Prevail over PMS

Healthy Living
Womens Health

You suddenly feel like breaking into tears without any reason. The headache that just doesn’t seem to go away; you constantly feel a sense of fatigue….irritable and the people around, make you feel worse. Does all this sound familiar to you? If the answer is yes, then it’s quite likely that you are suffering from PMS or Pre-Menstrual Syndrome.

Pre-Menstrual Syndrome is a medical term that is used to describe a set of disagreeable symptoms which occur in many women before the onset of periods in the second half of the ovarian cycle.

Approximately 60 million women around the world suffer from PMS. In fact 85% of the women who menstruate, have at least one PMS. The symptoms vary greatly from women to women and may range from mild to severe. The most common symptoms experienced by women are: depression, anxiety, weight gain, bloating, mood swings, tension, headaches/migraines, carbohydrate and sugar cravings, weepiness, insomnia, fatigue, poor concentration, irritability, clumsiness and dizziness.

What causes PMS is not clear. Research points to the evidence that PMS has its roots in the genetic make up and hormone chemistry of a woman. Estrogen is the female sex hormone that specifically regulates the menstrual cycle fluctuations throughout the period. Change in levels of this hormone and its deficiency leads to the disturbances like headache, pain and cramps in women.

Stress and poor eating habits have also been found out to be a major contributing factor in triggering the symptoms of this disease. Change in the level of serotonin, a brain chemical is indirectly related to PMS. Many women are affected by pressure cooker environment and erratic lifestyle which may cause the development of PMS in them.

Sometimes there are profound connections between PMS and unresolved emotional issues, and difficult emotional cases will not be resolved until those issues are addressed to. This again goes to prove our standpoint on how much of your emotional biography can affect your health.

Since there’s not one single underlying factor that causes PMS, it’s not possible to have one single remedy resolve all the PMS. But this doesn’t mean that you have no other choice but to live with PMS. Fortunately, you can create a foundation of support for the body that usually leads to relief.

There is a strong nutritional link between PMS and a healthy diet. Cutting down on your intake of salt, caffeine and alcohol can go a long way in relieving many of the symptoms of this disorder among most women. Finding ways to relax and reduce stress can help women with stressful lifestyle. These measures, coupled with any physical exercise, can really help you overcome PMS.

However, women with severe PMS disorder may not experience relief with lifestyle or dietary changes alone. Medical help is required in cases of severe symptoms that interfere with a women’s life. Talk to your doctor about your symptoms and treatment options. S/he may suggest some medications and change in lifestyle.

Finally, it’s very important to understand that you are not alone in suffering from this multi-symptom nightmare in ‘that time of the month’. Talking with your close family or friends about what you are feeling or going through will go a long way in improving your well being during those days of the month.