Periods are perceived differently by different women, but they all agree that periods can sometimes be extremely inconsistent, inconvenient, and irritatingly irregular. An irregular period can spoil your plans and mess up the whole week. Even if it arrives on time, it comes with several issues, including moodiness, cramps, depression and many other PMS symptoms. While menstruation is an important part of being a woman, you can always take some steps to help improve your experience with periods. Many women believe that having sex regularly is a great way of keeping their periods regular.
Does Having Sex Affect Your Period?
It does. That is mainly because sexual activity changes the levels of different hormones in your body that affects your menstrual cycle. Experts believe that having sex regularly will help keep your menstrual cycle fairly constant. Your brain makes all the changes in your body–it reacts to certain stimuli and changes your metabolic rates and hormonal activity, which in turn will affect your cycle.
How Exactly Does Sex Affect Your Menstrual Cycle?
While your body releases certain chemicals when you have an orgasm, the changes in your menstrual cycle may directly be related to vaginal sex. When your partner ejaculates in you, his semen, which contains a hormone called prostaglandins, calm uterus shedding and bleeding.
To find the answer to "does having sex affect your period?” you need to know more about your menstrual cycle. During the second half of your menstrual cycle, your uterine lining will become thin and start shedding slowly with progesterone levels coming down. This puts estrogen in charge, but your cervix is still close at this point. But it will dilate when you have an orgasm. Your uterus will also contract and increase menstrual blood flow.
When a woman is ready or close to start her period, her cervix will become low and start to drop, the orgasm of sex will dilate the cervix and cause a vacuum to pull the menstrual blood down. It means that sex not only facilitates your menstruation to start early when it is about to start, but also causes it finish early if you have an orgasm.
What Else Could Affect Your Period Besides Sex?
You may already know the answer to your question "Does having sex affect your period?" You may also want to know about some factors that can have an impact on your period.
1. Stress
An extraordinarily stressful event can mess with your menstrual cycle. In a stressful situation, you are more focused on survival that makes your body and brain stop producing hormones regular for ovulation in such threatening circumstances.
2. Excessive Exercise
Spending hours upon hours in strenuous exercise will affect your period and may put them on hold. Your body takes exercise as an extreme stressor and shuts down your brain. In addition, you need to have certain amount of body fat to start ovulation, and excessive exercise may lead to fat deficient.
3. Alcohol
Alcohol abuse may cause a serious damage to your liver and other organs and even affect your menstrual cycle. It increases levels of testosterone and estrogen, which in turn will affect the normal hormonal fluctuations required for ovulation.
4. Weight Gain
Taking steps to increase weight may change your menstrual cycle. If you put on 50 pounds within a few months, it may throw your hormones for a loop. Your ovaries produce extra testosterone when you are overweight and this can prevent ovulation.
5. Infections
While infections do not usually affect you on a hormonal level, they can start bleeding and make you think you are having your period earlier than usual. You may develop inflammation inside your uterus due to pelvic inflammatory disease, bacterial infections, and sexually transmitted infections. This may make you bleed in between your periods. The bleeding caused by infections may also make you experience cramping because the uterus becomes irritated with bleeding. You should see your doctor if bleeding becomes more random and you experience signs such as pain in your abdomen, painful urination, unusual discharge, itching in your vagina, vomiting, and fever.
6. Medication
Taking anti-psychotic medications or antidepressants may affect your cycle. These medications may make you miss a period completely. That happens because these medications increase the levels of prolactin, a pituitary hormone that alters other hormones that regulate your cycle in your body.
7. Shift Work
Research shows that women working evenings and nights are more likely to develop menstrual problems such as fluctuations in how long they lasted and irregular periods. Your menstrual cycle is more likely to fluctuate with fluctuations in your work schedule. You may have very short or very long cycles if you work rotating shifts.
8. Smoking
If you smoke, you are more likely to experience serious PM symptoms as compared to women who do not smoke. Your symptoms will become even worse if you have been smoking since an early age. It is mainly because smoking can change levels of progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone. The good thing is that you can consider quitting smoking during your menstrual cycle because you experience less severe withdrawal symptoms if you quit smoking during the first day and day 14 of your menstrual cycle.
9. PCOS
If you have unpredictable, long periods, this may be due to polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). It makes your body to produce too much testosterone, which hampers the process required for ovulation. Without ovulation, the levels of progesterone will come down. This may lead to infertility if you do not have adequate progesterone in your body. Bear in mind that you can develop PCOS spontaneously. Watch out for signs such as irregular periods, excessive hair growth, acne, and weight gain.