If you’re experiencing chronic stress, you might notice changes in your menstrual cycle. In particular, stress can affect how heavy your flow is and the length of your menstrual cycle — your periods can sometimes stop completely. Stress might also affect your fertility. Luckily, there are lots of lifestyle changes you can make to help you manage your stress levels.
Stress is a normal part of everyday life. But if you’re finding it hard to cope with stress or you’re under a lot of strain, it can have a wide range of effects on your body — including your menstrual cycle and period.
Most commonly, chronic stress can lead to irregular periods or cause your flow to become much lighter. For some people, stress might cause a heavier flow. You might also experience:
A typical cycle lasts between 21-35 days — your period usually makes up 3-5 days of this. To maintain this regular cycle, your body relies on a very fine-tuned balance of sex hormones. These hormones fluctuate throughout the month to:
If any of the hormones that control these processes are out of range, even by a very small amount, it can disrupt your cycle. Stress can often be lead to a hormonal imbalance like this.
If you’re in a stressful situation, your body responds by releasing a surge of stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol) to help you cope with the situation. And a system called the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis controls this response.
Your HPA axis also interacts with another system called the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis. And it’s this HPG axis that’s responsible for producing sex hormones that play a key role in regulating your period and menstrual cycle — like luteinising hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), oestrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.
If you’re stressed a lot, the repeated activation of your HPA axis can alter your HPG axis — which can lead to a condition called hypothalamic amenorrhoea (HA).
HA is when your hypothalamus (a region in your brain) doesn’t give the correct signals to produce the hormones you need to regulate your cycle — causing irregular periods or no periods at all. Other causes of HA include not getting enough calories or exercising too much. Again, this is because these also put your body under a lot of stress.
Stress and fertility are closely related. Your stress response system has been designed to protect you from danger. It helped your ancestors fight or run from physical dangers, like a hungry lion.
But while your environment has changed a lot since then, your body still reacts in the same way to something stressful. Everyday occurrences, like work stress, can trigger this response. So from an evolutionary perspective, it’s likely your body is protecting you from the demands of pregnancy — its priority is to help you deal with danger.
If stress affects your HPG axis and sex hormone production, a range of things can happen that might prevent pregnancy, like:
There are lots of everyday things you can do to help you manage and reduce your stress levels.
If you’re worried about any changes to your cycle or you’re finding it hard to cope with stress, a good first step is to speak to your GP.