There are many reasons your period might be irregular. For a few of them, there are some changes you can make that might help regulate your period.
Dieting
Making a healthy change to your diet can be beneficial in many cases, but here, it might help to stop dieting for weight loss if it is not suggested by your healthcare provider. Starting a new diet for the first time can lead to restricting calories and not getting all of the nutrition you need. These things combined with losing a lot of weight can disrupt your cycle and cause your period to be irregular. If your goal is to lose weight, avoid allergens, or just eat a little better, there are ways to do it without severely restricting foods or calories.
Medication
Although some birth controls will stop your period or make your period less regular when you stop using them, there are birth control medications your healthcare provider can recommend to regulate your periods. There are also medications that you can stop taking if your healthcare provider agrees that it’s okay, such as steroids or blood thinners.
Exercise
Exercise typically has positive effects for the body (that’s kind of the whole point), but in some cases, it can also have negative effects for your menstrual cycle. Over-exercising is known to disrupt hormone levels, and may also impact fertility if you lose too much weight. All of these things can disrupt your cycle, making your period irregular. If you’re changing an exercise routine, make sure you transition to something your body is ready to handle, and try to change up your routine slowly.
Stress
This is a pretty frustrating cause of irregular periods because it can be a never-ending cycle. You’re stressed, so you miss your period, which makes you feel stressed, which makes you miss your period. For general stress, you can try the usual calming techniques like meditation, therapy, and getting more sleep. If there are specific stressors in your life that you can control, like travel, long hours, cigarettes, or alcohol, consider trying to modify or reduce the frequency of those activities.
The bottom line
Making some lifestyle changes might help regulate your menstrual cycle, but it’s also possible that these suggestions won’t work for you. Sometimes regulating your cycle is a little more complicated, and in these cases there may be an underlying medical cause. If lifestyle changes don’t help regulate your cycle, or if you have more questions about your cycle, make an appointment with your healthcare provider.
Sources
- “Abnormal menstruation.” Cleveland Clinic. The Cleveland Clinic Foundation. 2015. Web.
