How Periods and Menopause Affect Your Gut Health?
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) symptoms and digestion can be affected by hormones like estrogen and progesterone.
Estrogen and progesterone are likely produced by women’s—organs attached to the uterus.
Your gut is one of the many parts of your body that are affected by these chemical messengers. Symptoms of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract can be brought on by changes in hormone levels, and stomach or intestinal conditions can also affect when your period occurs.
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which causes constipation, diarrhea, gas, and bloating, can be exacerbated by hormone changes. You might anticipate experiencing these symptoms at various times during your period or when you begin menopause since changes influence them in your hormones.
Keep reading this blog to learn more about how hormones interact with the gut and how to alleviate your symptoms.
Gastrointestinal Fluctuating Symptoms Before and During Your Period
The levels of your hormones fluctuate between periods. Your progesterone levels rise one week before your period. Because it is a muscle relaxant, it can relax the colon and shorten the time it takes for food to travel through your intestines. As a result, you may experience bloating and constipation. Your estrogen levels may also drop just before your period, making it harder to digest food.
Your estrogen levels start to rise again after your period. Gastric motility, or the movement of food through your system, may increase due to these changes, which may cause your digestive tract to tense up. Diarrhea may result from this.
Depending on whether you get pregnant, use birth control, or are just getting older. Your period can look very different throughout your life. However, you will continue to experience this pattern of hormonal changes during your periods.
What can you do?
- Eat more fiber such as red rice, oatmeal or oat bran will help to keep the bowels regular.
- Along with this you can also have fresh fruits and vegetables.
- Make yourself a cup of ginger tea (either by boiling some fresh, sliced ginger in water, or by adding some powdered ginger) to a cup of hot water. Add two tbspns of castor oil to the tea and drink it.
Abdominal Pain In Periods:
- ½ tsp of Dill seed powder (sua)
- ¼ tsp of Dry ginger powder
- ¼ tsp of Ajwain powder (owa)
- ¼ tsp of Hing powder (Asafetida)
- 1 tsp of Cumin seed powder
- 1 tsp of Jaggery
- ½ glass of Water
- 1 tsp of Aloe vera juice
Mix the ingredients and boil for 5 minutes. Filter and drink it twice a day. Drink it especially ten days before the expected date of menstruation and during menstruation.
Gastrointestinal Fluctuating Symptoms Before Menopause
When you reach menopause—when you haven’t had a period in a full year—hormone levels like estrogen and progesterone gradually drop. That has the potential to cause problems like bloating and constipation.
Estrogen changes impact your metabolism, which can lead to [more] fat, which may affect your weight and gut biome—causing more gut problems is another factor.
What can you do?
- Soak 20 black raisins in 1 glass water overnight and have in the morning.
- Take one table spoon of castor oil at bed time.
- Apply lukewarm sesame oil on the naval during taking bath and put towel (which is dipped in warm water) on the lower abdomen.
- Drinks: Black tea , Ginger Tea, and CCF Tea
How are your hormones affected by Your Gastrointestinal System?
The gut can also affect your hormones. We believe that it may play a role in estrogen-related diseases because it secretes an enzyme that raises free estrogen levels in your body. Your gut’s beneficial microbes, or microbiome, may blame these changes.
What Can You Do:
A healthy intestinal ecosystem can be nourished by your daily routines by adding healthy food in your daily diet:
- Cooked vegetables
- Pulses like mung and split mung beans, tur dal and red lentils.
- Grains including rice, oat, rye, maize, millet, amaranth, quinoa, kamut, spelt, polenta; basically everything other than wheat.
- All sweet fruits are good to take. They should be avoided while having a cough, cold, flu or mucus accumulation in the respiratory tract.
- Soaked seeds and nuts.
- Of all dairy productsghee(clarified butter) is the best; normal butter is also good and definitely better then margarines and other such processed spreads!
- Milk should only be taken warm and, preferably, spiced with ginger, cardamom, cinnamon or turmeric. Good alternatives to cow‘s milk are soya milk, rice milk, almond milk, oats milk or coconut milk
- Fresh cheeses such as quark, mozzarella, feta and ricotta are easier to digest then hard, old ones and are also less mucus producing.
- Sweeteners: Jaggery (solidified sugar cane juice), raw cane sugar, date sugar, molasses, rice syrup or honey.
- Drinks: Black tea , Ginger Tea
- Most essential is the use of various spices: the best for all Doshas arecumin, coriander, fennel and saffron
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