Why Some People SHIVER When They Pee – And Is It Something To ...

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HAVE you ever experienced a spine-tingling shiver when you wee?

While popping to the loo and shivering might not seem closely related, it turns out this is a phenomenon that affects a lot of people.

It affects more men than women, and it’s got nothing to do with being cold.

It’s thought to be related to how your bladder, and emptying it, is linked to your nervous system.

In a SciShow YouTube clip, host Olivia Gordon said it’s not yet known exactly why this happens as there has been no peer-reviewed study into the odd sensation.

“The shivering might have to do with an interaction between two different parts of your nervous system,” she said.

“When you chose to start urinating your body also lowers your blood system.

“That’s the parasympathetic nervous system at work, the part responsible for involuntary processes that are more about resting like digestion and lowering your heart rate.”

She continued: “But peeing also triggers the sympathetic nervous system which is involved in other voluntary processes like in flight-or-fight response.

“It’s possible that you get the pee shivers when there’s an especially strong interaction between these two responses.”

So basically, it could be a confusion of signals between the two nervous systems that cause your body to experience a shivering sensation.

When our bladder is full it activates a set of nerves in our spinal cord to tell us we need to pee.

Then our parasympathetic nervous system springs into action, preparing the body to squeeze the bladder muscles to allow us to go to the toilet.

But the automatic system works against it by holding in the wee, to stop us from wetting ourselves.

When we finally let go both of the nervous systems are active, and that might be why we shiver.

Another theory about why we shiver when we pee is that the sensation of warm pee leaving the body, causing a drop in body temperature.

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But that still doesn’t explain why the shivers affect more men than women.

That comes down to the fact that men stand up when they relieve themselves, Olivia explains.

She added: “We you stand up to pee your blood pressure will be slightly lower than if you were sitting, which could lead to a stronger interaction between the two nervous systems.”

The truth is though, we still don’t know exactly why some people shiver when they pee – more scientific research is needed into the subject.

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