Correlation between Menstruation Pain and Stress - Essay Example

Correlation between Menstruation pain, health and stress In a period of one month, every mature female experiences menstruation, it is a situation whereby then ovary releases an egg cell that travels through the fallopian tube to the uterus. In preparation for the pregnancy, the uterus wall develops tissue and blood lining call endometrium. In the absence of egg fertilization resulting in no pregnancy this wall will be shed exiting the body through the vagina. This wall exit the body in mixture of blood and tissues and the process takes 3 to 7 days. These is called periods and the new process start over again with new egg starting to mature in the ovaries and the process keep on repeating itself resulting in a cycle known as menstrual cycle (Manassiev & Whitehead, 2004). The cycle takes 25 to 35 days. General health is the state of complete mental, physical, and social well being of an individual and this does not implies that one has no disease. It is the state of being free from any pain illness or injury in ones body. General health is linked with the general condition of ones body and mind. Stress is the state of mental and physical pressure on ones mind. Stress results when the situations demand differs with an individual’s ability and motivation to meet such demands by the situation (Manassiev & Whitehead, 2004). There are many causes of stress each relating to the situation of an individual. Majority of women of reproductive age approximately 40-90% in number, are being affected by the painful menstrual cycles (Manassiev & Whitehead, 2004). While some abnormalities may aggravate the menstrual pain in many cases pain can result even with the absence of any abnormality. Dysmenorrhea is one of the gynecological disorders that cause a lot of pain. There are many theories relating to stress menstruation and general health. In his research, Claude Bernard found out that in order to keep life constant internal milieu should be kept constant as environments changes. This was referred to as homeostasis by cannon in 1929 and in 1956; Selye used the word stress to imply anything that causes threat to homeostasis (Goldman & Hatch, 2000). Any threat or cause of threat to organism is called stressor and any response to this is called stress response. In women stress, cause may play a role in causing irregular and missed periods, when one become more stressed the menstruation stops. However, not very much has been discovered about the relationships between stress and menstruation, but stress plays a major role in affecting the normal functioning of the hypothalamus, which in turn controls the pituitary gland which is the bodies master gland because it, controls the thyroid and adrenal glands and the ovaries; together they manage and control hormones (Goldman & Hatch, 2000). Problems with reproductive processes are caused by ovarian dysfunction, which include problems with estrogen production and ovulation. This is very critical because estrogen is a hormone that helps in building the uterus lining in preparation for the pregnancy. Improper working ovaries will cause problems with menstrual cycle. Because stress affects the functioning of the brain, which is responsible for producing hormones it, can cause hormonal imbalances leading to changes in frequency of and duration of menstruation. With minimal stress, the body can finds its way back to the normal menstrual period. Stress has also been linked with painful periods, which causes serious health implications for women. There are quite a number of studies on stress and menstrual cycle. In these studies, it has been found out that there is a close relationship between stress and longer cycles of menstruation; in some instances, they are associated with shorter menstrual cycle and in some cases having no effect at all on menstrual cycle. Several menstrual cycles variations among women that are being linked with stress are similar top those being experienced by women during perimenopause (Goldman & Hatch, 2000). Some studies have tried to see whether there is an association between psychological stress and menstrual cycle characteristics, being detected in women approaching menopause, the study studies the relationships that exist in perimenopausal women who took part the tremin research program on women’s health. In analysis in this study, prospectively recorded data on bleeding was used together with life-event captured data. It was found out that there is no correlation between stress levels even with all data analyzed from 206 women who took part in the study. Another new study also postulates that stress in the monthly cycle contribute to immense symptoms during and before menstruation. The research carried out at the national institute of health and other institutions suggests that the link leads to a possibility of stress feelings weeks to menstruation could lead to more averse symptoms typically associated with premenstrual syndrome and menstruation. In the study women who feel stressed weeks before menstruation reported to having more severe symptoms of menstruations as compared to those who were stress free. There was another study, which was published online in the Journal of Women’s Health that touches on finding factors that might shows women who might be mostly at risk for having more severe symptoms. The study was carried out by and the State University of New York, Buffalo, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and researchers in the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (Goldman & Hatch, 2000). The study suggests that it is possible to prevent or lowers the magnitude of this symptoms with methods that help women to cope more effectively with stress, such as biofeedback, exercise, or relaxation techniques. There is another study called BioCycle Study that attempts to study the ovarian functioning in the course of menstrual cycle with healthy women. The researchers in this study focus on 259 women aged between 18-44 by use of questionnaires, these women didn’t had any serious health conditions, and they were not using oral contraceptives or taking any other hormonal formulations. In the study Women with responses showing that they felt stressed has high probability of reporting average or serious levels of psychological symptoms, such as anger and anxiety associated with menstruation. Similarly, women who felt stressed were also more likely to report moderate or severe levels of physical symptoms such as body aches, abdominal bloating, lower back pain, fatigue, abdominal cramping, headache, and cravings for sweet or salty foods. There is literature from SCIELO in Brazil on the menstrual cycle and Neuropsychological performance. According to this literature, despite the frequent complaints, there cannot be any tangible proof of the impact of the menstrual cycle on neuropsychological dysfunctions in healthy women. Opposite to that is there seems to be there impact on verbal memory, working memory, and reaction time, visuospatial and motor skills, visual memory, attention, and concentration, with a tendency toward worse performance scores in the luteal phase. Any tangible proof in women with PMS or PMDD has not been found either having any influence (Olesen & Woods, 1986). Only what was found was a very insignificant evidence of lowered functioning on attention and concentration, visuospatial and motor skills, working memory, verbal memory, reaction time, and impulsivity in the luteal phase; signs in women patient with PMS or PMDD show reduced intensity, but higher in relations with healthy women. The variations found can be seen as little if compared with those observed in other psychiatric or neurological disorders. Differing in design and method of study was one of the limitations that prevented the study from coming up with a more solid conclusions. There is therefore need for a more robust and quite a number of studies to find out the effect of such cognitive variations on clinical practice and patients daily activities (Olesen & Woods, 1986). It is also necessary to try to correlate patients complaints with abnormalities found on cognitive tests, in order to determine the clinical relevance of the results found in neuropsychological evaluations. Conclusion Menstruation general health and stress are linked together and cause women a lot of health problems during the menstrual cycle. They are related in that one causes the other to be severe or mild. The health of women is affected because of the pain caused by the cycle and the stress that comes with it. The sufferings are sometimes so great that the mature females cannot do anything during the entire period of menstruation. There have been several studies on the relationship between the three but until today, there has never been single study with solid evidence on the subject matter. The studies normally ends with general conclusions but there are some studies consistent with the fact that stress make menstruation more severe and women whop are stress free experience less severe menstruation. Stress is the main center of focus on the three because it is stress that cause hormonal disturbances and because stress cause malfunctioning of the brain which is responsible for carrying out and instigating several body functions. References Manassiev, N., & Whitehead, M. I. (2004). Female reproductive health. New York: Parthenon Pub. Group Goldman, M. B., & Hatch, M. (2000). Women and health. San Diego, Calif: Academic Press. Olesen, V. L., & Woods, N. F. (1986). Culture, society, and menstruation. Washington: Hemisphere Pub. Corp Read More