One in four women experience severe PMS every month. Common premenstrual symptoms include emotional irritability, anxiousness or feeling down. Combine these with headaches, extreme bloating, constipation or diarrhoea and understandably women are dreading this time.
Susan Sheehan, Women’s Health Practitioner, shared with me her own experience and expertise in enabling women to heal. She says it is normal to feel tired in the days before your period but women do not need to suffer the way they are. And as Susan reminded me, we have around 450 periods and cycles in your life. So that is a lot of days to be in pain!
We need to understand our whole monthly cycle, Susan shares. The term Menstrual Cycle has become much more widely known, many of us grew up only knowing about our period or ovulation. As women we have a whole cycle of different physical energy levels and emotions throughout the month. We have a rhythm where we feel lighter after our period, more hopeful, then moving into the next phase of living fully and feeling incredibly extroverted at ovulation and as we slide, or slam, into the days before our period we want to be alone and hibernate.
And all of this is normal, and happens every month.
If we make our whole monthly cycle a companion rather than an unwanted friend, the angst and pain will begin to ease. Some practical tips include slowing down in the few days before your cycle. If you struggle with cramps – have warming soups and stews or curries rather than dry foods. Headaches and migraines are caused by too much energy going up into the head so you need to reduce running around and stress where you can, even by 10-15%.
Within two months of being aware of what your own patterns are, and making small changes, Susan has guided many women to live freely from PMS.
Susan Sheehan is based at New Leaf in Charleville every Wednesday, and can be found at www.susansheehan.com or 087 0641086.