Toilet anxiety when travelling is something many people worry about because they may need the toilet, and that causes them to feel anxious. But when the anxiety gets out of proportion, that is toilet anxiety.
Anything related to going to the toilet that makes you worry, avoid situations, and affect your life could be called toilet anxiety, especially if no physical cause has been found.
Toilet anxiety (also called toilet phobia) is caused by an emotional response related to feelings of being judged. It triggers the body into flight or fight mode.
It can be caused by a traumatic experience related to toilets. It can be a learned behaviour from family, and it can be associated with other conditions such as social phobias, depression, alcohol problems and Obcessive compulsive disorder (OCD) It results in difficulty and avoidance of going to the bathroom when the body wants to evacuate.
Toilet anxiety is a social anxiety.
The anxiety and worry are associated with three or more of the following six symptoms (with at least some symptoms present for more days than not for the past 6 months).
- Restlessness or feeling keyed up or on edge
- Being easily fatigued
- Difficulty concentrating or mind going blank
- Irritability
- Muscle tension
- Sleep disturbance (difficulty falling or staying asleep, or restless unsatisfying sleep)
I travel a lot and have met many clients who need help with anxiety, including toilet issues.
Imagine this.
If you go to rural India and can’t find toilets, when you do, they may be dirty, not flush, or have little privacy. This situation could make many people from Western societies feel anxious. That would be understandable.
Public toilets are commonplace in cities worldwide and in Western societies. They can be found in restaurants, hotels, bus stations, motorway services, and pubs, to mention a few places. They are everywhere and are usually of a high standard with hand washing facilities. In some countries, restrooms have bidets or water next to the toilet for washing. In other countries that adopt squatting positions to relieve themselves, they will have squat toilets.
Clients come to me for help with hypnotherapy and counselling, as these therapies have been shown to help with anxiety.
There are different types of toilet anxiety. Sometimes, people have both peeing and pooing anxiety problems.
Whatever the toilet anxiety issue is, people need to have a health check from their doctor if the problem is getting worse.
What is Paruresis or shy bladder?
Paruresis is the fear of peeing in public places. It’s a type of anxiety. However, many sufferers don’t tell anyone about their fear, and they feel too embarrassed or stupid, saying that toilet issues make them feel anxious.
Although there are no specific research studies on Paruresis and hypnotherapy, there is much evidence in practice that hypnosis helps. Studies also use hypnotherapy for a variety of other bladder disorders. For example, Osbourne and Reed (2019) reviewed hypnotherapy for an overactive bladder and found that there were benefits to using it, especially as an adjunct to other treatments. A further study showed the mind-body connection with hypnotherapy and urinary incontinence problems. Ketai et al. 2023, presented a study on urinary urgency incontinence with hypnotherapy for women and found that using hypnosis and pharmacotherapy helped incontinence.
Furthermore, hypnotherapy for anxiety has lots of evidence to show that it helps for many types of anxiety. Hypnotherapy helps people get to the root of the problem, relax, and regain control by reframing the situation and assisting people in seeing it from a different perspective.
What is Parcopresis or shy bowel?
Toilet anxiety when travelling can also be about pooing, or some people call it going to number two.
Parcopresis is the fear of pooping in public places. It’s not as common as paruresis, but it can still cause people a lot of anxiety if they are visiting new places because they worry that they might need to poo.
When people are stuck in a different place and can’t use a public toilet because of fear kicking in, they sometimes resist the urge and end up not going, increasing the chance of constipation and haemorrhoids (piles).
Not visiting the toilet when your body tells you that you need to go can also make you feel sick, hot, and flustered. It’s not a pleasant feeling.
Triggers for toilet anxiety when travelling
The number of triggers can be far-reaching and vary among people of different ages and backgrounds.
For most people, these triggers are temporary issues that they get on with, but for others, the anxiety starts to interfere with their lives, and they stop doing things.
Triggers can include:
- Limited access to toilets. This is common when travelling to some countries abroad, taking buses or trains, or getting stuck in a traffic jam.
- Lack of toilets in a restaurant or public venue. This may result in long queues for the toilet.
- When travelling in a group, there might be time pressure. You might want to use the toilet but feel pressured to be quick. This situation can happen on escorted tours when they want everyone back to the coach on time.
- Using public toilets (restrooms) where others are. This is because you worry that people will hear you peeing or pooping. Some people might also worry about smells.
- Anxiety about using toilets at social gatherings. So you might feel embarrassed to interrupt and pop out to the toilet.
- Simply going too far from home. (It’s unlikely that the fear of toilets happens at home.)
- Past experiences.
How can past experiences trigger toilet anxiety?
Past experiences can set up emotional responses.
The more you avoid, the worse the situation gets.
Treatments for toilet anxiety
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). This is a form of counselling.
- Relaxation. Anything that helps reduce the tension and alarm of the situation.
- Graduated exposure. This is a form of psychotherapy where the person is gradually introduced to toilets and learns how to reduce their anxiety step by step.
- Medication.
- Complementary therapies.
- Hypnotherapy.
Hypnotherapy for Anxiety
Hypnotherapy can help people with many kinds of anxiety. It allows people to relax, get to the root of the problem, build confidence and self-esteem, reframe negative experiences and feelings and cope again.
Remember that everyone pees and everyone poops. It is a private thing to do as we are more vulnerable when using the toilet. However, the fear should not be so bad that it stops us from having a good life.
If you want to travel, meet people and enjoy life again, you need to retake control and stop the toilet anxiety.
At Awaken the Change, I can offer a combination of CBT and hypnotherapy to help people with this problem. Usually, people will need four to six sessions. This is often a process of working together online. Contact me for a free initial consultation and find out more.
