Use Your Menstrual Cycle to Predict High Anxiety Days

I've heard that your anxiety levels can ebb and flow during your menstrual cycle. The Internet is flooded with forums with women questioning how much the menstrual cycle influences anxiety levels. Turns out that the hormones involved with menstruation probably do, indirectly, affect your anxiety levels.

According to Charles Goodstein, MD, clinical professor of psychiatry at New York University Langone Medical Center:

Menstruation leads to a number of hormonal changes that can cause physical and emotional effects that may contribute to anxiety. There is no single reason for this anxiety, but multiple factors probably are at work.

Fluctuations in powerful hormones that regulate menstruation, such as estrogen and progesterone, can affect your appetite, digestion, and energy levels, all of which can, in turn, affect your mood. This may have an impact on psychological functioning.

Additionally, women who have had difficult periods in the past, due to intense cramping or heavy bleeding, may worry about recurrent pain and discomfort prior to menstruation, and this can also cause added anxiety."

Matching Anxiety Symptoms to Your Menstrual Cycle

I never put much thought into this until I was using a website that I normally use for fertility purposes. It's called "My Monthly Cycles" and has many free features such as tracking calendars and reports as well as premium services if you are interested. I used it to help get pregnant with my first baby.

You can track you period cycles, it will let you know when you are ovulating and fertile, and the part I want to talk about today- you can also track your menstrual symptoms. It has a list of symptoms you may feel- nausea, headache, moodiness, anxiety symptoms, and more with a radial button to list how light or severe your symptoms are from day-to-day.

The idea behind this is that over time of logging in a few period cycles, it will begin to predict what symptoms you may experience in the future. So, if at the beginning of your cycle you are really moody, tired, and have some crying spells, it will let you know when your next cycle will start and those symptoms you will have so you can prepare. I say this, because it has the option of choosing your anxiety levels during the month as well. Over time, it can tell when you are more prone to feel anxious, therefore allowing you time to prepare for any rough days that could lie ahead.

I believe that if you properly prepare for any anxiety provoking situation, you can lessen, better manage, or even eliminate the anxiety altogether. This is another great tool to have in your anxiety first aid kit.