How to Regulate Periods

Fact checked

By SheCares Editorial Team | Updated: Sep 15, 2022

Until treated, irregular periods can plague women for years, taking a progressively larger toll on their health.

Indeed, menstrual irregularities can disrupt every aspect of women's lives, including their mental well-being, work performance, relationships, and chances of getting pregnant. Fortunately, with the right approaches, women can regulate periods naturally, often without reaching for other risky treatments.

Keep on reading to discover how to regulate your periods and achieve hormonal balance that lasts through simple adjustments to your lifestyle, herbal supplements, and, if necessary, medical treatments.

How to Regulate Periods

Optimizing Weight

Optimizing Weight

Having insufficient or excessive weight can disrupt hormone levels and deregulate periods, including stopping them altogether. In fact, irregular periods are very common in women suffering from obesity or eating disorders.1,2

The key to optimizing one's weight to regulate periods is taking time to develop new habits of eating healthily and exercising regularly, both of which are discussed below. Gaining or losing weight too quickly can further deregulate hormones and put women at risk of serious health problems.

Eating Healthily

Eating Healthily

A nutritious diet offers trifold benefits for regulating periods: it resolves nutritional deficiencies behind menstrual abnormalities, promotes hormonal balance, and helps women achieve a healthy weight.

For starters, women should opt for regular, balanced meals with wholesome sources of slow-release carbs, healthy fats, and lean protein. To regulate periods, it is also worth adding foods rich in phytoestrogens - plant compounds that promote hormonal balance - as well as magnesium, calcium, and omega-3 fatty acids.3,4,5

Staying Physically Active

Staying Physically Active

Both over-exercising as well as leading a sedentary lifestyle, especially when paired with an unhealthy diet, can deregulate hormones and lead to menstrual disorders, including amenorrhea, or absence or periods.6,7
Healthy adults are advised to get about 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise weekly.8 Because there is no one exercise for regulating periods, women should opt for what they enjoy doing, while combining moderate cardio - such as jogging or brisk walking - with strength training, like power yoga.

Quitting Addictions

Quitting Addictions

Smoking, using illicit drugs, and abusing alcohol have all been shown to disrupt the endocrine system and make women more likely to experience low estrogen levels, painful cramps, infertility problems, and more.9,10,11

Consequently, a solution to how to have regular periods must include taking control over one's addictions, especially for those women who are planning to get pregnant. Luckily, there are numerous resources at their disposal, whether with a physician's help, through local support groups, or via free hotlines.

Reducing Stress

Reducing Stress

Prolonged stress is one of the leading causes of irregular periods, including their cessation. It leads to consistently high cortisol levels, which disrupt hormone production and deregulate menstruation.

There are many ways to keep cortisol levels in check to regulate periods naturally. While meditation and yoga are the most popular stress-relief approaches, others - like biofeedback or aromatherapy - have also shown promising results in reducing stress, alleviating bothersome symptoms, and regulating period patterns.12,13,14

Taking Supplements

Taking Supplements

To regulate periods, women can complement healthy lifestyle practices with alternative medicine, particularly herbal supplements, which have proven for many women to be an easy and safe regimen to follow.

There are two types of supplements for irregular periods worth considering: phytoestrogenic supplements, like chasteberry, which can be used short-term to promote period regularity, or hormone-regulating supplements, like Macafem, which safely nourish the endocrine glands for long-term menstrual health.15,16

Treating Underlying Conditions

Treating Underlying Conditions

Depending on their root cause, how to regulate periods and achieve hormonal balance might require pharmacological treatments or, in some cases, surgical interventions.

Upon proper testing and evaluation, women might be given various medications for irregular periods, including pain relievers, birth control pills, ovulation drugs, and other medicines to treat underlying conditions. Some, like those with heavy periods, might benefit from fibroid removal or endometrial ablation, among other options.

Key Takeaways

The majority of solutions for how to regulate periods consist of making healthier lifestyle choices aimed at restoring hormonal balance. Women can put efforts into reaching a healthy weight through a nutritious diet and regular exercise. Reducing stress as well as quitting addictions to nicotine, alcohol, and illicit drugs is another approach to regulating periods and helping the body recover from their negative effects. To make their plan even more effective, they can take herbal supplements, such as Macafem Healthy Periods, to promote hormonal balance and make periods regular. Those whose irregular periods are a result of an underlying condition will require medication or surgical treatments tailored to their specific needs. No matter which path women choose, one thing is certain: a little effort goes a long way in achieving menstrual health that lasts.