# Why does waking up make me go to the bathroom?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-waking-up-make-me-go-to-the-bathroom/593348>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 19, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-waking-up-make-me-go-to-the-bathroom/593348 "2011-08-19T18:22:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ograbme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Ograbme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ograbme)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-waking-up-make-me-go-to-the-bathroom/593348/1 "2011-08-19T18:22:29Z")

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When I wake up in the middle of the night (3:45-4 AM like friggin clockwork, damn lamotrigine) I’m fine…but then my guts go into overdrive shifting around and gurgling and within 5 minutes I have to go. It’s like a worker getting woken up by his boss and suddenly scrambling to look busy.

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**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-waking-up-make-me-go-to-the-bathroom/593348/2 "2011-08-19T19:56:51Z")

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One possibility is that you woke up _because_ you had to go.