I have never had to wake up in the middle of the night to urinate.. ever. And I've drank a lot of water to very little at different times in my life, so I think my bladder is pretty normal. I also don't drink caffiene, sodas, or alcohol, or any other weird substance that should affect my urination more than the norm.
And yet, ever since I was a child, staying up all night will cause me, usually around morning time, to urinate more and more frequently until finally I can't stay up anymore. I don't mean that the urination is so frequent that it suggests a health problem, because it's still pretty normal spacing of hours between having to urinate, but I can tell an almost linear trend in decreasing time I can go without needing to urinate the longer I stay up, and I'm trying to figure out why this is, because if it happens to everyone, someone somewhere must have found the answer.
So first of all, do any of you notice this effect too? And if so, what information can you find? The keywords I used on Google didn't present any clues.
My only clue comes from a buteyko book, which states:
So, naturally, I thought that staying up long hours prevents the CP drop from sleeping, so that staying up all night may cause more blood acidification than you are used to and cause more need for water or more need to urinate, I'm not sure. This is total speculation, don't take it seriously."Acidification of blood due to increased CO2 content triggers biological pH buffers in the blood. A part of
this process is redistribution of ions in various compartments of the body (intracellular fluid, extra-cellular
fluid, blood plasma, intestinal content, etc.). These processes may require additional water. Hence, drink if
you get thirsty at any stage, even in the middle of the breathing session."
Also, the question arises of why we need to urinate in the first place, if our bodies need water. I always thought the answer was to get rid of waste products caused by bodily processes or eating - but it doesn't make sense that you would need to urinate more frequently after staying up all night rather than in normal waking hours, unless that translates to your body creating more waste products needing to be expelled - but Why!?
Another interesting effect of this phenomenon is that after an all nighter and this phenomenon starts, the urination I experience is almost always extremely lightly colored or at least much lighter than the urination in the waking hours before.
To me, this possibly could hint at the idea that my body is creating more ammonia because I didn't sleep - it would explain why my body is sacrificing so much water to expel so little waste product while not having the normal waste products associated with darker shades of urine! (btw, I believe that the yellowness of urine is directly related to the water your body has to spare as well as the tiredness of your red blood cells).
Although, it doesn't make sense that it would be increased ammonia because I don't eat protein hardly ever when I pull all nighters. It's usually just computer screens and some water and sugar sources (not more than in waking hours, usually less until I start having to urinate frequently, at which point I will crave water more intensely, but my urine will remain clearer each time, suggesting that it's not due to dehydration.)
I know this will sound crazy, but it really does feel like my entire body will 'accelerate' and I'll have to drink more, urinate more, etc, if I stay up more than 23 hours.
