Yes, coffee can irritate your bladder, resulting in increased bladder activity. This means your bladder may feel urgent and you may need to pee more when you consume coffee. It can also increase incontinence for up to 20 hours after drinking it for some women. What’s more, bladder sensitivity to coffee tends to increase over time. But it’s not all bad news.

Coffee is the gasoline of life.

For many people, this statement rings true. Without a doubt, coffee is a much-loved beverage around the world.

Drinking coffee has its advantages

It can boost physical and mental performance, help to burn fat, reduces the risk of some cancers, stroke, Parkinson disease, Type II diabetes, not to mention death, and helps to fight depression. But for most people, the love of it comes from the pleasure of drinking it – and one can never overdose on pleasure.

… and disadvantages…

There are also disadvantages associated with drinking coffee for example anxiety, high blood pressure, digestive issues, insomnia, fatigue, jitters and bladder urges, and incontinence.

Urge incontinence is when you pee your pants without wanting to because suddenly you really-really needed to go and couldn’t hold on.

Here is what you can do if coffee irritates your bladder

The good news is that such bladder response to caffeine is individual. Not everybody has it.

So, if you’re suspecting that your much-loved java is interfering with your bladder control, instead of going cold turkey giving it up, eliminate it for a week to see if that makes a difference.

Based on your findings you can then decide if you need to or want to give up coffee for better bladder control. If this is difficult, cut it back by ½ cup/day to fade out your consumption over a one to two week period. This way you can bypass the withdrawal headache and other undesirable symptoms.

Alternatively, since the unwanted bladder response is more likely when the intake is more than 300mg (about 2 large caps) of caffeine compromise in cutting down to one espresso worth of coffee per day or go decaf.

What’s the best way to control bladder urges?

Keep your pelvic floor muscles strong with regular focused exercise and apply a 15 seconds long strong contraction when the urge hits you.

Would you like to know more? To learn pelvic floor muscle training and other powerful bladder control techniques consider joining one of the below programs.