Your body can undergo many changes when you start to exercise regularly. You may experience muscle soreness, weight loss, sleep changes, and gain muscle strength as well. Your menstrual cycle can also experience changes as a result of indulging in strenuous exercise. Depending on how your body responds to your elevated exercise levels, the changes could be mild or severe, which leads us to the question; can exercise start your period early? If yes, what are the consequences?
Exercise and Early Periods – What are Experts Reviews?
According to the Mayo Clinic, exercise can affect your period, and can even pause your cycle due to physical stress and low concentrations of body fat. However, exercising won’t cause your period to start earlier, according to Aparna Sridhar, MD, an associate clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UCLA Health.
Can exercise cause bleeding apart from menstruation?
Exercise can cause bleeding independent of the menstrual cycle. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, some people may experience breakthrough bleeding after exercise if they recently changed their workout routine. They might mistake this for their period.
Is exercise during periods beneficial?
A high-intensity workout during a period can generally be beneficial for menstruation. According to small research published in BMC Women’s Health in May 2018, regular aerobic exercise is shown to dramatically lessen the symptoms of PMS like headache, nausea, and bloating.
Other changes in Menstrual Cycle induced by Exercise
According to experts, exercise cannot induce your periods earlier. However, it may create some other impacts on your periods which are discussed below.
1. Regular Exercise may lead you to face some Hormonal Fluctuations
Hormone fluctuations can be caused by regular exercise.
In response to these conflicting hormonal signals, the lining of your uterus may randomly shed, which results in breakthrough bleeding.
What is breakthrough bleeding and what can be its potential causes?
Vaginal bleeding that occurs in between periods is known as breakthrough bleeding. Spotting is one name for this, which you may have heard before.
The blood may be dark or bright crimson and is usually less than the blood flow during a typical period.
Breakthrough bleeding could also occur during or shortly after a strenuous workout.
There are several potential causes of bleeding after exercise reported by researchers, such as;
- It might be caused by an endometrium that is not functioning correctly.
- It might be brought on by structural alterations in the uterine or cervix lining.
If you are continuously facing the issue of breakthrough bleeding, you can ask any question from a gynecologist online just by sitting at your home.
Can hormonal fluctuations lead to having a light flow of blood in periods?
As regular exercise can help you lose weight, it could make your flow lighter too.
Because adipose tissue, or body fat, actually makes a particular kind of estrogen. Experts say that the lining of your uterus may thicken more than usual during the first half of your cycle if you have an excess of estrogen in your body. Your menstrual flow will be heavier the thicker the uterine lining is.
Weight loss reduces the amount of estrogen in your body, which in turn reduces the thickness of the uterine lining and causes your blood flow to be lighter than usual.
Read: How to get periods immediately in one hour
2. Some females may face Vigorous Exercise-induced Amenorrhea
In general, exercise is excellent for you and your body’s health. However, studies suggest that some women may have menstrual cycle disruption due to the stress that vigorous exercise causes on their bodies.
The part of your brain known as the hypothalamus controls your menstrual cycle. It transmits hormonal signals to your ovaries and pituitary gland, which in turn causes ovulation.
You won’t ovulate if something that stresses your body, such as strenuous exercise or speedy weight reduction, interferes with this connection.
Do you know about the Female Athlete Trio?
The female athlete trio is a term used to describe a particular condition in young and adolescent female athletes who go through the following because of heavy workouts:
- Menstrual cycle problems
- Low bone mineral density
- Low-calorie intake
The body of a young athlete is put under a lot of strain by the combination of rigorous activity and low-calorie intake.
The hypothalamus begins to decelerate ovarian stimulation in response to this stress as per researchers’ report. Ovulation eventually stops which causes bone loss and other negative health effects.
Young female ballet dancers, particularly teenagers who are training hard and trying to maintain a low body weight due to the pressure they occasionally experience to be thin, frequently exhibit the female athlete triad.
If you are also facing this problem then we would suggest you immediately contact a general physician to ensure your physical health.
3. Exercise can become a Blessing for Reducing Pain in Periods
Period pain also referred to as dysmenorrhea, comes in two different forms which are
- Primary dysmenorrhea
- Secondary dysmenorrhea
Depending on the type of dysmenorrhea you have, exercise may assist with the pain according to doctors.
Exercise may help with Primary and Secondary Dysmenorrhea
Painful menstruation known as primary dysmenorrhea has no known etiology. Your very first period usually triggers it, and every subsequent period after that brings on the agony.
By the time you reach your twenties, your pain starts to lessen somehow. But in such uncomfortable phases, exercise may be able to ease it. You may also read how to reduce periods of pain instantly.
On the other hand, secondary dysmenorrhea is caused by an underlying illness that may be genetic or hormonal. It is common for this type of menstrual pain to gradually worsen over time.
Uterine fibroids and adenomyosis, a disorder in which the lining of the uterus transforms into the uterine muscles, are two major causes of this sort of period discomfort.
How can exercise ease Dysmenorrhea?
- Prostaglandin is a hormone that is involved with the sensation of pain in the uterus. Exercise helps to reduce the production of this hormone in the body.
- As a result, you will experience less cramping during your period because of the lower production of prostaglandins.
However, further research is required to support this claim that exercise can help you avoid cramps.
Summing up the whole discussion
It is not necessary that exercise cause your periods to start earlier. But yes there are some other effects that strenuous exercise may produce on your menstrual cycle.
The hormones inside your body may face a huge shift as a result of vigorous exercise. It may result in lighter-than-usual periods, breakthrough bleeding when you are not on your period, and occasionally no period at all.
Since exercise lowers the body’s levels of prostaglandins, which cause painful period cramps, it may help some people with period pain.
Book a Consultation through Marham
The majority of the time, if you have recently started exercising, have suddenly increased the intensity of your exercise, or have recently lost a lot of weight, some breakthrough bleeding or an occasional missed period is not a big concern.
However, you should immediately consult your doctor if you notice a change in your cycle that lasts for two to three months in a row. Book an appointment right now with the best gynecologists in Pakistan.
FAQs
1- Does exercise make you bleed more during your period?
Women may experience an increase in flow after exercising or it may cause the flow to get lighter. It varies from person to person or how frequently you are doing the exercise.
2- Which exercise increases period flow?
Yoga stances including the cobra, cat, cow, and fish are all beneficial to try to increase blood flow in your periods.
3- Can we do squats during periods?
Yes, you can do squats during periods as these are good options to reduce pain. It makes your period’s pain more tolerable.