Episode 19: Calm your cycle: A new approach to period pain
Ever wondered why some periods are more painful than others? Or why stress and anxiety seem to dial up the discomfort?
In this episode, Dr Peta and Sam discuss the powerful connection between your nervous system and your menstrual cycle.
You’ll learn why stress and environment matter, and most importantly, practical steps you can take to calm your body, reduce pain, and reconnect with your natural rhythm.
🎧 Listen now to discover:
🌿 How being in a constant state of stress or anxiety can increase inflammation and amplify period pain, and why moving toward a ‘safe’ state is crucial for better health.
🌿 Easy, actionable steps to help calm your nervous system right now – from simple breathing exercises to grounding techniques that reduce pain.
🌿 How to reframe how you think about your period and use it as an opportunity for reflection, self-care, and growth, rather than just a time of discomfort.
If you’re ready to explore the connection between your body and mind, and find real relief from period pain – this episode is for you.
Try out the practices we discuss and notice the difference they can make.
Recommended Resources:
📖 Healing Pelvic Pain by Dr Peta Wright – A comprehensive guide on managing pelvic pain, with practical strategies for calming the nervous system.
💻 Deb Dana’s work on the rhythm of regulation.
💻 Jess Maguire's workshops on practical ways to regulate the nervous system.
📖 Period Queen by Lucy Peach – A book on understanding the emotional landscape of the menstrual cycle.
We would love to hear from you.
If you have any questions about you’d like us to answer on a future episode of the podcast, please email them to hello@verawellness.com.au or contact us on Instagram @verawellness.com.au.
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Episode transcript:
E19 – Calm your cycle: A new approach to period pain
[00:00:00] Welcome to Women of the Well. My name's Peta Wright. And I'm Sam Lindsay German. Today we'll be talking about calming our cycle and the way that the nervous system can impact whether or not we have pain or other discomfort or symptoms during our period, and importantly what we can do about that. So Sam, It would be fitting if we started off with something nice and grounding to calm all of us into this moment before we get into this topic.
So maybe what we'll do is just find what we might call a grounding mudra. And so if you think about wherever you are now, you might want to bring one hand or both hands to your chest, your heart space, maybe put one hand on your belly. You could put a hand on the floor next to you if you're sitting on the floor like Peta and I.
[00:01:00] Or you can actually wrap your arms around yourself and just hold yourself for a moment.
And once you do this, just notice how that feels. And then together let's take three deep breaths. Gentle breath. It doesn't matter how the breath is in this moment, but this is just to find your rhythm in this moment. So we'll just take three breaths together.
And just noticing when you finish your exhalation. And then just coming back, maybe removing the grounding mudra, or keeping it where it is. Maybe having a stretch if you feel to.
Thank you, Sam. If anyone is experiencing pain at the moment or a a difficult period, then hopefully that has helped to ease things.
This podcast episode is going to [00:02:00] be about the effect that our nervous system has on our periods. And I often quote a study that talks about the number of women who experience period pain. And this huge study in Australia from a few years ago that showed that upwards of sort of 94 or so percent of women experience pain with their periods about how that is due to, In a period being an inflammatory event as our lining is shedding, we're making inflammatory chemicals or prostaglandins that can cause pain as well as blood going back into the pelvis through the fallopian tubes, the contraction of the, of the muscles of the uterus, and then sometimes a tightening or protective contraction of the pelvic floor, which can also increase pain.
But I, I talk about, I often say that it's so common and that study shows that it's common, but is [00:03:00] it normal as in, should we be experiencing all of this pain? And I do think that our lifestyle and the environment that we're in, that's often causes us to be living in such a heightened nervous system state or a state of stress probably contributes to that large number of women who.
have painful periods because we know that having a nervous system that is dysregulated or stressed to be, uh, to use a more common term can affect our, our body, increase inflammation and increase pain. And we'll talk a bit more about it in detail. So I think this is a really important, very often missed aspect when it comes to why we may be experiencing so much pain and what we can do about it, which is even more important.
Yeah, absolutely. So, So we talk a bit about pain that you [00:04:00] experience. Hmm. Yeah, I think it's, we were talking earlier before we came on about, about our own experiences with pain and also the concept that many women and Lara Brydon who's a wonderful naturopath and all, and also speaks about and read school who, and if you haven't listened to their podcast, please go ahead and listen.
And they speak about the period being like a report card for the rest of your cycle. So when our period comes, how we experience that period and the symptoms that we experience, for example, even our PMS symptoms, our emotional state, the degree of physical discomfort can be affected by what's happened in that preceding month.
We had a really stressful month at work? Have things been stressful in the home? Have we been worried about something? Have we been doing, uh, maybe not eating as [00:05:00] well as usual, not eating enough putting our bodies under a lot of physical stress or alternatively not moving really very much at all.
And many women find that the experience that they've had over the, over the course of the month changes their experience in their period. So again, it's not just how you're experiencing the, the, what your stress level is like at the time of bleeding. It's also about what's happened in the preceding month that really, really matters.
So we were talking about that and Sam said, Peta, do you have painful periods? And I would say I have probably the couple of days before I can start to get a bit of mild cramping. And then the first couple of days, some mild cramping. Cramping it's not too it's not debilitating or anything, but I had a quite a painful period last month and when I reflected on the month that I had where I had a lot of a lot of work stress and [00:06:00] Life stress and probably doing a lot of exercise and maybe not enough stretching or gentle exercise actually leading up to my period.
And I think that was probably, probably contributed to my more painful period that month. Yeah. looking back to my last period, I actually don't get pain leading up. So I don't tend to get pain before. I might get pain just as I get my bleed come in. T not, not, it's never has been debilitating for quite a long time after I have finished have children.
So my youngest is 16 now, but I guess when she was younger, it would have, it was still a bit different, but now, yeah, now I don't. And I noticed that is, it does distinctly change if I have gone [00:07:00] through an amount of stress. So when I traveled at Christmas, for example, I was thinking about that. I definitely, and I went over to the UK.
That was a time when I did have a. I did think, Oh, I'm not feeling quite as I normally do, but I wasn't living my normal routine. Exactly. And I was very out of sorts and eating different food and drinking the things I just don't normally do. I find that that really does affect. Yeah. And so it's really a good thing to actually be mindful of knowing how, and I'm so big on trying to figure out.
The other things that are going on in your environment that contribute to our symptoms because I think the medical model has been so, uh, it's been so embedded that it's always, there's always something wrong with You as a woman, if you're experiencing pain, and while I agree that it's telling us that something may be out of balance, we have to have to look further afield than just our own bodies and maybe this pain [00:08:00] or this imbalance is a, is a valid response to the environment that we're in.
And so I guess that brings us into the nervous system, and I know you'll probably hear me talk about this a lot. So if we talk in simple terms, what do I mean when I'm talking about the nervous system is our autonomic nervous system, which is the part of our brain and body that is probably the most primitive part of our yeah, our nervous system that involves.
that controls our basic functioning, like our heart rate, our lungs, our breathing, our digestion, and also whether we're safe or in danger. So this ability to detect safety or a threat in our environment. And it's incredibly good at that. And so, and we need to have our nervous system to be able to function and to live with it. Incredibly important. [00:09:00] If we didn't have it, we would die because we wouldn't be able to make the correct adaptations to our environment. So the way there are many different ways to conceptualize it, the theory that I like, and it is a theory and there may be some anatomical issues with it. But as a theory, I think it really explains what's happening in our body at a functional level.
If we think about the nervous system having three states, And the the oldest one evolutionarily speaking would be freeze. And that's where we've had a danger that's either so intense or that has, we've been in a stress state for a long time that we're just so overwhelmed, this freeze or collapse state.
So if you think about, if you see, Like a lizard on the road and it just freezes as your car goes by. That is an example of that freeze state or playing dead where you just can't. [00:10:00] Go on, and in humans that might show up as feeling numb, feeling like you're going through the motions, not being able to feel anything immobilizing.
So being really still you can have a lot of pain in this state as well because of that immobilization. It can be seen in loss of appetite, gut dysfunction A more depressed state. So feeling really unmotivated, low energy, depressed. Nd sometimes people will, will talk about being dissociated or having or being out of their bodies.
And that is that freeze state often if it's a survival, it's a survival stage. And and so when we're there, it's incredibly, it's an incredibly important state if it helps us to survive. But often there's this mismatch now in our environment where These are often [00:11:00] perceived threats and not actual threats to our life, but our nervous system doesn't understand the difference between, just prolonged work, school stress, for example, and being chased by a tiger.
It doesn't understand the difference and it will behave. Physiologically exactly the same and our cortisol will go up and we'll have that whole response and then as I talked about our inflammation, gut health, all of that will be affected and because it's that danger survival state pain is, is higher in that state.
Our sympathetic nervous state is our fight or flight state. It's the next, uh, one that sort of came online in our evolution. And that's that, we sense danger and we can get ready to mobilize, run or fight. And that's that surge of adrenaline. And, and we might, Notice things like more anxiety, anger, irritability not being able to concentrate, not being able to stop moving, even having like, [00:12:00] again, gut, gut is affected.
Like when we're nervous, we might talk about having butterflies or having a sick tummy. And that's all affected by that adrenaline on our gut. Because if we do really think, If our body or our brain is getting the message that we're being attacked by a tiger, it's not going to spend any time on digestion because we might be dead tomorrow.
So all of the blood flow is going to our muscles and yeah, and our, and our it's just a question of how we feel when we're there. When we're there, we're thinking about our vital organs. And often we feel more, again, may not be able to pay attention. We're not a sharp at that time. Cause we're not getting a whole lot of blood to our brain.
We're paying that panic state. And again, when we're there, we also get muscle contraction all over our body, including our pelvic floor. So from a pain perspective, Where getting increased inflammation. our immune system isn't functioning well. gut health, it starts usually there, increasingly he got, and then that flow on effect.
And then the muscle [00:13:00] contraction, that danger state in our brain and any pain. So if we have it in an inflammatory state, like a period at that time in an, for example, in a time where we might not be experiencing stress, we might just notice it as a sensation or it's like a bit of warmth or a bit of heaviness or discomfort.
But if we're in a survival state, like fight or flight or freeze because danger is really high and pain primarily is a danger signal. That, that dial in our brains for danger, it goes way up. So any potentially painful thing like a period will be dialed right up there. The last, the, the newest part of our nervous system is ventral vagal or our like safe kind of zone, which is where we feel connected to ourselves and to others.
We feel like there is no threat. So we can, breathe deeply digest our food play. Be curious, be [00:14:00] compassionate with others. Think clearly, be creative. It's this really beautiful flow state where also because our body's feeling safe and not under threat our digestion is working really well.
Our our immune system is working well, not too well, but just, just right. It's not, autoimmune disease often is associated with those survival states, that overreaction of the immune system or a response to a danger that isn't there. And so in this relaxed state, we can be relaxed and any kind of pain that we might experience will be turned down.
So. Those are those three states and as you can see they can being in those survival states can vastly affect our experience of pain But also the degree of inflammation in our bodies. And then conversely, if we are able to have a nervous system that's flexible [00:15:00] enough to return to safety, we're able to turn the volume down on pain by decreasing danger, relaxing our muscles, even turning down inflammation, especially if we've been able to do it throughout the cycle and not just at the time of bleeding.
Hmm. It's just absolutely amazing that we have this all. happening within us, and that we respond in this way, and that we can we can also be so unaware of it, and so not actually have this idea of just how much control we can have over the way in which our nervous system is playing out, and that's That's not to say that anyone that doesn't understand about this or feel that they have control is doing something wrong.
It's just that I think in our world we are Slightly encouraged to be in fight or flight. Well, [00:16:00] we're massively encouraged actually. And so, there's, there's a constant sort of an encouragement to be in a constant state of arousal, which actually is what causes that push towards us moving into, nd sometimes really what we might call a dorsal response or that freeze response where, you know there is complete numbness and an inability to feel that can also then come hand in hand with extreme pain that cannot be, we cannot explain, we cannot figure out why it's happening.
And it's kind of those two interwoven. And the point of being there is it's very hard for us to move again. And so we, we feel trapped, which becomes even more spiraling. And, and I think one of the things Petra and I really want you to know is. it's not a space that you have to stay in. It's not somewhere that you have to feel trapped.
There are ways out and they're [00:17:00] not, As hard as we might think. No, they're not. And I think, as Sam said, we do live in this ridiculous, fast paced life that I kind of think is not conducive to our, our poor, our bodies have immense wisdom and our nervous systems have immense wisdom to protect us in a certain environment.
But we're not in the environment that we, we're not in the environment that we need to be. We're in, when our nervous systems evolved, we were, we evolved to experience bursts of stress, which we need like times where we might not have enough food or, where we were alone, or there was a threat to the, to our children, the tribe, ourselves, or our lives.
But then the threat is over quickly, just like if you, if you witnessed animals in. Africa, like seeing a gazelle run away from a predator. They will have this, [00:18:00] immense fight or flight reaction or freeze response. And then if the threat passes, you'll see them, they'll get up.
Eventually they'll shake it off and then they move on. But we are in these lives of just absolutely not turning off ever. And. And it's just actually a complete mismatch for our nervous system. So, it's just, and I think the first thing is understanding that, and then just even before you even think about having to move out of a state, just being aware of what state you're in.
So, we'll include some resources with our show notes, but we talked about those different feelings that you might feel. in those nervous system states. But part of it can be just right now practicing, how are you feeling in your mind? How are you feeling in your heart? How are you feeling in your body? And then which nervous system state are you in?
If you're in [00:19:00] that more heightened, anxious, panicked, that's our sympathetic state. If it's more lack of motivation, lack of movement low energy, low mood. It's more of that freeze state. And then, I mean, you could also be in your ventral spine. Yeah, you could be, you could be relaxed from Sam's breathing already.
You could be incredibly relaxed, which it would be wonderful. So, and there's lots of resources that are out there about this. So, I think in, in my book, Healing Pelvic Pain, I talk all about this. Uh, there's a lady called Deb Dana who's got some really great resources. She's got a website called the Rhythm of Regulation.
There's an amazing Australian physiotherapist called Jess Maguire who has, I think she's about to release a book on this, but she has online courses when it comes to our nervous system as well, like moving through in a really [00:20:00] practical way. So I guess if you are someone right now who is experiencing period pain or you have experienced period pain in the past, and this idea of having that dysregulated nervous system state flies to you.
What are some simple things you can do right now? So I would always start with firstly, like knowledge and breath, I would say incredibly powerful. And the vagus nerve that I don't think we mentioned, but they're the two nerves that come down from the back of our head down to our heart, our lungs, actually all the way to the cervix.
And it's Latin for the wandering nerve. And one way to engage that vagus we engage that vagus nerve, then we're almost, we're putting the brakes on that sympathetic tone, which is the adrenaline and the cortisol. So, [00:21:00] and we need to have balance and flexibility. But when we're feeling heightened or stressed, one of the ways we can engage that is simplest, easiest, quickest ways is breath – belly breathing. And in our culture as well, we were talking women are so encouraged to sort of suck their tummy in and not let their tummies be round and that automatically creates like a stress loop in the body because I think this is really cool, but like 80 percent of the messages that go up and down the vagus nerve go from the body to the brain.
So if our body is constricted and restricted and holding, like our tummies sucked in our diaphragms pulled up, we're not taking those big belly breaths. Then our brain is getting this message of danger already. just in our body posture. And uh, because we have an integrated system, it's not just, we can't just tell you actually you're safe, but if your body's telling a different [00:22:00] story.
So Sam, what are some, how can you talk about some good, easy, simple breath practices? Yep. So as you were just talking about what I thought was really nice is this idea that we When we talk about not letting the breath come into the belly, one of the things I often want people to understand is just how much of our body is missing breath, missing oxygen.
So your digestion, all those organs are just not actually getting that vitality from your breath. And so as soon as you just take a moment, and you could do this now, whatever you're doing, just see if your jeans, trousers, leggings, Bear with me. For a moment we'll just allow. Just see if you can actually just relax your tummy.
If you don't know what I mean by that, it actually means, let go of holding your belly button in. Which is massive for some of us. Because we actually have to [00:23:00] focus to do it. Because we're so used to lifting it in to hold ourselves up. Now, one of the easiest ways to bring the breath down here is, is to, to use the sensation of having a hand on the belly.
Sometimes that's the most helpful thing to do. And you can just place a hand on your belly, just around where your tummy button is. And then from there, you're going to inhale. You can breathe through your nose or through your mouth. And just as you inhale, feel the belly. Just slightly expanding. And then as you exhale, feel the belly softening.
We'll just do three of those. So as you inhale, feel the belly expanding, like a balloon going up. And then as you exhale, feel the belly softening. And just do one more of those. If you can, [00:24:00] make it a little bit bigger.
And maybe on the exhale, you might sigh the breath out.
And now just have a little check in and notice how you feel. Now, you could feel lightheaded, that's really common. And I had someone yesterday who said, Oh, I feel weird, I feel lightheaded. That's just because you're not used to taking in that much oxygen. So we have to become familiar with that again.
So just notice how you feel now. And then you can come back to that. The, the exhale breath, that sighing breath out, that's a natural bodily instinct to relax. So sometimes we find ourselves just in conversation, like, you might be talking to your partner and you find yourself just sort of going, ah, and they'll go, what's wrong?
And that's because that sighing out is a response. It's a natural sort of. I need to let go of that pressure. So actually doing that, and [00:25:00] we're, we're a little bit stifled in our society. We worry about making noise in front of people, but actually the reaction of relaxing the jaw, letting the R sound come out.
Yeah. It is proven to help really significantly relaxes, relaxing the jaw, relax the pelvis and the hips. It's used when we go through birth, midwives are always telling us to relax there. And so you can just practice that. We might just do that. It might feel a bit uncomfortable to hear us doing this.
So just notice how that feels within you, but we'll just inhale and then we'll just side out. We'll do one more.
That's a great thing to do. I mean, just three of those is good. But then you were also saying one of the other things that we can do is practice lengthening your exhale. So just simply, if you want to really help your mind, if your mind's busy and you think I need [00:26:00] something to do that keeps my mind, cause I'm a, I'm someone who needs that to do, you can just inhale and count to four in your head.
So we might just inhale through the nose for four, four, and then exhale through the mouth or through the nose for six.
And then again, inhale through the nose for four and exhale through the nose or the mouth for six.
So even just doing two, I can feel a significant release in my body and I'm not even stressed. So I feel like that's very important. We know that exhalation will help to lower our blood pressure, will lower our heart rate. And we'll bring us really back into a place where we might be able [00:27:00] to consider, am I safe?
And that's the thing. Sometimes it's, it's the taking the first step and it's a tiny step to just having the realization of, Oh, I can actually feel my tummy. Oh, I can actually notice that my shoulders have relaxed or that my shoulders are actually very tight. So that's the practice of what we call interception.
It's the journey back in. And as a woman, We want to learn how to find language and ways to support ourselves in that so that we can communicate how it is that we're feeling. Because once we can communicate our feelings, we can actually, and our needs, We can actually do something to help ourselves. Hmm.
Yeah, that's right. And I think that that practice of interoception, which is the, the sensation of the feelings inside our body and internal sensations for many women, [00:28:00] particularly if you've experienced lots of period pain or trauma or chronic stress, our bodies Historically might not have been a safe place to be and because that danger is dialed so far up, any sensation that we have can be dialed up to be experienced as pain because we're almost having this sort of we're not really inhabiting the body in the present moment.
And the body has been doing that to protect us and that's a really important thing to recognize that. Is a protection mechanism. And we want to just acknowledge that and acknowledge our bodies because actually even process of acknowledging that your body has been protecting you. Can actually help you to come back more into a calmer parasympathetic response.
Just saying those words. If you, if you just hear [00:29:00] those words from me, receive them now, like your body just wants to protect you. Your body knows exactly what you need
and just letting yourself know that your body is a space that is safe for you to inhabit. Your body is that place. We're not talking about the outside world, but You within you. Yeah. And even the heightened pain response, that sympathetic, anxious, like interpreting everything as more dangerous and the contraction of those muscles, that's a protective state too.
You're trying to protect against something you feel is dangerous and it's, it's appropriate.
in your body, even if you have pain whether it's, period pain, whether you have had endometriosis or anything like that, [00:30:00] you are still safe and you're, you have control over your nervous system. And once you realize, Oh, thank you for trying to protect me, but I don't need that protection right now because that protection over time can become can become, problematic and, and is one of the major drivers in the persistence of pain.
So really like, and it's so powerful to realize, like you might've been through the ringer with other things, but to realize right now in this moment in your body, you have the power to change the state of your nervous system and it takes a lot of practice and these are just a few things, but over time that changing the state of your nervous system It doesn't mean that you always will be in that safe ventral vagal zone, but it might mean that you become more aware when you become dysregulated more quickly, so that you can return back to safety, that you'll master the skills to return back [00:31:00] where things then, work better in our body and you know where health really resides and I would always say that we can't heal In a dysregulated nervous system state. You can't heal if you don't if you don't feel safe in your body So to me, this is the most important thing. I was listening to a podcast by a lady who talks, this is not about periods, but she talks about radical healing from cancer.
And she was actually saying that there's a study that shows that if you do, I think it was 30 minutes, but I, I don't think you need to do 30 minutes, but 30 minutes of breathing, Or a form of regulation exercise. So, what I was thinking of is one of my favorite go tos might be to lie down.
We're sitting in Peta's sitting room at the moment and we could easily lie down and put our feet up on her couch so that Our backs are on the floor and our legs are on the couch and our knees are bent. [00:32:00] And when we do that, it takes all the weight out of the lower back out of, we haven't talked about it, but the psoas muscle, which wraps around from our back all the way around to our thighs and is known as the muscle of the soul, but really holds the stories.
It holds the history of where we're, where we're fighting, but also is activated when we go into fight or flight. So it relaxes all of that and actually allows us to relax the pelvis and the pelvic floor, which Brooke will explore more with us. But just doing that, just doing that. And I don't really mind if you want to scroll on your phone, scroll on your phone, but if you could put your phone away or play some relaxing music for five minutes, maybe you could stretch it to 11, just doing that for yourself each day.
And maybe in the podcast notes, we could put that free download of music. Just doing that every day will significantly change the experience that you're having with [00:33:00] yourself and your body. And I think one of the things we want to create or encourage you to create are rhythms that you can do every day.
Maybe it's getting up at the same time and just standing outside on the grass if you're lucky enough to have grass outside your house. Or just standing outside and looking to the sun. Just breathing for three minutes. Thanks. And then during the day regulating the times that you eat, trying to eat at the same time.
It sounds really kind of, some people can go, well, I like to be sporadic, but actually our bodies like rhythm. And the rhythm brings us back into a feeling of safety because when we're safe, we tend to follow rhythms. And so eating at the same time each day, going to bed at the same time each day, these are very simple, absolutely free things that will regulate your nervous system and give you emotional resilience.
What was the other thing you called it? Flexibility, [00:34:00] flexibility and emotional flexibility, which is exactly what we need so that when we then get up in the morning and suddenly we realized we forgot that we had a presentation at 10, we can mobilize ourselves. Go through that, that panic, deliver the presentation, and then bring ourselves back, maybe in even a conversation we're having with a friend after when we laugh about the scenario into eventual state.
We don't have to store it as history in our nervous system, which needs to be repeated. time and time again. We can just shake it off like the animals do. Yeah, and I think, I think there are two things in that. So one is having, understanding how having that dysregulated nervous system state or survival state affects pain.
In the moment and how, even having pain can cause our nervous systems to become, uh, dysregulated if, especially if there's a lot of fear around the pain. So I [00:35:00] guess some of the practices we've done now are helpful if you are experiencing pain in the moment, acute pain and that reminder of I'm sore, but I'm safe and I have a plan and we'll do other podcast episodes on other things for period management and persistent pain.
But it's also not just it's, it's hard to learn a new thing when you're in a state of pain and fear. So that is why it's so important to try to incorporate, think about these things on a daily basis. And it becomes then that thing of, Oh, well, I've cared for my nervous system. I've figured out how I can return to safety.
And support my nervous system throughout the month before. And I've practiced those things on the days where I might, I don't have pain. So it becomes much easier to access if you are feeling challenged. And that's why, I think thatnow, especially like those persistently [00:36:00] aroused nervous systems where, or someone who's been burnt out, which is another name for that, like, the freeze state, those nervous system states.
You're not, they're set up over years where they become, where you might cope with in those nervous system states for a long time before it becomes problematic. But it's over years and years of being stuck that then you come up with these symptoms and other problems in the body. So it can take time to learn that flexibility, but I think knowledge is power.
And then the, the thing is the gentle, regular practice of these techniques and being aware is just so, so important. And, and that might be changing big things in your life or just putting these little practices in place. I think you're right because, one of the things that I really learned just through reading the book from bread school, wild power, wild [00:37:00] power book, which is It's brilliant, really good at helping you to understand how you can really learn to work with your cycle, particularly though with the, the bleed part of the cycle.
I just feel like if, I mean, even if you could just spend one night during that time, even when you were struggling with pain to just write down what it is that you're feeling, what it is that is going on for you. That there is a window is an opportunity for you to come back to that when you have come out of the pain cycle and can then go back and notice what it was because we tend to forget.
We don't know what those things were that we felt so triggered by so the things that were so massive at the time. So just writing it down just actually doing a practice that we could call self inquiry. Just actually being with ourselves and saying, yes. What are the emotions that I'm feeling accompanying [00:38:00] these, these sensations of pain?
Hmm. And, And are the two connected? We can't figure that out when we're in acute pain. Absolutely not. And we don't want you to try and do that. That's too much for you to cope with. But you can go back when it is that you feel safer. Or that's the type of thing you can take to your doctor. Hmm. Exactly. And also thinking, well, what are the, what are the emotions I'm feeling?
What are the physical sensations? What has happened for me this month? What things worked what things didn't what do I need to let go of and what can I let go of as your body is Letting go Yeah as your body is letting go of that endometrial lining It is that women we always talk about we don't talk about it But society talks about periods being like this.
This is nothing good about them But you know, there's a lot good like a Indicates ovulation generally, which is how we make our beautiful hormones, but to You It [00:39:00] gives us this opportunity each month to reflect on what has happened. If we allow, slow down, allow self time and space to, as Sam said, inquire about what it is you're feeling, what worked for me, what didn't, what do I need to let go of?
My life, my life for the next cycle. Yeah. It's this really powerful practice of like, the cycle becomes this practice of growth, of maintenance, of letting go and destruction, and that is life. Right. And I think you have, what's that? The sat nama. That's right. Yeah. The meditation re maybe we can record that at some point.
Yeah. Because it's, it's basically that everything is a cycle.
The existence, death, or change, and then rebirth. And the point is that as women, that's, that is what we live. We live and breathe it. [00:40:00] And when we forget, that's actually when we go into this place of suffering. And it's the remembering that our life is a cycle. And I think as well, when you were talking about that, what really occurred to me was this point of our period of our bleed, when we're letting go of that lining and That's sad.
And I know that for some of us, we might not want to get pregnant. For some of us we will, but you have to understand your body will be grieving that it's releasing something. If we were letting, you're thinking about, I'm going to let go of some of my emotions. I'm going to let go of this previous month.
And so when I say that there's a great impact in my body, there's going to be grief. There's always grief when we let go. It's not easy. And with grief, it's pain that the two are interwoven. This is part of the understanding that as a woman, we go through this each month. And the times when we don't go through that, [00:41:00] we actually miss it.
And I just want to say that to you all now, because we're It's, it's a really interesting moment when women don't have their menstrual cycle. They actually start to wonder, will it come back? We want it back. Interestingly, it's natural for us to want it back. And even when we're pregnant, we kind of find it a little bit un Discombobulated.
Yeah, and ungrounding, hey. And I remember at the end of my pregnancies, I would always be like, when will it come back? And then obviously once we hit menopause, it leaves us. Yeah, we, if we can move towards this time of our cycle and befriend this time and find ways to support ourselves, and we were saying we didn't share, but things like, just spending time with yourself with a hot water bottle, it's very nurturing, just loving yourself enough to make a hot water bottle to.
Lying down in your bed and watch some, [00:42:00] soppy movies to drink nice warming hot chocolate or whatever is the thing? And to ask other people to make those things for you. And I think that is the thing. Like, I don't know, could the period be actually the thing that, uh, could, yeah. The period be the thing that the world actually needs right now, to be honest, like in this ridiculous, frantic, fast paced, never ending, always productive world, the period seems like the perfect antidote because it is that time of rest going inwards.
Shedding self care like we ran a pain retreat the other day at Vera, which hopefully we'll do more of, but we talked about reframing it as this time for radical self care. And if there is a time in history that needs that more, I mean, this is the time. And so. actually the period can become the self care practice.
The thing that [00:43:00] is that sort of Lucy Peach is another person who writes a beautiful book called Period Queen, has a great show about the emotional landscape of the cycle, talks about nature's pit stop. This is the time where we get to rest and it is a, it is this practice nervous system. Regulating practice.
If we let it, it is that time where we get to reset for the next month. So I think, yeah, I just think it's what, it's what, if we can get on board with it, it's what the world needs for self care. Yeah. And it's this, this, this is, this is the thing that we need to recognize as women. We are action followed by pause.
We're not continual action. It doesn't mean that we're not productive. It doesn't mean that we can't do things. It doesn't mean that we can't still, if you have a desire to win in the world, it just means you need to do it like a woman. And, and [00:44:00] that's, that is quite radical in thinking and does require a shift in perspective.
It is exactly like Peta says, your body is saying, please. Please just take a pause. If you can rest with me, we can recover and then who knows the limitations that might come next month. Hmm. Yeah, because we know that, in some research that has been done on menstrual leave, for example, that companies that had access to that, And again, I hate talking about this in terms of productivity because it's a very like neoliberal ism way of looking at things.
And I don't think it's how we should be measuring it, but women actually are more productive when they're given time to rest. We know that when we give our bodies and our nervous systems that chance to reset, our pain is lessened. And we know the lady who wrote Wild Power, Alexandra Pope, she was a Psychotherapist, I think, and she had very bad periods in her [00:45:00] thirties and took herself off after having gone to the doctor who recommended surgery and all the hormones and the things, took herself off and changed her lifestyle and started doing this really intense like going with flow, essentially listening to her body and her pain.
And she, and we don't all don't have the luxury of doing that, but we can start to have that awareness of that time being a time of greater self care and a time that we need to pay more attention to our nervous system as well as throughout the rest of the month. And this isn't just, women should be doing this.
There is so much evidence about the nervous system and having a dysregulated nervous system state being persistently being at the root of probably most chronic disease. Yeah. And if we want to look like at endometriosis again, or pain, [00:46:00] we know that it is worse than when we're in a state of stress, like in the math studies, I don't know if I've said about this on the podcast before, have I?
Okay, well we won't go into it again. We might have talked about it last time. But the fact that stress, but the fact that stress increases pain and increases endometriosis lesion size and so they're all of that and then the converse, that less stress and attention to the vagus nerve decreases pain.
Just being in a happy place. Yep, that's right. Just actually being able to find where it is that you're happy. And I think that, sorry, that's a bit of a massive thing to say. And loaded, you don't necessarily have to find the place that you're happy all the time. the place that you feel safe.
Safe and present. Yes. So I guess if we could recap on our things to do in the moment with periods, easy belly breaths. So first things first. So doing that if you're [00:47:00] experiencing pain doing the greater, the longer exhale. We won't talk about yoga positions today because I think we'll talk about that with Brooke, who's our specialist women's health physio in potentially our next episode.
Things like playing relaxing music, having a warm bath, essential oils, the hot water bottle that Sam mentioned. Massage. Yeah. Massage. Actually, I did come across a study that was really cool that looked at massage, abdominal massage, actually, which I think is like a very underutilized thing. Totally.
I agree. And It's Ayurvedic, it's quite Ayurvedic, right? It is and also there's a man abdominal massage that we do that helps to promote fertility and helping to regulate. It's basically because we want to, a little bit too yoga y maybe, but we want to bring the The Nabi, the belly button or the point below the belly button on [00:48:00] point.
And if we do that during our cycle so we sort of regulating our belly button and the pulse that is just below or in your belly button. It's very interesting to explore. You can do that yourself and I can talk about it another time, but it's fascinating because if we can get that more regulated, then we don't have as much problems or challenges with our.
Digestion and with our reproductive organs. Mm. And it's just, yeah. And I think it's because, again, as society, we, we don't like having our tummies touched. I know. And it's true. Yeah. Because we, we are so sensitive around them that, and I know that from just personally massaging people, the number of times that people don't want their tummy touched.
Mm. And I, I just want you to just, yeah. Just be with yourself for a moment and think about your relationship to your tummy. And remembering that that's, yeah, part of you. Mm. [00:49:00] And it, it actually does decrease pain when we look at the studies. It decreases pain, self massage actually. So you don't even have to feel self conscious or have anyone else.
And they actually showed that when you added an aromatherapy oil like lavender, which is calming as well that increased the pain relief. So that active self massage and that self, that self compassion practice is incredibly nervous system regulating. So I think that's also really good.
So those things in the moment, and then thinking about having some kind of daily practice where you are spending time with yourself. Coming back to basics, breath journaling, even just free writing about how you're feeling. Some sort of physical movement because that is how dancing, yeah, dancing [00:50:00] is amazing.
I was saying dancing is brilliant. It's so stress relieving. Like find, make a playlist with your favorite songs and have a dance break for three minutes every day. I think keeping it simple and something. So if you're someone who thinks, hears that and goes, Oh, that's a good indicator that that's the thing for you.
If you're someone that hears lie down and rest for three minutes a day, and you go, Oh, then listen to what your body is saying yes to and follow that. But things like dancing. just underrated because it's one of the best forms of physical exercise and we can do it anywhere. And movement itself, like even when you're feeling, if you were feeling so paralyzed by pain resting for sure, but Gentle movement is so important because of that vagus nerve messaging.
So if you are immobilized and frozen and curled up, you're giving, and your muscles are all contracted. Your body is giving your brain via the vagus nerve, the message [00:51:00] that you are not safe and that you're in danger. So keeping your rest times. Shortish, but gentle movement. And so like the dance, even when you have your period or you have pain, even like making like a period playlist, I was just thinking that you'd want like a real nice sensual and start on the floor as well, start on the floor, hands and knees and be like right down to the ground.
And you can totally, and you can stay on the floor if you want to, and that can be really good. And like so much can shift. I'm a person who, I used to do some work with this coach and she used to dance. This is probably like four years ago. And I was like, God, I can't even. But of course I was a person who wasn't in my body.
So this has taken some time. But now I dance for three minutes and I can have, Like intense emotional release. I can have ideas that I didn't have before. My body just feels better. There's Brooke, who you will hear [00:52:00] from, she even has found really good studies to show that dance is actually so good at regulating stress and that's going to decrease pain, increase our endorphins.
So, even having a playlist for each phase of your cycle, like the at would be amazing. So, so thinking of some way that you can honor, be with your soul, spirit, whatever it is because that's, that bit that we can't see that it's kind of behind our nervous system, I think, and every day and thinking that and asking, am I, am I living my life in alignment?
And those are those bigger questions, but, and then using that period as that time of. reconnection each month. What went well? What can go better next month? What do I need to let go of? What do I need to bring in? And so we will, I use include all of our resources on our show notes today, but there's a, it's just so [00:53:00] important.
We cannot think about peer troublesome period pain or persistent pain without addressing the nervous system. And I could, we could probably talk about Days. So we might do more episodes about it, but we've given you some food for thought at least. So, at least when we get off from listening to this podcast, maybe go and do one thing that tethers you back to safety.
So Deb Dana talks about finding glimmers. So we often hear about triggers that are, things that trigger our nervous system to go into a survival state. Glimmers are the opposite. They're things that might make us feel safe and make us be in that safe space like patting your pet or having a hug from someone you love or feeling the sun, feeling the grass underneath your feet, being in nature.
And then I think it's really important to be aware of, the smell of a warm, beautiful cup [00:54:00] of tea or flower. Anything, those little glimmers bring you back to that safe place. It releases oxytocin dopamine in our brain. Reduces our stress, our cortisol. And then because there's so And then it will help us to find more of those glimmers.
So even just one of those little things and then practice build on it. I love that. One glimmer will lead to another. It will. So perfect. And this podcast series will hopefully weave in lots of different ways and take and, and give you more nuanced, deeper practices. But this is a broader overview of what our nervous system is, why it matters and some simple steps to, to take to start to find our way back to safety more often and increase that flexibility.
Yeah. so much for listening. Please be sure to get [00:55:00] in touch with us. Tell us what you think about the podcast.
You can also check out my book, which is Healing Pelvic Pain which has so much information about the nervous system and all of these strategies and techniques and practices in detail.
And you can also keep an eye on our socials and our website for our upcoming event days, like our healing pelvic pain days, which is an immersive experience into actually learning and embodying some of these practices. So we look forward to talking to you again next time. Thank you for being here.
Thank you.
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DISCLAIMER:
This podcast is for information and educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
