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posted by janrinok on Thursday January 23 2020, @11:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-be-shy-now dept.

Can't go in a public restroom? You're not alone:

Most of us don't give much thought to going to the toilet. We go when we need to go.

But for a small minority of people, the act of urinating or defecating can be a major source of anxiety—especially when public restrooms are the only facilities available.

Paruresis (shy bladder) and parcopresis (shy bowel) are little known mental health conditions, yet they can significantly compromise a person's quality of life.

We don't know how many people have shy bowel, but research has estimated around 2.8%-16.4% of the population are affected by shy bladder. The condition is more common in males.

[...]

Most of us will feel a little "grossed out" from time to time when using public toilets. But what we're talking about here is different and more serious.

People with shy bladder and shy bowel experience significant anxiety when trying to go to the toilet, especially in public places like shopping centers, restaurants, at work or at school. Sufferers may also experience symptoms in their own home when family or friends are around.

Their anxiety can present in the form of increased heart rate, excessive sweating, rapid breathing, muscle tension, heart palpitations, blushing, nausea, trembling, or a combination of these.

Symptoms range in severity. Some people who are more mildly affected can experience anxiety but still be able to "go," for example when the bathroom is completely empty. Others may urinate or defecate with difficulty—for example their urine stream may be inconsistent. Some people will sit on the toilet and not be able to go at all.

[...] We canvassed 316 undergraduate students in an online survey on shy bladder and shy bowel. Some 72 participants (22.8%) self-reported symptoms of either one or both conditions.

  • We found these symptoms were influenced by particular patterns of thinking, including:
  • a misinterpretation or distortion of information (for example, interpreting laughter in the restroom as being directed towards them)
  • fears around potential perceived negative evaluation (for example, a fear of being criticized for taking too long to defecate, or for sounds and smells produced during urination or defecation)
  • fears around potential perceived positive evaluation (for example, a fear of being evaluated too positively for a strong urine stream).

Using statistical modeling, we found fear of negative evaluation was the factor most strongly associated with shy bladder or shy bowel symptoms.

As such, people with shy bladder or shy bowel may benefit from the sorts of treatments that help people with social anxiety disorder.

Cognitive behavioral therapy, for example, is known to reduce social anxiety symptoms.

The best way to help people with these conditions will be addressing the thought processes behind shy bladder and shy bowel, especially concerns around the perceptions others might evaluate or criticize one's urination or defecation.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Citation: Can't go in a public restroom? You're not alone—and there's help (2020, January 22) retrieved 22 January 2020 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-01-restroom-youre-aloneand.html


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 24 2020, @03:38AM (3 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday January 24 2020, @03:38AM (#947828) Journal

    People who experience this difficulty can cure it through more travel. When you have a choice of using a public toilet or holding it in for a 15 hour bus ride through the sticks and Montezuma's Revenge is crashing down on you, your shyness will be swept away in a moment.

    I found it impossible to use public bathrooms until I travelled to Qufu, China, where confucianism began. We had eaten lunch at a dodgy roadside restaurant and by the time we reached the forest preserve where Confucius is buried la duzi was boiling inside me. There was no bathroom, and there was not one goddamn bush in that forest preserve [chinadragontours.com] to hide behind. I wound up trotting half a mile out into those trees to get enough raw distance between me and the hordes of visitors, and finally found this nice little green hill [wikimedia.org] to go behind. 15 minutes of explosive diarrhea later I walked over the top of the hill wondering how to rejoin my party and saw ten thousand Chinese on the other side looking at me, and a stone grave marker at the foot of it that read, "Confucius's Burial Place."

    That's right. I shat on Confucius's grave.

    Never had a problem going in a public restroom after that.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @04:42AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @04:42AM (#947845)

    > I shat on Confucius's grave.

    Is that like giving water on Arrakis, in Frank Herbert's "Dune" (spitting)?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Friday January 24 2020, @03:35PM (1 child)

    by Freeman (732) on Friday January 24 2020, @03:35PM (#947969) Journal

    Life is stranger than fiction.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday January 25 2020, @12:44AM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday January 25 2020, @12:44AM (#948273) Journal

      You said it.

      Quirky addendum: as soon as I saw the grave marker I knew I was in trouble so I hammed it up and hopped down into the viewing area and started shaking everyone's hands and saying ni hao. there was an extended family of Chinese peasants there of four generations who asked me to be in their group photo. The gnarled patriarch took the picture with a vintage hasselblad camera that was probably worth more than the collective assets of the group.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.