Anyone who’s ever had a period will say that period cramps are some evil, evil biological creations. Even at their most mild they can completely interfere with your day. At their worst, they can send you to the hospital. In the quest to remedy them, you can come across dozens of different solutions. The first thing we usually reach for is some kind of pain medication, but even then the cramps can slither their way through. When that first remedy failed me- I turned to the internet. What turned up was some remedies that made me think, “No way that’ll work.” And then it did- let’s look at three options.
NOTE: This is not medical advice! I’m not a doctor nor will I be recommending any medications at all. These are simply a few ways I’ve found that seem to help me personally. Always do some of your own research to accompany advice you receive!
REFLEXOLOGY
I turned to TikTok for help one day and found a video by @chrissybriel. (Note that in this video she does sort inadvertently imply this video is for “chicks” and “girls, daughters, wives”, but we are acknowledging here that periods happen to a wider variety of people!)
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTR7fPcSK/
She says that she can stop period cramps in minutes! And “this actually works.” I may be a skeptic on this, but I’m a curious skeptic. Her remedy would involve reflexology. Reflexology itself is “the application of appropriate pressure to specific points and areas on the feet, hands, or ears” via the University of Minnesota’s definition. You might recognize this idea from what you’ve seen about acupuncture or massage. In this instance, Chrissy shows a point in the ear. It’s better seen in the video, but I’ll try to write it out, if you put your finger right at the top of your ear and trace down you should fall upon a ridge, twist your finger and it should fall into a sort of pocket under that ridge where the ear connects with the head. That’s the point! Right there, you massage for 3-5 minutes, I did 4, and repeat on the other ear. She uses an acupressure pen, but I just used my finger. I know it seems like a long time to do this, trust me I got unnecessarily tired, but after 4 minutes on one ear I actually started to feel better. I did the next ear, and I genuinely started to feel the cramping subside even more. I read the comments of the video and found it worked for a lot of people to some extent, maybe not completely, but it provided some relief!
Music for Pain relief
Something that I do use on a regular basis is meditation and ASMR style music. I know that it can help emotionally so I figured-HEY- maybe it could work for physical pain. I literally searched “music for period pain”. This produced dozens of videos with music meant to address cramps! I clicked the first video, and I definitely felt my cramps dampen. I think the purpose of the music more helps to calm the brain and sort of distract it from what’s going on physically. It can also really help with getting to sleep which can be a problem when period pain is intense. It also helped to open the comments and see tons of support from other people. It’s nice to remember you’re not the only one and possibly find other references in tips in the comment section!
YOGA
I know that when you’re in pain one of the very last things you want to do is move. It sucks that one of the best healers for pain is getting up and moving around because it’s so hard! However, I’ve found that some of the best cramp relievers are yoga moves you can do in bed or laying/sitting on the ground. Laying on the ground you can hug your knees to your chest and rock side to side. You can hold your legs up to the sky for a few moments. You can press your feet against a wall and “walk” up and down it. Sitting up you can sit almost cross-legged with your heels touching instead of your legs being truly crossed and stretch forward. You can rotate between knee hugging and stretching out like star. These few and so many more can be found via TikTok and Youtube. It’s a harder to get started, and I mostly recommend these for days where your period cramps are more manageable or maybe while you’re PMS’ing instead of during, but they can really help your body out.
These are three of the methods that I use to help with my period cramps. I find that they really help because they can work for when cramps really keep you from doing anything else. Sometimes they’re too bad to get up and really exercise. Sometimes you can’t even get to the medicine. Sometimes all you can do is try to rest and let it pass. These three remedies are things you can do right in bed and varying in the amount of work you have to do to get them done.
I hope that if you’re reading this struggling the way I was before I wrote this that one of these helps you out!