How to Treat and Reduce PMS Symptoms?
As the name indicates, PMS (Premenstrual Syndrome) affects women physically and physiologically every month, around a week before they start menstruating. The most common symptoms are mood swings, anxiety, digestive issues, bloating, irritability, and headaches. PMS symptoms can be severe in some women and influence their everyday life.
However, what’s great is that you can buy a natural PMS supplement to help you cope with your symptoms better, which usually contains essential fatty acids, vitamin B6, evening primrose oil, chaste berry, and magnesium. You can easily find them online or in your nearest CVS or Walgreens store.
If you’re on the hunt for effective ways to treat and reduce your PMS symptoms, keep reading this article!
Managing and Reducing PMS Symptoms
1. Maintain a Balanced Diet
Indulging in a healthy and nutritious diet can allow you to better manage the symptoms of PMS by improving your gut health and mood. Therefore, you should try to cut off caffeinated beverages almost 2 weeks before your period.
In addition, you should take care of your meals. Try eating more leafy green veggies, fruits, pulses, and whole grains, and avoid fatty, processed foods since they can make you feel more bloated and can cause acne.Foods rich in calcium, vitamin D, vitamin B1, and vitamin B2 can also significantly minimize the symptoms of PMS.
2. Exercise Regularly
You don’t only have to exercise when you’re experiencing PMS symptoms. Instead, exercising regularly will relieve stress and anxiety and instantly lift your mood since it helps produce feel-good hormones. In addition to serving as a mood booster, exercising can also help you deal with breast tenderness, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, and headache related to PMS.
Moderate cardio exercise to get your body moving for 30 minutes a day will do the job. You don’t have to involve yourself in tedious or extremely strenuous exercises when you can enjoy moving your body through swimming, hiking, cycling, walking, or jogging.
3. Get Adequate Quality and Quantity of Sleep
Of course, PMS can lead you to feel more tired and irritated. Therefore, you must pay extra attention to your sleep when you’re about to have your period. Make sure you get at least 8 hours of good quality sleep. Otherwise, you will experience more mood swings, anxiety, and stress.
You should create an ideal sleep environment that best suits your preferences. For instance, you may have to block out the light peeking through your room’s window and invest in quality bedding. Limit any noise distractions and set an ideal room temperature. Don’t forget to regulate your circadian rhythm by following a sleep schedule every day and night.
4. Relax
You may have noticed that when you’re PMSing, you tend to experience more mood swings. You may also feel overly anxious or stressed out, and this can have a major impact on your life.
Therefore, you must try to relax by practicing meditation, yoga, and breathing exercises.
If you’re still not able to cope with the severe symptoms of PMS, you should try cognitive behavioral therapy. Moreover, you shouldn’t forget to relax your body physically and relieve cramps by using heating pads, taking a warm bath, and even trying out some essential oils to relax your tense muscles.
Treating PMS
You should implement the tips above to help you manage and reduce your PMS symptoms. If they still don’t help, you should try consulting with your healthcare provider.They may prescribe you some supplements, combined contraceptive pills, or antidepressants by evaluating your health condition. Since there is no treatment for PMS, making changes to your lifestyle and taking oral medications may drastically help you manage your PMS symptoms more effectively.