Do you dread that ‘time of the month’ knowing it can only be got through with handfuls of painkillers, hot water bottles and tears?
I suffered for years and ended up using contraception to completely get rid of periods. Now I am in my menopause I do regret that and do wonder if contraceptive use has effects on menopause.
So what’s the cure? It all comes down to anatomy, physiology and biomechanics. For both periods and birth the uterine muscles need to be able to expand and contract to push out something.
There are ligaments that attach to the uterus and then to the pelvis and completely envelop the uterus and fallopian tubes. If your pelvis is out of alignment then the ability of the muscles to do the work is limited. Think about laying in bed and someone holding the sheets down as you try and get up – hard right? And so that is what is happening here.
But loosening up tight muscles and balancing your pelvis can have long term knock on effects too.
But what does having an aligned pelvis actually mean? From a lot of sitting, wearing shoes with heels, living in low-level chronic stress, postural habits that we just get into, can lead to you tucking your pelvis under you or jutting it forwards.
If you imagine that your body stacks on top of itself (feet, knees, hips, spine, shoulders, head) just like child’s building blocks. So think about how that would look if the blocks rather than being well balanced you had some being higgeldy piggeldy. It makes the whole structure weaker, and some parts of the block are floating in the area, unsupported by the others.
This is what creates undue pressure on other joints, muscles and ligaments. So then, when you pick something up, or run, throw, or hit something these weaker areas are more liable to stresses and strains. Leading to pain, aches or those ‘just pulled something somehow’ moments.
Using the clues your body is giving you , that pain equals something not quite right not only can you ease period pain, back, hip, knee and vaginal pain butn avoid the side effects of regular painkillers. You’ll understand your body better, treat it as something working with you rather than against you and importantly you won’t have to dread those 5 days a month.
So what can be done?
Exercises that can help get your pelvis back into it’s neutral position are the key. If you have a lot of back pain, foot pain, knee pain and vaginal pain during your period then you can link this to a pelvis that needs some help getting back to where it needs to be.
The routine below is what I created from a plethora of exercises I learnt during my training and the ones that I knew could prevent period pain if done before I started bleeding or during your period if you are struggling.
Try them out you have nothing to lose and a pain free time to potentially gain.
Click the image below to go to the routine.
