Arm Yourself With Yoga Before that Date!
Don’t let PMS affect you!
30 year old Heena Ranganathan is feeling sad, confused and anxious. For over a week now, she has been suffering sleepless nights. She feels mentally and physically exhausted and suffers severe body pains. To make the situation worse, at the slightest provocation she gets irritated and angry. This happens so regularly in the office and at home that everyone who knows Heena can predict if Heena ‘s date for that month is just around the corner.
What Heena is suffering goes by the name of premenstrual syndrome. A mild form of cyclical appearance of such symptoms of PMS do appear in most women. However, it gets classified as an illness that needs treatments only when the symptoms are so overpowering that they seriously disturb one’s life and day today functioning.
For a woman to be diagnosed as suffering from PMS, the symptoms should be seen only during the luteal phase (one to two weeks before the menstrual cycle begins) of her menstrual cycle. With a cyclical monthly recurrence.
The symptoms of PMS can be as varied as irritability, anxiety, mood changes, fatigue, aggressiveness, weight gain, depression, mental confusion, physical and mental fatigue, forgetfulness, body aches, crying spells, breast tenderness, generalized edema, mood swings, headaches and even craving for sugar. Abdominal discomfort or pain, gastric symptoms, increase in weight, vulnerability to respiratory voral infections are other symptoms.
Role of exercise and yoga in preventing PMS
Regular exercise has been found to help reduce the symptoms of PMS in sufferers. Going for a brisk walk everyday in the morning for an hour is one effective regimen. Besides exercise the role of yoga in helping to reduce and prevent the treatment of PMS cannot be over-emphasized.
Yoga helps through a gradual process of fine-tuning the endocrine organs of the body to reach a state of balance or normalcy. There are several asanas that have their specific actions on these endocrine glands. By the regular practice of these specific set of asanas, pranayama, meditation – the body and the mind experience a deep state of physiological rest. It is when the body and mind are in such a relaxed state that communication between the various endocrine glands of the body is in perfect synchrony and the distressing signals of PMS are kept under control.
Stop doing all backward bending asanas one week before the expected date of periods. Increase the duration and varieties of inverted posture such as viparithkarani, sarvangasana, sirsasana. Also practice Kapalabhati in viparithakarani add Baddhakonasana in last week of the menstrual cycle. Repeated practice of 5 rounds Nadisuddhi followed by 5 rounds of Seetkari, three times a day has been found to be very effective in preventing and reducing the symptoms of PMS. Heena was extremely happy after practicing these techniques regularly in the 3rd cycle she could go through the month without any PMS.
Urdhva Mukha Paschimottanasana II
Technique
- lie flat on the floor or carpet and place the hands straight over the head.
- stretch the legs straight, tighten the knees and take a few deep breaths.
- exhale and slowly raise the legs together and bring them over the head.
- interlock the fingers, clasp the soles and stretch the legs straight up with the knees kept tight. Rest the entire back on the floor. Take three deep breaths.
- exhale, lower the legs towards the floor beyond the head by widening the elbows. Try and keep the pelvis as near the floor as possible. Keep the legs tightened at the knees throughout. Rest the chin on the knees.
- stay in the position from 30 to 60 seconds, breathing evenly.
- exhale and move the legs to the original position.
inhale, release the hands, bring the legs straight to the floor and relax. |
