STRESS can turn a monthly nuisance into pain. High stress levels during the menstrual cycle seem to double the chances of a woman experiencing serious pain at her next period.
More than half of all teenage girls and women suffer from painful periods. To find out whether stress contributes to the pain, a team led by Xiaobin Wang of the Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago recruited 388 women in China aged between 20 and 34. They did not use birth control and had no children. The women kept daily diaries of their perceived stress levels and menstrual pain.
Of women…
