Stress and Amenorrhea: What Is the Connection?
Can stress actually affect your period? Yes. And I think we all know this on some level but it’s one of those things that still confuses us. That confusion stops us from taking action to actually destress.
“Well I’m not that stressed” ,“I can’t relax” and “only the weak are affected by stress” are all statements that I know you’ve thought of at some point. I know that because I’ve thought about them myself, too.
There are plenty of places where you can find a thorough explanation of what’s happening in your body when it’s under chronic stress. Truthfully, when I listen to these experts recite the bodily processes of stress my eyes just glaze over.
So let me do that sciencey part real quick and make it super easy to understand…
The hypothalamus, which is the part of your brain that controls many things, most relevant is your reproductive system, responds to your daily life stressors. Daily life stressors, whether you realise it or not include your nutrition, exercise habits, work life, social life and what ever other things are happening in your life. Almost everything can be considered a stressor of some kind. Your body is processing everything you do! The hypothalamus responds to these daily stressors by releasing gonadotropin releasing hormone: the hormone in charge of luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which are needed for your healthy menstrual cycle.
Then the pituitary gland hears that gonadotropin releasing hormone signal which then triggers the next hormone, cortisol, to rise. Cortisol then stays risen until finally the ‘stress’ goes away and all of those naturally occurring responses can calm down and bring you back into a nice homeostasis. Everyone in the brain fist pumps and goes back to reading their book and chilling to music until the next time this process needs to kick back on.
What’s happening when you have HA, then? That stress response, the elevated cortisol, is staying risen indefinitely.
Let’s talk about how this stress response plays specifically into hypothalamic amenorrhea recovery.
When your body enters into a chronically stressed state it starts to ration resources. Resources meaning the energy your body has to run all of its bodily functions. It evaluates what we need and what we don’t need in order to function and shuts those processes down, including the reproductive system.
So let’s look at your life for a hot minute, shall we?
Those deadlines at your job are constantly looming.
That holiday you took 9 months ago was 9 months ago. And it was only for a week or two.
That relationship with your friend/colleague/lover/neigbhour etc is just not improving.
How in the WORLD are you supposed to have enough money to own a house, have a family and eventually retire?!
Oh gosh, I barely understand my own financial situation, now I need to learn about crypto?!
All of these micro-stressors are putting you in a constant state of needing to achieve, moving from one task to the next like your life is a production line and there’s no end in sight. I mean, right now I’m writing this article because I feel like I need to keep pushing content out in order for my mission to restore all missing periods to be successful. I had a choice, I could enjoy my coffee and croissant with a book or I could write an article. What physiological response do you think made me choose the article? That’s right, the stress of needing to achieve or I’ll fall behind.
What a trip. Ok, after this I’ll go chill...joke, I have a meeting.
When we start down the path or recovery, we begin giving our body some of the resources it needs to heal – food and physical rest. Systematically, our body is taking those resources and utilizing them in places that it sees fit.
This is called your metabolism: the total of the cellular processes going on in your cells at ALL times to sustain you.
This is where some individuality comes into play and some people get their recovery periods sooner than others. Our bodies have different priorities for utilizing energy and are recovering from different levels of stress.
This is why you can’t compare your journey to anothers OR your stress levels to the girl sitting next to you.
By now you may be connecting the dots…Your body can have all the calories and physical rest it needs, but if stress isn’t reducing at the same time you’re going to see slower – or zero – results in your amenorrhea recovery.
This is also why a significant calorie increase really works. Your body wants to be able to prioritize ovulation coming back online, but if every week you’re eating in a slight surplus but then putting your body through another stressful event like an intense work out or a fight with your partner, your body may direct resources to dealing with that issue instead.
So, give yourself grace and patience. Understand that everything you do during this time matters, your body is in need to a total destress. You may need to do something that is extremely difficult for you and give yourself MORE space and rest than you could ever imagine allowing yourself. The amount of space and rest that in the past you’ve judged others for taking…
[am i right?]
Can this explanation help you make sense of the role of stress in recovery enough for you to make some massive shifts?
Is finding the source of your stress and the right balance for you something that you need more support with? Let us help! Learn more about 1:1 coaching with us and let’s create a recovery plan and work through these stressors together.
