Common Sense Health: Get up at night less frequently

By Dr. Gifford-Jones and Diana Gifford-Jones on January 17, 2025.

Getting up often to pee at night is called “Nocturia” and it’s the great sleep disturber as we age. Frequent peeing could also signal conditions that need medical attention. So you shouldn’t ignore the problem.

It’s not polite to go around asking friends how many times they pee at night. But if you did, you’d discover it’s a common malady. Is there a natural remedy to decrease or resolve the causes?

Of course, there are the obvious behavioural approaches. If you drink a lot of fluids before bed, unless you are young, you’ll undoubtedly wake up with the need to pee in the middle of the night. Load up on hydration earlier in the day. This is not to say don’t quench your thirst in the evening. Just do so in moderation and make a trip to the loo right before getting into bed.

If waking up to pee is still a problem, then alcohol or caffeine consumption might be part of the issue. Try eliminating drinks containing either at least 4-6 hours before sleeping and see if there is an effect.

But there are also other natural approaches to managing this challenge with the urinary system. As we age, every system in our body starts to struggle with wear and tear. The most feared problems tend to be the consequences of declining cardiovascular and neurological systems – in other words, coronary attacks, and various forms of dementia. But although the urinary bladder is not often the talk of the town, it too becomes weaker over time.

To fight that nightly curse of waking up to pee, it’s worth the effort to nurture the bladder the same way you do the heart, the brain, and every other important part of you. Give it the building blocks of healthy tissue formation so that the organ can operate effectively.

The bladder is like a ballon. It expands and contracts to accommodate the volume of urine. When empty, a normal bladder wall has a thickness of almost 3 millimetres and only half that thickness when full. With age, the elastic tissue may toughen and become less stretchy. This makes it harder for the bladder to hold as much urine, creating more frequent needs for visits to the bathroom.

Like the heart and arteries therefore, the bladder also depends on healthy cells forming healthy tissues. Among the most important ingredients vitamin C and lysine in the high amounts required to fuel the body’s natural mechanisms for maintenance and defence, especially in light of all the toxins and junk our bodies receive daily, not to mention the aging process!

Our suggestion is 1,000 milligrams (mg) in the morning and another 1,000 mg at bedtime. If after a week no problems, such as diarrhea occur, try 1,000 in the morning and 2,000 mg at bedtime for another week. Then, again, if possible, increase to 1,000 mg in the morning and 3,000 mg at bedtime for several months. High vitamin C and lysine is safe, effective, increases immunity and decreases the risk of coronary attack and stroke.

You can and should talk with your doctor. But if there is no serious medical issue causing nocturia, then before trying pharmaceutical drugs, work on the natural properties of your body to take care of itself.

There’s no harm in trying, and significant gains if simple changes in behaviour and nutrition resolve the issue. We’d like to ask readers suffering from this problem who find success with this approach to nocturia to let us know.

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