Why do women generally get sick easily during menstruation?

Menstruation is always experienced by all women every month. However, every month, menstruation is always accompanied by abdominal pain and sometimes even makes the body weak so that it is prone to disease. If you experience this often, you will definitely ask questions in your mind: in fact, what causes a woman to get sick easily during menstruation?

Why do women get sick easily during menstruation?

For most women, menstruation can easily change mood in an instant. How come? When you are menstruating, your body suddenly feels weak, your stomach hurts, sometimes it even decreases your health, aka you are prone to disease.

Headaches, fever, flu, and cough are some of the conditions that women often experience while menstruating. Finally, it makes you grumpy all day because it interferes with all the neatly arranged plans.

If you experience this, don't panic just yet. According to Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a medical director at the Joan H. Tisch Center for Women's Health at NYU Langone Medical Center, the condition of the body that is weakened to cause menstrual pain is motivated by hormonal changes in the body.

The reason is, entering the menstrual period, the level of the hormone estrogen in the body decreases. In fact, estrogen plays a role in helping activate the part of the brain that regulates pain. That is why, the lower the level of estrogen in the body, the weaker the brain's ability to relieve pain.

In addition, there is another opinion that says that the reason a woman gets sick easily during menstruation is due to the release of prostaglandins, which are chemicals that cause the uterus to contract to expel blood during menstruation.

Production of prostaglandins in the body usually increases during menstruation, the goal is to push blood out of the uterus. Well, this increase in prostaglandins can trigger stomach cramps, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and other discomfort.

In addition, prostaglandins are also believed to have contributed to the rise and fall of your body temperature. Maybe this is one of the reasons that cause women to have a fever while menstruating.

How to prevent pain during menstruation?

Actually, pain that only appears during menstruation will heal and go away by itself after the end of the menstrual period. However, there is nothing wrong if you want to prevent disease so that the body remains fit during menstruation. Some of the ways you can do this are:

1. Know the time of your period

The first step you can take to prevent pain from entering your period is to recognize your menstrual pattern. So, you need to know when your menstrual cycle starts, and when usually your body starts to weaken and then you get sick.

Dr. Rashmi Halker, an assistant professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, explains that women with regular menstrual cycles are more likely to experience pain, so you can be better prepared before you feel suddenly weak.

2. Eat nutritious foods

When you eat healthy food sources, it will not only provide energy for the body, but also provide good nutrition for the cells and organs in the body. In short, the nutrients that are fulfilled properly from food can help maintain the health of your body before the menstrual period.

Not only that, by paying attention to the food you eat, it can help you to prevent the possibility of getting diseases that come from food - for example, stomach aches and diarrhea.

3. Take vitamins

Taking vitamins can be one way to prevent pain during menstruation. The reason is, vitamins can help meet the nutritional needs of the body that may not be fulfilled from food sources.

In addition, several types of vitamins - such as vitamins C and E - can also help strengthen the immune system's resistance, so that it can support disease prevention.

4. Get enough rest

It is undeniable that quality sleep plays an important role not only in daily performance, but also in keeping the body in a healthy condition.

Because, without realizing it, sleep helps the body maintain a balance of hormones that may change before menstruation, to maintain the immune system to protect the body from infection and other harmful substances.

Therefore, it is important to start sleeping and waking up on time, not only before the menstrual period, but also every day.