We Make Better Decisions When We Gotta Go

In addition to making you walk funny and drop your keys five or six times while trying to get inside your house, a full bladder may actually do something useful: help you make better decisions.

According to an upcoming study in Psychological Science, researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands performed experiments on more than 500 college students to determine if the inhibitory signals sent to a full bladder would “spill over” into other inhibitory responses, such as holding out for a larger monetary reward rather than going with a smaller immediate one.

According to lead author Mirjam Tuk, researchers had test subjects drink either five cups of water or sip a bit from each cup. After about 40 minutes -- the amount of time it takes for the water to reach the bladder -- the subjects were asked to participate in a choice test.

“We asked them to choose between a small, but soon-to-be-received reward or a large but later-to-be-received award, e.g., $18 tomorrow or $30 in 25 days,” says Tuk in an e-mail interview. “The number of times respondents opted for a later but larger reward was higher for people who experienced high bladder pressure.”

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