- Right now, I have to pee desperately
but I refuse to, and all for science.
You'd think that a full
bladder would cause a person
to think about nothing but pee,
but some enterprising souls,
like UK Prime Minister David Cameron,
use it as a concentration technique.
Yep, before a big speech
or important negotiations
Cameron abstains from the WC.
And he may be onto something.
In a 2011 Imperial College London study,
Mirjam Tuk found that participants who
suppressed the urge to wee
had better impulse control.
The idea is that bladder control
may inadvertantly allow us to exercise
self-control overall.
This is where a line comes in.
It might be the ultimate
case study in self-control.
Consider the mental energy required
to summon a convincing whopper
You have to think on your feet,
synthesizing your past experiences
with future outcomes and devising
a deception in real-time,
all in a split-second while monitoring
your behavior and others.
So, can a bladder ballooning with urine
help you to tell better lies?
Perhaps.
Though the intersection of
urine and self-discipline
hasn't been fully studied,
there is one 2015 study
published on the topic.
It's in the journal
Consciousness and Cognition
by a team of researchers at
California State University.
In the study, 22 volunteers
filled out a questionnaire
about socially or morally
controversial issues.
Half of the volunteers drank
50 milliliters of water,
and half drank 700 milliliters of water.
45 minutes later, each had to lie
about how they really
felt about the issues
on the questionnaire.
The study found that the
greater the need to pee,
the better the liar evaded
detection by the researchers.
But, hold your pee-holding horses.
It's not a good idea to regularly
make a prisoner of your pee.
Ignoring urgent signals can cause
urine stagnation and
urinary tract infections.
Plus, do you really want to walk
the fine line of peeing yourself?
It's a good question, right?
That's your urodynamic drop
of knowledge for today.
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