I don’t know, but while we’re at it, I’d be interested in this related observation:

in cases like when i reeeally need to go, my ability to guess when exactly i will be at the right spot seems to affect my ability to hold it in. as if my body is only going to do as much effort holding it in as necessary but not more, while the idea of “necessary” can be “negotiated” by lying to my body.

imaginge this typical scenario: you sit in the tram, legs crossed, then you are running home, now you are opening front door, now you are quickly running to the bathroom and just about make it. doesn’t it always feel like you just about made it? like there’s never a reserve?

now if one extra inconvenience stands in your way (eg. oh, turns out today for some reason you put your keys in your backpack instead of your front pocket!) then it becomes this critical moment of disagreement between your body and your brain: you can either just pee yourself or hit the emergency break to override and hold it in anyway which makes it almost painful and may even sort of “push it back”, which i reckon is not a healthy thing to do.

at the same time, i’ve learned that I can actually prevent this from happening by “lying” to my brain early on and overestimating the exact time it will take before we are ready. like, i imagine my house is one block further. or I imagine that there’s construction and we need to take a slightly longer route. or that i have my keys in a wallet on the bottom of my backpack.

this lie tends to work, surprisingly, calming the whole reaction down and (unless there actually happens to be construction or another inconvenience that negates it) make the whole thing much more manageable.