Emotions and your menstrual cycle
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), emotions are considered to be some major internal causes of disease. Their pathological aspects are divided into seven emotions, which are joy, anger, anxiety, pensiveness, grief, fear and fright. Sudden, strong and long-term stimulation of emotional pathogens lead to disharmony in the body's yin yang balance, organs, blood and qi (vital energy). These emotions further affect the Conception and Uterus Vessels and may result in gynaecological and maternity diseases such as irregular menses, dysmenorrhea (painful menses), and heavy bleeding.
The seven emotions exert their effects on various organs significantly.
Anxiety and anger damage the liver, which then fails to regulate blood and qi flow, resulting in blood congealing and clotting which then can result in pain, breast tenderness, hypochondriac pain and depression.
Pensiveness or excessive worry and over thinking damages the spleen, which then loses its role in consolidating the blood, resulting in heavy periods and poor digestion as well as bloating.
Excessive grief damages the lungs, which fail to rule qi (vital energy) and affect the blood circulation. Fear, fright and over taxation/over training damage the kidneys, which make them lose their storing and holding functions and gives rise to instability in the Conception and Uterus Vessels. If not properly taken care of, it may become very serious and lead to abnormal uterine bleeding. These incidences or one strong incidence will always result in irregular menses, dysmenorrhea (painful menses) or heavy menses and many other unfavorable symptoms experienced during a women's cycle. It is important to understand that symptoms rarely arise by themselves and often come together, one may even experience all the above symptoms or none at all depending on the persons constitution (genetics), psychological state or conditioning, nutrition, sleep and lifestyle choices. Here is a detailed example;
We have a bad week at work emotionally, which depletes and robs the body of energy, nutrients and oxygen. With the body being weak mentally, emotionally and physically it fails to have the ability to maintain normal blood flow and fails control blood and so it becomes reckless during your period, giving rise to a heavy period. The pain comes from traffic backing up due to negative emotions being experienced for too long a period for that individual, like building a wall in the middle of a free flowing river.
Think of it this way, if someone where to take a swing at you, your body reacts by going stiff and hard, everything stops so that you can handle the impact. When it comes to emotions the same happens internally and natural flow of blood and energy is effected and rattled. What's worse is no hit ever comes but the body remains guarded, this guarding is tiring and so the body becomes weaker and more tired of guarding, of being stiff, further depleting the body of natural resources. Imagine tensing your bicep for a week, how much pain would you be in!? In Western medicine terms you become internally inflamed from the stress and releases painful inflammatory hormones as a result.
Your emotions are a symptom and a sign, they are a call to action. Emotions can tell us we are on the right track or they can help tell us that changes need to be made. If these negative emotions aren't worked on or the warnings not headed, disease will soon follow.
