How to Cope (Or Not) with All the Feels During Your Period

Mood swings, cramping, nausea, and painful breasts are just a few of the many symptoms most women experience before, during, and after their period.

According to Women's Health, on average, women get a period for about 40 years of their life. Most women have regular periods until perimenopause, the time when your body begins the change to menopause. Because of this monthly and often irregular shedding of the lining of the uterus, many people believe that after a while, you should be accustomed to this routine and all its side effects and should learn how to control, or better yet, regulate the heightened emotions during this time.

Many women feel like they cannot experience and purge the full extent of their feelings during their period because they feel insecure and looked down on by their male counterparts. But the truth is, no matter how long you've been menstruating, every month can be tricky and challenging. The expectation from co-workers, family, friends, or peers to dampen and suppress these is unfair. Many women are fortunate not to have it as bad as others during their cycle, mainly because most symptoms are affected by exercise, diet, and mental health. Many women we spoke to described feelings of extreme sadness and sensitivity, anger, anxiety, and excessive eating during their cycle, and we get it.

It's okay to feel this way, but we understand that sometimes it can make it difficult to proceed with the day-to-day and even interact with others. So, for those who willingly want to learn how to deal with mood swings and ease other side effects; follow closely, but if you want to feel what you feel, camp on the couch, watch movies, and eat chocolate, you glow girl!

Here are a few tried and tested methods:

• Avoid stimulants such as caffeine and nicotine and depressants such as alcohol as they worsen mood swings.

• Try getting regular exercise. A walk or yoga can help your body receive the "feel good" endorphins it needs to keep you feeling positive. They're also the body's natural pain reliever.

• Relax and rest; in our previous blog post, we shared the best three apps for meditation and wellness. Carving out time out of your day to reflect and breathe does wonders for the body.

• A little self-love and downtime: Many women experience a higher sex drive during their period, and you might be thinking, eeew gross, there's blood, and it's uncomfortable, but it's been proven that masturbation can soothe period cramps, backaches, frequent mood swings, and stress. Thanks to these three hormones that your body releases when you orgasm: serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine.

We wanted to share this with you because of a humorous comment by professional over-sharer, American actress Kristen Bell. Her comment sparked different reactions on social media as many women judged her for suppressing her emotions for her husband. You may have seen this gorgeous lady in The Good Place, Bad Moms, and the new Netflix Mystery show, The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window. Bell, who has been with actor Dax Shepard for 11 years and married for seven, spoke about her period and premenstrual syndrome on the latter's podcast, Armchair Expert, and said that she and other women "self-regulate" their behaviour each month in order to maintain their relationships." Major gasp. There was a lot of division online as other women in the same boat as Bell, who have been in relationships for a long time, sided with her and admitted to doing the same, and outspoken feminist voices disagreed with her and urged women to conquer their femininity.

According to Popculture, Bell explained that menstruating is "debilitating" in a way that men don't understand, adding: "I self-regulate, and women do on their period. Some women lose control, 100 percent." Many critics are calling this a case of internalized misogyny.

Kristen Bell

Well, there you have it, folks. We at The Early Word encourage all the feels. If you genuinely struggle with PMS symptoms and want to self-regulate for yourself, go for it, but do not feel compelled to do it because you're in a relationship.

We want to know what you think. How has your menstrual cycle affected your various relationships? How have you dealt with it? Comment on this blog post or on social media, and do not forget to enter the giveaway we currently have running.