Does the menstrual cycle of women affect your mood? For most women, PMS or “PMS” is a time when they experience higher-than-normal periods of physical, psychological, and emotional variations, which collectively contribute to what people call “mood swings.” .
In the 1970s, a vague group of physical and emotional symptoms associated with the days before menstruation, including fatigue, headache, irritability, and depression, came to be considered an illness and was called PMS.
The interesting question for psychologists is whether these physical changes are correlated with emotional or intellectual changes. Or if they are just myths created by society.
The term PMDD, which stands for premenstrual dysphoric disorder, is a medical condition that describes a chronic case of PMS, according to the psychiatric association.
In 1994, despite the objections of many psychologists, the American Psychiatric Association included PMDD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a reference manual for psychiatric diagnosis.
So what does the evidence really show? During PMS, women will experience certain physical symptoms, including cramps, breast tenderness, and water retention, and of course, these physical symptoms can make some women feel moody or unhappy, just like pain can make men feel moody or unhappy. But the emotional symptoms associated with menstruation, particularly irritability and depression, are rare. In fact, less than 5% of all women have such symptoms predictably throughout their cycles (source: Brooks-Gun Differentiating Premenstrual Syndromes and Syndromes. Psychosomatic medicine, 1986; Reid, RL 1991 Premenstrual syndrome. New England Journal of Medicine ).
If the mood swings associated with PMS are so rare, why do so many women think they have it? According to a Canadian psychology text; One reason could be because women tend to notice feelings of depression or irritability when these moods occur before menstruation, but overlook times when such moods are absent. Or you can label symptoms that occur before a period as “PMS” and attribute the same symptoms at other times of the month to a stressful day or a low grade on an English document. Cultural attitudes and myths about menstruation can also influence a woman’s perception of her own emotional ups and downs.
The main findings of other psychological research and studies have concluded that:
There are no gender differences in mood.
There is no relationship between the stage of the menstrual cycle and emotional symptoms.
There is no consistent pattern of “PMS” throughout menstrual cycles.
Most people are unaware of these results, and they have generally been ignored by doctors, therapists, and the media. As a result, since the 1970s, premenstrual symptoms have been defined almost exclusively in medical and psychiatric terms.
So ingrained is the belief that most women suffer from PMS that those who publish reports challenging this belief are often accused of reporting biases.
