Can stress affect menstruation? This question, of course, has occurred to every woman. Or have you experienced it yourself? Experiencing menstrual cycles that are very fast or very slow due to pressure or a lot of thoughts.

Everyone must have experienced stress in their life activities. Mild stress may have a positive effect so that a person can increase his strength to get out of his comfort zone. However, if the stress content felt by a person is high enough, it can negatively affect health. Especially for women, if too much stress can affect their monthly menstrual cycle. To find out a more detailed explanation, let's look at the following review.

Stress Can Affect Periods

When you feel stressed because of work or other life problems, your body will respond to that situation. One of them is symptoms such as diarrhea, frequent urination, abdominal pain and others including changes in several hormone numbers.

Stressful conditions can affect the brain which produces hormones, so that the hormone content becomes unstable and will experience changes in hormone frequency, including changes in cycles and the duration of menstruation in women. The period or menstrual cycle will be affected, depending on the level of stress experienced by a person.

Ordinary stress or the pressures you face every day will likely not have much effect, but heavy stress that weighs on your mind will affect your period. When discussed specifically, stressful situations can increase the production of the hormone cortisol which affects the role of the ovaries. So that women will find menstruation with a longer duration or even shorter than usual. And in the end, the menstrual cycle cannot be estimated again.

Relationship Between Stress and the Menstrual Cycle

Stress is a physiological, psychological and behavioral response from someone who tries to adapt and manage both internal and external pressures (stressors). Stress will stimulate the HPA (Hypothalamus Pituitary Adrenal Cortex) axis, so that it will produce the hormone cortisol which causes hormonal imbalance. Including reproductive hormones and menstrual cycle irregularities.

The condition of the body when stressed will suppress the role of the brain which is in charge of controlling the body's important glands. Such as the thyroid gland, adrenal glands and ovarian glands which play an important role in a woman's menstrual cycle. Excess or lack of ovarian production will have an influence on the length of the menstrual period.

In addition, ovarian dysfunction can cause problems with estrogen production, ovulation or other reproductive processes in women. Not only affects menstruation, for pregnant women or women who plan to have children, conditions of severe stress are very influential. When the ovaries don't function properly, the situation will get worse.

How to Handle Stress

Below are some ways you can try to do it yourself to reduce the stress you feel. Some of these ways are as follows.

• Exercising regularly
• Consuming food with good nutrition
• Limit consumption of fried foods or instant foods
• Laugh and smile more often
• Meditate for a few minutes regularly
• Get enough rest to get quality sleep

Stress can be triggered by various things depending on a person. Therefore, an unstable menstrual cycle can be caused by very heavy stress conditions. However, you should consult a doctor to get a clear examination and get accurate treatment.

References:

https://www.halodoc.com/artikel/inilah-cara-stres-memengaruhi-siklus-menstruasi

https://www.alodokter.com/efek-berbahaya-bila-kamu-stres-sebelum-hamil

http://jurnal.fk.unand.ac.id/index.php/jka/article/view/695/551