Is It Possible To Summon Your Period Early?
From the moment someone starts menstruating to that very last cycle thanks to menopause, periods can be a total pain. There are the cramps, the headaches, the nausea, the mood swings and, for some, there's even more symptoms that come with "that time of the month." Getting your period is also, most of the time, an inconvenience. You'll never, ever meet a person who will tell you that they love getting their period. Unless, of course, they had a pregnancy scare and their period is proof that they're in the clear.
As much as getting your period can throw a wrench in some of your plans and make you switch to a black dress instead of a white one in mid-July, you can manipulate it to come earlier or skip it all together. In fact, if you're on hormonal birth control, you don't have to get a period at all because you're not ovulating and what blood is released once a month isn't even menstrual blood. It's actually called withdrawal blood and just verifies that your birth control is working and you're not pregnant.
But, whether or not you're on birth control, you can still have a say in when it comes. Which means, yes, you can summon your period to come early — although no technique or attempt to do so is 100% guaranteed.
Take hormonal birth control
When it comes to manipulating your period into coming early or late, your best bet will always be hormonal birth control. If you're on the Pill, you can jump to the placebo week of your pills and that should induce your period. You can do the same with the ring or patch, by switching what days are "active," meaning the days that are releasing hormones into your body versus what days are hormone-free. It's the hormone-free days that should cause your period, or rather withdrawal blood, to appear.
However, if you take birth control solely to prevent pregnancy, you definitely want to talk to your doctor before you start messing around with manipulating your period. At some point you're going to want to get back on track and you don't want a window where you could possibly get pregnant. Your doctor can guide you to make sure you delay your period without running the risk of getting pregnant in the most effective ways possible.
Manage your stress
One of the most detrimental things that can happen to the body, mentally and physically, is stress. The more stress you have in your life, the more out of whack your body is going to be. This includes your menstrual cycle.
"Stress, whether emotional, nutritional, or physical, can cause an increase in endorphins and cortisol secretion which interrupt hormone production," OB-GYN specialist Randa J. Jalloul, M.D. tells UT Physicians. "This can lead to an abnormal menstrual cycle. It's the body's way of expressing unreadiness for ovulation and pregnancy."
Although easier said than done, if your period is running late and you'd like it to show up already so it doesn't interfere with your friend's destination wedding in Mexico, trying to manage your stress and get it down to a healthy level can definitely help. Meditation, long walks, breathing techniques, taking a break from the news and social media, as well as taking time to just unwind with a favorite book or movie can aid in getting those cortisol levels down.
Have sex
Not that you need a reason to have sex, but sex can, in some situations, induce your period. Granted, if your period is two weeks away, sex isn't going to magically make it appear, but if you have sex a week or a few days before your period is supposed to come, then you can possibly trigger things to get moving.
Using sex to summon your period works in a couple different ways. For starters, it's a very relaxing activity so it can help in managing stress. Also, when we have sex, feel good hormones are released into the body which takes that relaxation factor up several notches. If you're able to orgasm, then you increase your chances even more in making your period show up earlier thanks to the uterine contractions that come with orgasms. These contractions can help us open up the cervix and aid in the uterus starting the process of shedding its lining which is, in case you didn't know, your period.
Masturbation
Don't have a partner to have sex with? No problem. Like sex with a partner, masturbation has a very relaxing component to it. Actually, masturbation probably has an even more relaxing aspect to it because you don't have to worry about pleasing your partner, performance anxiety isn't part of the equation, body insecurities are miles away, as are the rest of that stuff that could possibly stand in the way of a proper, fulfilling romp. In masturbating, it's all about you and you alone — and maybe a vibrator or two.
Combine this blissful solo time with the promise that you'll be having an orgasm — something that sex with a partner doesn't always guarantee — and you'll be inviting your uterus to shed its lining with each orgasmic contraction. Have some extra time on your hands? Then go for a couple more rounds and really get things moving in the direction toward the early arrival of your period.
Exercise less
Exercise plays an interesting role in menstruation. Those who are hardcore exercisers, like Olympians for example, often end up with irregular periods or no periods at all — and the latter isn't because of birth control. Research has found that regular, high-intensity workouts disrupt the hormones necessary for ovulation. These types of workouts slow down the hormonal release, thereby making ovulation sporadic or non-existent. No ovulation, no period. Irregular ovulation, irregular periods.
For those who engage in rigorous and strenuous exercise on an almost-daily basis, but also want to make their period come earlier or even have more control over when they can expect their period to arrive, easing up on those usual workout regimes can help in doing that. Lightening your exercise load will get the appropriate hormone release back on track, giving you the opportunity to manipulate your period's arrival to your advantage. Granted, if you've been working out so intensely for a very long time, it won't happen immediately. But once your hormones are releasing at normal speed and on a regular basis again, you'll have a better chance at regulating your menstruation.
Exercise more
On the flip side of working out a lot, if you're not someone who's, say, training for a triathlon, then doing some light exercise can possibly help. When we move our bodies, we get our insides moving too and our muscles can loosen up and relax, allowing for blood flow. This method could possibly work for some in making a period come earlier than it's supposed to come.
If you don't exercise at all, then just walking for 20 to 30 minutes every day can start to make a difference. If you're already a walker, then adding some jogging or strength training can also help. However, just because you start doing some gentle jogging on a Monday, don't expect your period to automatically show up by Wednesday. Because the arrival of your period is based on hormonal release, as well as what's going on with you mentally and physically, it could take more than a few days. Or, for some, it may not work at all. Remember: every body is different.
Warm compresses
Whether it's a compress or a bath, the warmth from these two sources not only helps in relieving internal stress, but relaxes muscles in the reproductive organ area. Applying heat here can increase blood flow and help with kick starting your period because, like exercise, it gets things moving in a positive and healthy way.
When it comes to trying to make your period come early, there are a lot of methods out there. Some people swear by pineapple, others rely on parsley or ginger. But while there are cases in which herbs have helped in different ways in regards to periods, there's no scientific proof of any of these methods making a period come early. If you want, you can try a natural remedy, but be wary that it might not work. If you want to make sure your period comes early, your best bet in manipulating it is by using hormonal birth control. That has the highest success rate out of all these techniques — it's also guaranteed to deliver better results than consuming an entire pineapple.