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Having a healthy diet has many benefits, including comfortable periods. Many of us don’t know that what we eat during periods and our nutrition levels overall has a huge impact of period and PMS symptoms!

Why: Digestion takes us 70% of our energy. During periods, our mind wants the energy to go towards menstruation, but if we eat heavy foods / salt rich foods than that will compete with energy needed for menstruation and active hormones to play tricks with our mind - causing lethargy and mood swings. 

Furthermore, nutrition levels in the body defines the readiness of our cells and muscles to deal with the hormone changes. Continue reading this eye opening article on food for periods, based on real science vs myths.

During periods, your diet should help manage the following:

1. Soothe cramps

2. Reducing bloating

3. Improve mood swings

1. Diet to soothe cramps

During your period. The Uterus muscles contract/ squeeze and relax to send all the blood and tissue out of the vagina. 

Calcium is needed by the vagina muscles to be strong when they contract. 

When your body doesn’t have enough Calcium, the muscle can become weak and it can cause pain or cramps when they contract. 

Include low fat calcium rich foods in your meals like milk, yoghurt and leafy greens like spinach.

You can also include Ayurvedic herbs like Shatavari in your diet. It is known to relax the muscles and soothe the pain.

3. A diet to boost your mood and energy

There are hormonal changes that happen during your period. The diet to help you through your period should help balance those hormones. Balancing these hormones will in turn help deal with the physical symptoms and emotional symptoms associated with menstruation.

At the start of your period the estrogen and progesterone quantities are low in the body. Your energy levels also dip. 

Loss of blood results makes the Iron which can also cause energy levels in the body to dip. Make sure you hydrate the body with lots of water and foods that can help up the energy levels. 

Consume Iron rich foods like lentils,leafy greens like spinach and salmon to help replenish the iron that you lose while bleeding. 

A woman also goes through mood swings because of the fluctuating hormone levels. This can cause the happy hormone called serotonin to dip in the body.

Consuming dark chocolate can make the body release more happy hormone serotonin that can boost your mood. Also add foods like oranges and berries in your diet to fulfill your sweet cravings. 

3. Reduce bloating

During periods, a woman feels like she has swelled up or gained weight. High levels of progesterone right before it decreases during periods make your digestive system lazy and work slowly (causing gas, bloating, diarrhea). 

There is a drop in metabolism, or the body produces energy slowly from food. High levels of estrogen make a woman’s body retain water and feel like she has ballooned overnight. Here are some ingredients which can make the digestive system work faster and in turn bring down bloating.

Make sure you incorporate foods that wake up your sluggish digestive system.Include ingredients like ginger and pepper in your meals. They are known to improve digestion, up your metabolism and reduce bloating.  

Another interesting period health food fact to keep in mind

Do you know that your diet can affect the health of your vagina and odors from it?

A woman craves sugary foods and carbohydrates during her period because Serotonin or the happy hormone levels in the body is low. Unhealthy foods can cause bad bacteria to grow in your vagina. These bad bacteria are responsible for bad body and vagina odour.

So make sure you have a healthy diet consisting of natural foods like fresh  fruits and vegetables. A healthy diet will create an acidic home in the vagina to stop bad bacteria from growing and it encourages more beneficial/ good bacteria to grow . This will help keep bad vaginal odours at bay. 

Would you like to learn about a beverage with natural ingredients that can relieve those period symptoms? Checkout &Me’s Happy PMS and period beverage. It contains the goodness of mango and orange along with ayurvedic herbs and nutrients that can help deal with those period symptoms. 

You can also deal with the period pain and sugar cravings with &Me’s special Period chocolate. 

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