Calming an Overactive Bladder with Essential Oils
My brother-in-law used to teasingly call me “a river runs through her” as I clearly make frequent use of the bathroom.
I only recently learned that your autonomic nervous system plays a key role in supporting bladder retention and calming an overactive bladder response.
What’s more, overactive bladder symptoms can be mitigated and calmed with the use of topically applied essential oils.
What is an Overactive Bladder?
Your bladder is a hollow organ located in your pelvis or lower abdomen. One of the main jobs of your bladder is to store urine. The other is to remove urine from your body in response to signals from your nervous system and your brain.
An overactive bladder may contribute to frequent urination, waking at night to use the bathroom, or the involuntary loss of urine, known as urine leakage or incontinence.
As you may know, your kidneys produce urine which then travels to your bladder. But it is your brain that signals your body to urinate by relaxing your pelvic floor muscles and allowing urine to exit your body.
When signals from your brain are not flowing properly or the relationship between the nervous system and bladder function is disrupted, your bladder muscles may contract involuntarily, giving the sensation of needing to urinate frequently even if your bladder isn’t full.
Interestingly – but not surprisingly for those of us who have waited in long restroom lines in public places – women are more often affected by an overactive bladder than men.
Overactive Bladder Symptoms
An overactive bladder is determined by the frequency and urgency of urination. Symptoms may include:
- Sudden urge to urinate
- A weak or dribbling urinary stream.
- Frequent urination (urinating eight or more times daily).
- Urgency (a feeling or need to urinate immediately).
- Urine leakage or an involuntary loss of urine
- Waking up more than once a night to use the bathroom
- Urinary leakage
Autonomic Regulation of the Bladder
Your autonomic nervous system relaxes the muscles that help you control when you urinate.
It is the parasympathetic branch of your nervous system that encourages urine filtration and also bladder retention – meaning you can produce urine but hold it longer. When you do urinate, the parasympathetic nervous system signals contraction of the bladder muscles and relaxation of the sphincter (a ring of muscle serving to guard or close an opening or tube, such as the anus or bladder) so you may fully void the bladder.
The parasympathetic nervous system helps prepare the bladder for urination by stimulating the detrusor muscle to contract and relax the bladder muscles. The parasympathetic nervous system works in opposition to the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for storing urine. When the sympathetic branch of your nervous system is dominant, bladder retention is diminished which causes more frequent urination of less volume.
That said, one of the symptoms of being in a sympathetic dominant state is the need to urinate more frequently.
The sympathetic branch of your nervous system prioritizes survival and slows down the kidney/bladder detoxification and specific excretion and secretion functions, which in turn increases the need to urinate (and sometimes also makes it difficult to void fully).
Parasympathetic blend stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system which helps support bladder retention.
Being in a sympathetic state slows down the kidney/bladder detoxification and specific excretion and secretion functions. The epidemic of kidney and bladder infections can be linked to sympathetic inhibition of the immune system. Strengthening the parasympathetic nervous system response supports healthy kidney and bladder function.
Essential oils for Overactive Bladder
Overactive bladder is often the result of nerves firing and causing muscles to contract unexpectedly. Essential oils that can help calm these nerves and muscles may help relieve some symptoms.
Essential oils possess anti-infectious and anti-inflammatory constituents, which can be helpful in regulating and calming overactive bladder symptoms.
Parasympathetic®
Parasympathetic blend stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system which helps support bladder retention.
Being in a sympathetic state slows down the kidney/bladder detoxification and specific excretion and secretion functions. The epidemic of kidney and bladder infections can be linked to sympathetic inhibition of the immune system. Strengthening the parasympathetic nervous system response supports healthy kidney and bladder function.
What’s more, an overactive bladder can be triggered by errant nerve impulses. These urges tell your bladder you need to urinate even when you don’t. This can lead to frequent urination or urges after you’ve already urinated.
More specifically, research on nerve stimulation that changes the electrical signal of the nerves that carry impulses to the bladder has been shown to relieve the frequency and urgency of an overactive bladder.
What’s more, the antibacterial properties of clove oil (contained in Parasympathetic® blend) may help to kill bacteria involved in UTIs, particularly when the bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics.
Bladder Support™
Different organ systems are vulnerable to different types of emotional disturbance and your bladder is known to be correlated with emotional traumas as residual emotional debris is thought to be stored in the bladder.
In Chinese medicine, the bladder is considered a storehouse for emotions, managing emotional reserves and overflow. When you feel internally empty of reserves, everything seems to be too much to handle, uncertain, and frightening. Similarly, when emotions are overflowing, you can feel awash in an internal torrent, drowning, out of control, and driven to desperation.
Often these overwhelming emotions feel like too much to handle in the moment, so you store them in the bladder until you are able to process and move through them.
Bladder Support™ blend allows you to let go of the negative past and release the emotional trauma from the body. It assists in overcoming feelings of despair and the feeling of being pushed over the edge. It also has the ability to balance the right and left brain.
Bladder Support™ blend contains a proprietary formulation of organic and/or wild-crafted essential oils of:
Frankincense; which may help improve bladder health because of its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant characteristics. Frankincense is known to relieve anxiety, nervous tension, and stress-related conditions. Research has found frankincense oil to possess anti-tumor activity in relations to bladder cancer cells. More specifically, researchers found that frankincense essential oil “suppresses cancer cell growth by arresting cell cycle progression and induces bladder cancer cell death by activating multiple cell death pathways.”
Geranium can soothe anxiety and reduce stress. Geranium works as a powerful tonic, helping to boost fluid circulation, It may also help to support acute fear, and overcoming abuse, hurt, and emotional crisis. It can also support extreme trauma and grief.
Helichrysum™ works as a natural anti-inflammatory that may help detoxify your kidneys and reduce the risk of developing an overactive bladder. Helichrysum™ possesses diuretic qualities that can help move water through the body, making it easier to help pass the urine. It is also thought to lessen bladder contractions, which lessens the desire to urinate.
Lavender essential oils are extremely anti-inflammatory and soothing. Adapted from the Lavandula angustifolia plant known for its soothing properties which may help soothe bladder-region nerves and lessen overactive bladder symptoms.
Petitgrain Bigarade helps ease panic, anger, and anxiety and relieves nervous exhaustion, depression, stress, and mental fatigue. It also stimulates the conscious mind to support clear perception and focus.
Rose helps to relieve stress, anxiety, apathy, depression, and indifference. Can support energy, confidence, and a positive mood.
Sandalwood helps overcome low self-confidence, grief, and fear, calm aggressive and egocentric behavior, control OCD, and help with insomnia.
Spruce supports the nervous and glandular systems. It is thought to work on the nerves that surround the bladder, reducing the need and frequency to urinate. Spruce is also considered to be mentally grounding, helps balance the solar plexus, stimulates the thymus, and helps support anxiety and stress.
Valerian Root is considered the best oil for its sedative and calming properties. Supports any type of tension, restlessness, agitation, and panic attacks. Helps calm the mind and redirect thoughts in a positive way.
Apply 2- 3 drops of Bladder Support™ over the bladder (just above and behind the pubic bone), directly over areas of trauma or abuse, or around the outside of earlobes.
