How Your Lifestyle Affects Your Period

A period montage in the movies usually involves lying under the covers with a mountain of chocolate and crying over sappy movies or deep eye bags as you chug your sixth coffee at 11 AM.

While relatable, it pretty much exhibits two of the worst ways to spend your period. Listen, we get it, you’re in pain, your hormones are wreaking havoc on your body. There is a link however between your lifestyle choices and how your period is going to go. If you don’t want stress, not doing something stressful is probably a good idea.

Let’s discuss some things that will definitely help you out with your period. Pakka promise.

1. A HEALTHY DIET

Okay, we know. It’s just common sense, but having a balanced diet and avoiding excess sodium has been shown to help with cramps, due to the link between it and blood pressure. It also retains fluid and makes you bloat.

 

 

2. Limiting caffeine intake

Skipping your daily Starbucks run might help both your pocket and health. Caffeine has a few health benefits, but it’s also a diuretic, which is sciencey talk for it makes you pee a lot, which dehydrates you. It also attacks your intestines, and adding in the PMS diarrhea, you might as well glue yourself to the toilet.

 

3. Sleeping well

It is excessively common to experience insomnia during and before your period. And as anyone with insomnia knows, once you stay up for one last episode, it becomes 5 and then it becomes a schedule. You need your sleep, every cycle is hard on your body.

 

4. Exercise

When you’re cramping, the last thing you want to do is contort your body into weird positions. However, there are some yoga positions that were devised exactly to do that AND relieve your period symptoms. It gets the blood flowing and your muscles relaxed.

 

5. Reducing stress

This is a no-brainer, but cortisol, the famous stress hormone, can seriously affect the length and flow of your period, causing it to stop altogether or last longer. Irregular periods are honestly really bad for your body.

All of these steps, while simple, go a long way when it comes to symptom relief and help you have a happy, healthy and event-less period. Isn’t that the goal?