Lot of bad advice in this thread.

Rules to live by...or pee by.

1. Dont drink urine.

2. If you need to urinate, then, go.



I would rather lose the heat by urinating than wet myself trying to hold it in and have to deal with wet clothing and cold.

I thought that up all by myself. When the temp really drops, to 17F or so, I really do need to feed the fire at night. If I had a decent wood stove, it might be another story, but I have one of these tiny "mobile home approved" stoves. There is no way to get enough wood in it to keep it burning all night. So I drink quite a bit of water before I go to bed (and again when I get up to feed the fire).

I HATE getting up when it's cold! First, I fight my way past the two cats who have me pinned down and grown roots into the mattress, then I let the dogs out, then run to the bathroom, feed the stove, let the dogs in, then jump back in bed after peeling the cats off the center of the bed.

If I ever get rich, I'm going to build a straw bale house with heated floors.

Sue

When you're cold, your blood vessels constrict to conserve body heat so your kidneys excrete more water to maintain the proper blood pressure since the total volume of your circulatory system has shrunk. I find that I'm fairly susceptible to this effect in the wintertime. It doesn't take very long after stepping out into the cold until I really have to go. Anyway, the phenomenon is called thermal diuresis.

Or, maybe, like me, you just produce more urine when sleeping in new environments? I don't know why this happens, but I usually have to pee two or three times at night for the first few nights when I take trips, although I never have to at home. I'm not cold, so I can't blame it on thermal diuresis.

I guess I missed that episode. Is this the same episode where he pee'd on his head covering to keep his head cool in the Sahara?

If his canteen already had some water in it and he wasn't already fairly water deprived and producing really concentrated urine, the diluted urine may have been beneficial. Well, like I said, I didn't see the episode so I'm just guessing here.

Lots of bad or irrelevant info on this thread. Yes, you lose heat when you pee, since the pee is warm. However, you will have to pee inevitably, so you will lose that heat regardless of whether you pee immediately or after tormenting yourself for hours of holding it in.
As was mentioned, the body does not reabsorb urine once it is in the bladder, so you have already lost that fluid before you even pee.

There are some practical uses for urine, such as solar distillation or treating certain types of jellyfish stings, and perhaps even as a last ditch cleaning rinse for minor wounds since it should be sterile(this last one is an educated guess, please correct me if there is a medical reason not to do this).

I guess it would also make sense to apply urine to the skin or cloting to increase evaporative cooling in a desert situation, but if you're already sweating a lot I don't know if that would increase the cooling very much, and if you're not sweating then you probably are too dehydrated to have much urine anyway.

I don't think urinating on your hands to warm them would make much sense since the moisture would make them even colder after the brief moment of warmth.

Drinking urine in any way is never a good idea, it will only dehydrate you more and waste your body's resources.

As beauty is to the eye of the beholder, so too is good(or bad) advice to the ear.

The use of urine to treat jellyfish stings has been fairly well debunked, vinegar having been shown to be the only effective treatment to stop the continued stinging from tentacles lodged on the skin after initial contact.

I guess the bottom line, though, still remains: When you gotta go, you gotta go...

Lets ignore Bear. No this is not something you should do.

I find Bear to be the most enjoyable when I mute the sound and just look at the scenery (and he does go where there is beautiful scenery).


The stress on your body trying to hold on to your urine is stress you don't need in a survival situation.


Taking a good long pee is a great morale booster.


Plus, checking out your urine (color, volume, odor, NOT TASTE) is an important tool in keeping tabs on your own bodies condition.