We’ve all experienced one really great dream that we wish could’ve kept going if only it weren’t interrupted by the need to go. Research has shown that an overarching age range of people wake up to pee at least once — perhaps even more — during the nighttime. This phenomenon is known as nocturia, which is basically the scientific way to say that your bladder doesn’t go to sleep when you do.
One in 3 adults over the age of 30 have to get up and go multiple times throughout the night, but the urge can occur at any age. And while the cause could be automatically related to liquid intake, recent studies have shown that reducing your salt intake can actually help deal with nocturia and decrease the number of times you have to pee at night.
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A study conducted by Tomohiro Matsuo, from Nagasaki University Hospital and Nagasaki University in Japan was the first study to measure how salt intake affects the frequency of going to the bathroom, so he noted that more research needs to be done in this area to confirm the results.
More than 200 people in this study successfully reduced their salt intake, going from a reported 11 grams per day to 8 grams per day. And with that reduction, it was found that the average number of nighttime bathroom trips decreased from 2.3 to 1.4 times a night, as well as the general number of people that needed to go.
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This study goes to show that our healthy decisions may be much more beneficial than we think. Since waking up in the middle of the night not only affects our beloved dreams, but realistically could induce stress, irritability and tiredness and could affect your quality of life, these findings are a step in the right direction for both our sleep and our lifestyle choices.
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