch TV.

Do you find yourself waking up throughout the night in need of a trip to the bathroom? This is perhaps more common among people than you think, and the term for it is “Nocturia”. Nocturia is defined by the need for somebody to wake regularly in the night with a need to urinate. Those who experience it find it a major disruptor of a good night’s sleep, but as it turns out, it may be linked to a certain TV habit…

Nocturia linked to binge-watching TV in study

Recently, researchers in China have written their findings in the journal Neurourology and Urodynamics after analyzing data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the US.

The Guardian reports that the researchers focused on responses gathered from 2011 to 2016. 13, 294 people participated in a study and those conducting it discovered that 32% aged 20 and older reported experiencing nocturia.

However, the researchers concluded that the risk of experiencing the need to wake and urinate throughout the night was 48% higher in participants who spent five or more hours watching TV (or equivalent video) a day. This was in sharp contrast to those who watched videos or movies for under an hour a day.

The researchers published that, to their understanding, “this study represents the first exploration of the correlation between TV and/or video viewing time and nocturia.”

Why might binge-watching TV be linked to nocturia?

After analyzing the study, the researchers have acknowledged a handful of reasons that may help explain the link between binge-watching and the risk of experiencing nocturia.

Firstly, it’s been found that binging TV may increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and that in itself can increase the risk of adopting nocturia into your nightly routine.

Additionally, spending long hours seated is also associated with fluid retention in the legs, which could be a factor in needing to urinate multiple times in the night.

“TV watching typically aligns with beverage consumption,” the researchers also address, “leading to an elevated fluid intake.” There’s also the potential for spending hours watching TV to influence your quality of sleep. “A decrease in sleep quality is closely linked to experiencing nocturia,” the researchers elaborated.

Although the study has limitations in that the cause of nocturia can not be directly accounted for by TV habits, the findings are compelling all the same.

Nocturia itself isn’t life-threatening. However, doctors note that the need to urinate frequently in the night may be the result of an underlying problem that could be a cause for concern. If you experience nocturia, it may be worth consulting with your doctor to help identify the cause.

“If you’re going a lot at night, and it’s bothering you, see a GP,” James Catto, professor of surgery at the University of Sheffield in the UK, told The Guardian. “They’ll do a few tests to make sure you’ve not got diabetes.”