4 ways to reduce anxiety-related PMS in your menstrual cycle

If you deal with anxiety, mood changes or irritability prior to your period, this is going to help you understand why that happens and give you physical, emotional & relational tools to help you reduce those negative feelings. I’ll be sharing from my own life experiences and sharing what I did and how you can incorporate it yourself.

So I had terrible premenstrual, anxiety, mood changes, and irritability. It got so bad that I threw something through a window…actually to a window. It cracked the window and the worst part was, I wasn't even aiming for that window. And now I'm in a place where I don't have PMs related anxiety. My mood doesn't change all that much. I might get a little sensitive, but that is completely normal.And I know that you can get there too.

I use to fall into the cyclical pattern of imposter syndrome, depression and anxiety. My lowest low was when I broke a window from throwing something across the room. The sad part was, I wasn’t even aiming for the window. Everything became harder in the weeks leading up to my period…relationships, food choices, workouts….

We are going to cover:

Hormones
Food choices
Boundaries
Self Talk

Hormones
The hormone progesterone rises in our luteal phase while estrogen is supposed to dip, but for lots of us with estrogen dominance, that doesn't happen. When I started diving into all this research on the menstrual cycle, I learned that mood related PMs is actually due to an elevated level of estrogen.

Estrogen is naturally building in the first half of our cycle. If it remains high in the second half of our cycle, it could result in mood oriented PMS, like anxiety, irritability or depression, not to mention some uncomfortable periods as well.

So I actively started reducing the amount of estrogen my body had by increasing my fiber intake, eliminating products with estrogenic ingredients like phthalates and bpas. I started reducing my caffeine intake and balancing my blood sugar.

All of those things help reduce estrogen…and since I mentioned blood sugar and caffeine…lets dive into food.

Food Choices:

What I found about about food / caffeine:
in the days where I struggled with pre-period anxiety, I would wait a long time to eat, skip breakfast and i thought that coffee was a substantial breakfast (it’s not). But, in reality, if the blood sugar is unstable, then cortisol comes in to help regulate.

cortisol + existing pms = more pms

So after I realized this and started educating myself about the cycle more, I started eating within 30-60 minutes of waking. And that in itself has done wonders for helping me balance my hormones.

In addition to that, since the lining of the uterus is thickening, our body is burning more calories in the form of amino acids - or - protein. If we’re not eating a little bit more in this phase, we might notice we become more hangry / irritable. So eating fiber, fat and protein every few hours is actually going to support our blood sugar, so we don’t have so much cortisol coming online.

Creating boundaries
The third thing that I did that really made me less irritable, anxious and depressed is made boundaries with others and myself.

The way this has looked in my life has been reducing my exposure to stressful things. So if my partner and I get into an argument, I put a pause on it and wait to discuss it in a few days when I feel more grounded or even wait to discuss it until I’m actually bleeding.

In my professional life, I work to get my big projects done prior to my late luteal phase because I’ll just burn out and eventually have anxiety about my burn out.

In my personal life, I will say “no” to people, requests, chores, making dinner and things like that. And I know that is a privilege that not all of have, but if you do, I encourage you to exercise your “no” and your boundaries in whatever way you see fit.

3. Creating boundaries

The third thing that I did that really made me less irritable, anxious and depressed is made boundaries with others and myself.

The way this has looked in my life has been reducing my exposure to stressful things. So if my partner and I get into an argument, I put a pause on it and wait to discuss it in a few days when I feel more grounded or even wait to discuss it until I’m actually bleeding.
In my professional life, I work to get my big projects done prior to my late luteal phase because I’ll just burn out and eventually have anxiety about my burn out.

In my personal life, I will say “no” to people, requests, chores, making dinner and things like that. And I know that is a privilege that not all of have, but if you do, I encourage you to exercise your “no” and your boundaries in whatever way you see fit.

4. Self Talk
The inner dialogue we have with ourselves is crucial to our overall health. So when I was unaware of our mood changes before our period, some of my self talk was like,
“Nobody cares about what you’re doing”
“You’re not good enough”
“You’re so mean for snapping at him”
“You’re looking fatter, you should probably eat less”

And I know that I’m not alone in having that type of inner dialogue. The first step for turning that dialogue around was being aware that I needed to make a change (ie: breaking a window), researching ways to support myself with food, exercising my voice and my boundaries and then when I had that space to breath I was able to extend compassion to myself.

And this looks like taking time for myself, telling myself that,