Sudden urges to pee: Aliya Dhalla’s five steps for a calmer trip to the toilet

You were fine on the journey home. Then the key goes in the door and suddenly getting your shoes off feels like an Olympic event. Why does your bladder pick that moment?

In Episode 106 of The Not Your Mother’s Pelvic Floor Podcast, pelvic floor physiotherapist Aliya Dhalla tackles that familiar rush. Her five-step approach aims to make the urge feel more manageable: pause, breathe, use quick pelvic floor contractions, reassure yourself and move slowly. There’s no prize for holding on the longest.

This is a short, practical episode about responding to urgency. It doesn’t diagnose why you have it, and Aliya makes clear that individual treatment needs more than a podcast.

The front-door dash is the example, not a diagnosis

Aliya describes several moments when an urge can suddenly become overwhelming: arriving home, walking past the bathroom or turning on the shower. She asks listeners to notice whether there’s a recurring situation, rather than assuming every urgent feeling means the bladder has reached its limit.

Her explanation centres on associations between everyday cues and emptying the bladder. That gives the episode a particular focus: interrupting an established rush-to-the-toilet pattern. It isn’t a reason to dismiss symptoms as imaginary or blame yourself for them.

Urgency also doesn’t always involve a leak. As the NHS explains, urge incontinence means leaking with, or shortly after, a sudden strong need to pee. You can find the urgency distressing even if you make it to the toilet dry.

Aliya’s five steps, explained

1. Stop where it’s safe

Aliya begins with stopping, rather than immediately rushing to the bathroom. In her coming-home example, this interrupts the scramble to shed your jacket, bag and shoes all at once.

She includes a practical condition: only stop when it’s safe. The point is to break the rushing pattern, not become a statue halfway across the road.

2. Take five to ten slow, gentle breaths

Her next step is calm diaphragmatic breathing, allowing expansion through the ribs and belly as you breathe in. She suggests five to ten gentle breaths while staying still.

Aliya acknowledges that slowing down is probably the last thing you feel like doing. That’s why she explains the purpose: giving your body a calmer response to practise when the familiar panic arrives.

3. Contract and release the pelvic floor quickly ten times

Aliya then describes ten quick pelvic floor contractions, switching the muscles on and off. She explains these as a way of encouraging the bladder muscle to relax.

The release matters: this is a sequence of contractions and relaxations, not one long clench. If you’re unsure which muscles you’re using, or contractions are painful, ask a pelvic health physiotherapist how this fits your symptoms rather than pushing through.

4. Give yourself a reassuring reminder

This is the pep-talk part. Aliya suggests reminding yourself that you can take things calmly and that the feeling may have appeared with a familiar trigger.

Think reassurance rather than an argument with your bladder. You haven’t failed if a few encouraging words don’t make the urge disappear. Aliya presents this as one part of a wider strategy, not a test of willpower.

5. Move slowly

Finally, she suggests moving slowly to finish what you were doing or to go to the bathroom. The sequence ends with a calmer next action; it doesn’t require pretending you never needed the toilet.

“The goal is to make the urge feel more in your control.”

— Aliya Dhalla, pelvic floor physiotherapist · Episode 106

How this fits with bladder training

There’s overlap between Aliya’s approach and Kent Community Health NHS guidance: staying still, breathing slowly and using quick pelvic floor contractions can feature in managing urgency. The NHS leaflet also describes keeping a bladder record and having a healthcare professional review it before working out a schedule.

That adds something useful to the episode. An in-the-moment strategy and a longer-term bladder-training plan do different jobs. The NHS treatment overview says bladder training for urge incontinence usually lasts at least six weeks. Progress doesn’t have to look like getting it right every time you walk through the front door.

Aliya also notes that individual care can look at food and drink, other triggers and the pelvic floor itself. Her five steps are a starting point for that conversation, not the whole assessment.

When to get help rather than keep practising

If urgency keeps disrupting your day, or you’re leaking, book an assessment. The NHS recommends seeing a GP for any urinary incontinence. Describe when it happens, whether you leak and whether you feel able to empty your bladder; you don’t need perfect medical vocabulary.

A new urgent need to pee can also accompany a urinary tract infection. Burning when peeing, blood in your urine, fever or back pain are reasons to seek medical advice promptly rather than assume you need more practice. See the NHS UTI guidance for the appropriate help, including when to contact an urgent GP service or NHS 111.

Is this episode a good place to start?

If you recognise the sudden scramble more than a gradual need to pee, this is a focused introduction worth discussing with your clinician. Aliya keeps returning to what the next minute might look like: a pause, some breathing and a slower walk.

For more about the host and the wider show, read our Not Your Mother’s Pelvic Floor series guide. If you’re trying to untangle leaking, prolapse and pelvic pain more broadly, Pelvic Floor Problems 101 offers a different starting point.