Why Period Pain Shouldn't Make You Stop Exercising

Why Period Pain Shouldn't Make You Stop Exercising Jacob Lund/Shutterstock

Girls and women experiencing period pain often avoid physical activity, but our latest study suggests that doing exercise might actually provide pain relief.

Period pain affects around 90% of women. It can interfere with daily life by limiting activity – and is a common reason for being absent from school or work.

During the menstrual period, the womb contracts to help expel its lining. Fatty substances called prostaglandins trigger these contractions. And more prostaglandins mean more severe cramps.

Cramps usually occur at the start of a menstrual period – or just before – and may continue for two to three days. In addition to pain, symptoms can include nausea, vomiting, tiredness, back pain, headaches, dizziness and diarrhoea.


 Get The Latest By Email

Weekly Magazine Daily Inspiration

Most women rely on over-the-counter drugs for pain relief, including ibuprofen (an anti-inflammatory) and paracetamol (an analgesic). Doctors can also prescribe oral contraceptive pills to decrease pain and relax the muscles. However, these drugs don’t provide everyone with pain relief and – like all drugs – they have side effects.

Physiotherapy is also sometimes recommended as a treatment for period pain. When we reviewed the evidence of physiotherapy we found single trials to support the use of heated abdominal patches, TENS (an electronic device that emits a mild electric current) and yoga. Acupuncture and acupressure, when compared with a placebo, weren’t found to be effective.

Lack of evidence

When conducting our review, we didn’t find a single trial that looked at exercise as a therapy for period pain, so we conducted our own. We recruited 70 women who regularly experienced period pain and randomly allocated them to an aerobic exercise group or a control group (they managed their pain as they normally would).

Pain was measured on a scale ranging from zero (no pain) to 100 (unbearable pain). At the start of the study, women in both groups experienced moderate pain (60, on average). But, at the end of the seven-month trial, women in the exercise group reported mild pain – 22 points less than women in the control group. Experts consider a 20-point reduction in pain to be “clinically important”.

The women in the exercise group also experienced a statistically significant improvement in their quality of life and their daily functioning, such as going to work or climbing stairs.

Exercise has what is known as a “dose response”: the more you do, the greater the health benefits. We do not know yet if this also applies to period pain. For our study, we prescribed aerobic exercise at 70-85% of women’s highest heart rate for 30 minutes, three times a week, with appropriate warm-up and cool-down exercises. This is pretty intense. It might be possible that pain relief could be achieved with exercise at a lower “dose”.

Why Period Pain Shouldn't Make You Stop Exercising Exercise may have a dose response. Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

The findings from a recent pilot study conducted in Hong Kong chime with our own. Researchers found that women who exercised had decreased prostaglandin and pain compared with women who did not exercise. The researchers are now planning a bigger study to confirm these findings.

All these findings suggest that, rather than avoiding PE or the gym, girls and women might want to consider getting involved to see if they provide some pain relief. After all, there’s nothing to lose.The Conversation

About The Authors

Leica Sarah Claydon-Mueller, Senior Lecturer, Anglia Ruskin University and Priya Kannan, Assistant Professor, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

books_fitness

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES

English Afrikaans Arabic Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Danish Dutch Filipino Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Korean Malay Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Spanish Swahili Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese

follow InnerSelf on

facebook icontwitter iconyoutube iconinstagram iconpintrest iconrss icon

 Get The Latest By Email

Weekly Magazine Daily Inspiration

Thursday, 27 July 2023 22:59

Loneliness can profoundly impact our physical and emotional health, and a new study from Tulane University has shed light on its significant role in the development of cardiovascular disease among...

Friday, 28 July 2023 17:45

Respiratory viruses like influenza virus (flu), SARS-CoV-2 (which causes COVID) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) can make us sick by infecting our respiratory system, including the nose, upper...

Thursday, 01 April 2021 16:24

  Flamenco dancing is a delight to watch. A good flamenco dancer exudes an exuberant self-confidence that we, the audience, absorb. The whole dance has a quality of proud self-assurance and...

Sunday, 16 May 2021 14:24

The human body is an amazing thing, full of systems, organs, nerves, and vessels that work together in harmony. You’ve seen the body described as a machine, as a city, or even as a factory....

Tuesday, 27 April 2021 08:56

Peas, lentils, chickpeas, beans and peanuts: if it comes in a pod then chances are it’s a legume. These unassuming food crops have a special ability that makes them fairly unique in the plant...

Wednesday, 28 April 2021 08:57

Replenishing antioxidants in the body may help protect against oxidative stress and lower the risk of cancer

New Attitudes - New Possibilities

InnerSelf.comClimateImpactNews.com | InnerPower.net
MightyNatural.com | WholisticPolitics.com | InnerSelf Market
Copyright ©1985 - 2021 InnerSelf Publications. All Rights Reserved.