Gotta go? You may make the best decisions when you have a full bladder

Another benefit to drinking plenty of water every day: When you have a full bladder and really, really need to go to the bathroom, your critical and decision-making skills may be even better than usual.

Apparently, when you're exercising your ability to, um, hold it all in, your brain's self-control mechanism is activated all over your body-including your brain, according to a new study by psychologists from the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

Dr. Mirjam Tuk came up with the idea for the study after she drank several cups of coffee while trying to stay awake during a long lecture. By the time the lecture was over, "All the coffee had reached my bladder," she said in the journal Psychological Science. "And that raised the question: What happens when people experience higher levels of bladder control?"

In her experiment, Tuk-along with Debra Trampe of the University of Groningen and Luk Warlop of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven-tested whether self-control over one bodily desire can generalize to other domains as well. The researchers found that test subjects with full bladders made better decisions about money and other rewards.

Luckily for those of us who don't have a large glass of water handy at all times, the study also found that just thinking about words related to having to urinate triggered the same sharp-thinking effect.

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