Should Men Pee Sitting Down or Standing Up? Science Has an Answer

For healthy men, posture barely changes urine flow. But the physics of splashback tells another story.

For years, men have been arguing about whether to pee sitting down or standing up. Now, scientists have put the question to the test.

The verdict? Your bladder probably doesn’t care. At least, not if you’re healthy.

But physics tells a different story. And it might make you think twice before standing at the toilet again.

The Great Peeing Experiment

Researchers from the Colombian Urology Research Group recruited 52 healthy men between the ages of 18 and 39 for a randomized experiment.

Each volunteer had to urinate twice under controlled conditions: once sitting and once standing, with at least 24 hours between visits.

To keep things fair, researchers randomly decided which position each man would try first. That way, they could compare how the same person peed sitting down versus standing up, rather than comparing different men with different urinary habits.

Using a device that measures urine flow, the scientists recorded how quickly urine emerged at its fastest, how much was expelled, and how long it took to reach peak flow.

The results were remarkably uneventful

Neither posture produced a statistically significant difference in maximum flow rate or the total volume of urine released.

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There was one curious exception. Men took an average of 3.32 seconds longer to reach their fastest urine flow while standing, a statistically significant difference that persisted even after correcting for multiple comparisons.

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But there was a catch. The result was partly influenced by one unusually long measurement. When the researchers excluded this outlier, the difference became smaller and wasn’t even statistically significant. Either way, a few extra seconds to reach maximum flow is unlikely to matter much to a healthy person.

“In healthy men, voiding posture did not significantly modify the maximum urinary flow rate or voided volume,” the researchers concluded in the study.

There’s an important caveat, though. Finding no significant difference doesn’t mean the two positions are necessarily equal. With just 52 participants, the researchers couldn’t rule out smaller differences. They also didn’t measure how much urine remained in the bladder afterward, which could have revealed differences in how completely it emptied.

Still, their findings reinforce earlier research suggesting that healthy men can generally choose whichever position feels most comfortable.

But there’s one difference.

The Physics of Peeing

In 2013, researchers at Brigham Young University investigated a problem familiar to anyone who has ever cleaned a shared bathroom: splashback.

Using simulated urine streams and high-speed cameras, physicist Tadd Truscott and his colleagues studied what happens when liquid strikes porcelain or toilet water.

It turns out that even a perfectly aimed stream can produce an impressive amount of mess.

“A stream comes out but after between 3 and 6 inches it starts to break up into droplets,” Truscott explained to The Guardian in 2023.

This breakup happens because a thin stream of liquid naturally becomes unstable, separating into droplets. When those droplets strike a surface, they can scatter in multiple directions.

The greater the falling distance, the faster the droplets may strike and the larger the resulting splash. And when urine hits toilet water directly, the collision can throw additional droplets into the air.

Some can escape the bowl entirely, landing on nearby surfaces, clothing, and potentially even toothbrushes.

The researchers’ experiments, presented at an American Physical Society meeting, suggested several ways to reduce splashback. Sitting shortens the distance to the target and helps contain the spray. For those determined to stand, aiming at the porcelain at a shallow angle rather than directly into the water can also help.

Engineers have even tried redesigning urinals around this principle. In a 2025 study published in PNAS Nexus, researchers developed curved urinals that reduced splashback to just 1.4% of that produced by a conventional design under experimental conditions.

In other words, where the stream lands may matter almost as much as where it starts.

When Sitting Down Might Help

There is one medical exception worth considering.

A 2014 review of 11 studies found that men experiencing lower urinary tract symptoms, often associated with an enlarged prostate, retained approximately 25 milliliters less urine in their bladders when sitting.

Urologists Norberto Bernardo and Gonzalo Vitagliano explained to Infobae that sitting may help relax the pelvic-floor muscles, making urination easier for men with weak streams or difficulty emptying their bladders.

For healthy men, however, neither the older evidence nor the new experiment establishes a clear medical advantage.

So, should men sit or stand?

If you’re healthy, the choice largely comes down to comfort and preference. But if you share a bathroom, the physics offers a compelling argument for taking a seat.

Your bladder may not notice the difference. Whoever cleans the toilet probably will.

The study was published in the journal Neurourology and Urodynamics.