The purpose of this breath-hold technique, is to increase the level of CO2 in the body.
The reason being, CO2 has a unique ability to dilate tissues such as muscles and blood vessels, making the hold technique an effective method to unblock your shy bladder on-demand.
The principle is to hold your breath for a period of time that depends on your condition and to trigger a vasodilation (a relaxation) of the internal sphincter that controls the exit of urine from the bladder.
Breath Holding Technique Step-by-Step
- Take a deep breath and allow your body to relax. It is important to stay at ease while doing the breath hold, otherwise it will take longer for a urine stream to start.
- Once your body is relaxed and calm, inhale enough to fill your lungs completely, then exhaled about 75% of the air in your lungs, leaving about 25%.
- Proceed to hold your breath while also keeping your body still and relaxed. By keeping your body at ease, it will facilitate a much smoother process whilst holding your breath for the period of time necessary.
- Continue holding your breath until you reach the “gasping for breath” feeling. This will be easy to recognize, as your body’s natural reaction to the lack of oxygen will be to take a breath, and it will feel as though you are trying to gasp for air. The time it takes to get to this point can vary, but it will generally be between 20-40 seconds, depending on the individual.
- Once you come to the point where your body is trying to gasp for air, you may feel a bit of discomfort. This is entirely normal, and there is no need to be alarmed. When you have reached the “gasping for breath” threshold, you will only need to continue holding your breath for a few more seconds.
- You will eventually feel what is known as the pelvic floor drop, or the point in which the internal sphincter allows the urine to begin flowing from the bladder. The stream should start on its own, and you should avoid forcing the urine too much.
- Once a urine stream has started, keep your breath held until the stream is a full strength before you begin to breathe again. If you take a breath too early or breath in too quickly, this can cause the stream to subside. When you do take a breath, try and take smooth even breaths so as not to pant or gasp, which can also cause the stream to halt.
Once you've honed this technique, it can be a paruresis workaround, applicable to any situation where you face difficulty urinating in public spaces. Moreover, you can try holding your breath as you approach the toilet, a pee shy tip that can lessen the time spent at the urinal, thus aiding in overcoming shy bladder.
Breath Hold: Important Points
- This is not a miracle technique, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't,
- It takes practice, it may take you 10, 100 or more tries before you get it right,
- Practice at home before you go out in public, practice holding your breath in front of the TV, in bed etc...
- Apnea can be a little uncomfortable and awkward at first, this is normal,
- Don't focus too much on the apnea time, but rather on the "desire to take a breath"
"Hi! In this video, I will give you a trick on how you can unlock your urine flow by holding your breath. First of all, the thing I want to say is like this trick is a temporary method. Okay, it can help you to pee in some situation but it's not gonna cure the root cause of the problem of your paruresis. Therefore, it can be useful in certain situations to help you but to overcome your paruresis for good, it's something that's gonna ask much more work on yourself and on your own fears. Nevertheless, this technique can help you even if it's just once in your life. Having lived for it for 17 years, I know every trick we can take is a good one.
So, the principle of this technique is to loosen up the muscles that control your bladder. Because as you know, if you have shy bladder, the thing is that when there's something triggering us like a noise or someone is entering the bathroom or something, we have kind of a contraction and it blocks everything, it blocks the flow. So, the goal of this technique is to loosen up those muscles to unleash the flow basically. And to do that, we have to increase the level of CO2 we have in our body. And the easiest and quickest way to do that is to hold our breath. By holding our breath, we will not exhale the CO2 because normally we inhale air basically and we exhale CO2. But by holding breath, CO2 will accumulate in our body and at some point will trigger a reaction to loosen up the muscle. And that's what we want.
Before I move on with the step-by-step technique, I want to say that I don't have experience with breath holding as a victim of shy bladder because I overcame my shy bladder before knowing about this technique. I have a lot of experience with breathing technique and breath holding in my own life for other reasons. But I have never experienced it in relation with shy bladder. But I know it works. I know it works for some people. It's not an easy thing but it can work. So, even if it can work for only one person watching this video or even if it can help you even once in your life as a shy bladder victim myself, I know this is gonna still be a relief.
Okay, so the first step is gonna be to fill up your lungs fully. But not in this kind of way, not like that. This is not filling up lungs. To fill up your lungs fully, you have to start with your tummy. You should expand and then you know the air should start with your tummy and then your lungs and then you should feel an expansion here. That's when your lungs are full. Like that. Your lungs should be full. Once your lungs are full, step two is to release air until you are about down to 25% air in your lungs. So, when you have your lungs full, if you do a release like that, you will say like it's 50%. No, let's say 0.0. So, if you want to go down to 25%, it means you will have to exhale forcefully, exhale a bit of air. And obviously, 25% should be between you have no air in your lungs and this 50% point. Okay. So, step one and two should look like this. Now, I'm at 25% and that's where I can go to step three.
Step three now is simply to hold your breath and try to keep your body still and relaxed. Just hold your breath as much as you can. After some time, which usually should be between 20-40 seconds depending on your condition, you should feel your body gasping for air. It should come from your diaphragm basically, which will start to contract. It means your body is gasping for air. When this happens, you know this is the first trigger. Just go beyond this point. You know that when you have come to this point, when your body is trying to gasp for air, you should just hold on some few more seconds. You will feel a bit of discomfort doing that because you are going against your body and natural ones. So, that's totally normal though. After a few seconds, you should feel what is known as a pelvic floor drop. Basically, it means that your muscles are loosening up and the flow of urine should start. When it does, just don't breathe yet. Just hold on a few more seconds until your flow of urine is as rich as maximum flow and then you can breathe. But try to breathe in a calm and relaxed manner. Try not to pant or whatever. Just try to breathe in a relaxed manner with slow exhale and slow inhale because if you start to pant, it's gonna stress your body and it might cut the flow again. So, try to stay relaxed in your inhale and your exhale. Normally, you should have achieved it.
Now that you know the technique, I want to point out some very important points. The first one is that it's not a miracle technique. This thing, it sometimes works, it sometimes does not and some people will eventually master it and some people won't. It's not a magic technique. The second point is it takes practice. Some people master it straight away. For some other people, it can take tens or hundreds of tries before feeling the thing and mastering the technique. The third thing is that you should first practice at home before you try it in public. Practice holding your breath in front of the TV, in front of your bed, in your bed or even in your own room before trying it in public and be disappointed because you don't succeed. Also know that apnea can be a little uncomfortable and awkward at first and this is totally normal because as I said earlier, you're going against your body's natural needs and wants and it's obviously going to be a bit uncomfortable. So, just go through it, just go with the flow and just accept that it's part of the process.
Finally, the fifth point is that you don't focus too much on time. Just focus more on your bodily sensation like the desire to take a breath you will feel with the diaphragm. You will feel it. It's not about 20 seconds or 30 seconds exactly. It depends on the person and there's no exact time you know and therefore focus on your body sensation. Alright, so I hope this video helped you and I hope you will master this technique to at least help you in a couple of situations, tricky situations that we can face when we have paruresis. But just know that like I said at the beginning of the video, this is not a cure. It's just a workaround and therefore if you want to really overcome your paruresis, you will have to work on yourself. You will have to fight your shy bladder and if you want to do so, just check out the links below this video and you will find some good resources to do that. I'll see you in another video and I wish you good luck. Ciao!"