why it's important to exercise on your period...

I know so many girls and women who are sceptical of doing exercise during ‘that time of the month’, and I used to be one of them. I hated going to dance or doing PE at school one week per month for this reason, but recently since starting exercise again, I have found it is actually so important to do, and there are many reasons why! I am very open on the topic of periods and the menstrual cycle, and if you don’t feel comfortable reading about this, then I would recommend to not continue reading!

First and foremost, exercise is so good for the endorphin release. Endorphins are a group of hormones that are secreted in the brain and nervous system that essentially make you feel happy. During your period, you can feel groggy, upset, and you can be more pessimistic than optimistic, so by doing exercise, it helps to improve your mood. I’m not just saying this to encourage you either, there is research to support this! By increasing your mood, you are decreasing depression levels which can be such a good thing during this time! A good way of boosting your mood more is to pick workouts that you are guaranteed to enjoy: if you don’t enjoy it, you’re more likely to give up and just get back into bed (as tempting as it sounds!)

mid workout n i'm pretty dead, but still happy :)

Next, exercise helps to ease pain. Due to the increased circulation of blood around the body, a lot of pain can be eased (particularly cramps). I have actually noticed myself, without getting too much into it, that doing exercise helps to ease any aches and pains I have! Again, research has been done into this area, and a survey has said that ‘63% of top female athletes say pain decreases when training on their period’. You would think that your pain would just get worse, but it does the opposite! Personally, I can’t do abs straight away though after beginning the cycle again, I just stick to legs/bum and arm workouts, but I would say that it is personal preference!

As I keep mentioning this is all research based, and is widely recommended by experts, as there are so many benefits to exercising whilst on you period. It is also shown that the most improvement is made within the first 2 weeks of the menstrual cycle, so it really does help using the first week particularly to get some exercise in and get closer to the goals you want. By doing exercise in the first 2 weeks isn’t enough though, you need to continue to work all the time, as improvements can be made, they just unfortunately aren’t as big as ones gained in the first couple of weeks!

post workout: sweaty but happy :))

I feel like the sports student in me definitely came out in this post, but I hope you enjoyed! I have still been loving my home workouts at the moment, so if you would like to see more ‘exercise/fitness/health’ posts on the blog let me know in the comments as I am more than happy to do so! Have an amazing week as always,

mills x