Why Is My Period Early?
Paying attention to your period regularity is one of the best ways to determine if your hormones are balanced. Our hormones are vital for maintaining many of our daily functions. If hormones are imbalanced over an extended time, this can lead to many complications like PCOS, osteoporosis, nutrient deficiencies, hair loss, fatigue, depression, and low energy. Your cycle length is extremely important because women go through 4 phases throughout each cycle, and all of them need to occur in the correct window of time for a regular period. As a rule of thumb, if your menstrual cycle length is shorter than 21 days, then your period is early and it’s time to look into what is causing your hormonal imbalances. It is important to take into consideration your own body patterns because you can still have an early period, though your cycle length may be more than 21 days. An example of this is if you regularly have a cycle length of about 34 days and then suddenly it is dropping to 23 days, then you could also have a period early. Watch your period patterns, and if your cycle length drops significantly for 3 months then you should dive deeper into asking ‘why is my period early?’
Here are 6 possible reasons why your period is early:
1. Stress
Stress is one of the major things to learn about when you ask ‘why is my period early?’ The stress response in the body is connected to circulating cortisol levels, our stress hormone. Under chronic stress, all other hormones in the body can become imbalanced because they are all connected. Stress negatively impacts sleep, which further increases the cycle of chronic stress. High cortisol levels also imbalance estrogen and progesterone, which are our main reproductive hormones that influence our ovulation and period.
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2. High-Intensity Exercise
High-intensity exercise is another thing to avoid when asking ‘why is my period early?’. High-intensity exercise like sprinting, cross fit, fast cycling, and high rep weight lifting can all induce stress on your body, especially when you have little to no recovery. Exercise puts a strain on your muscle fibers and if they don’t have time to repair themselves during recovery, your body can go into a state of panic. This results in imbalanced hormone levels. Additionally, with high-intensity exercise, you may be losing weight, which lowers estrogen levels because one of the secretion centers for estrogen is body fat. As a rule of thumb, on average, most women require at least 17% body fat to maintain a healthy and regular menstrual cycle.
3. Changes in Routine
Changes in routine are another answer to the question, ‘why is my period early?’. Women who work rotating shifts or who work late hours have a constantly changing sleep schedule which throws off your circadian rhythm and impacts your cortisol levels. On a normal day, you should get a cortisol spike in the morning to get you motivated to get out of bed, and then as the day goes on cortisol should decline so that by night time you are groggy and get a good night’s sleep. If you have a constant changing sleep schedule you can delay your cortisol spike which will create imbalances in estrogen and progesterone.
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4. Hypothyroidism
Low thyroid or hypothyroidism can also be an answer to the question ‘why is my period early?’. The thyroid is a gland in our throat that needs to release hormones to maintain a stable metabolism, among other things. If these hormones are not released as frequently as they should, this is called low thyroid or hypothyroidism in more intense situations. Our body will try to stimulate more thyroid output, so additional hormones in the brain, specifically the hypothalamus, will be released to generate more thyroid hormones. These hormones, unfortunately, can also increase prolactin production and will therefore decrease progesterone. Decreasing progesterone will affect the endometrial lining build-up and cause you to have an early period.
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5. Low Progesterone
Low progesterone is another answer to the question ‘why is my period early?’. This is because progesterone is our ovulating hormone. The word progesterone literally means pro: to promote and gesterone: pregnancy. Each month a follicle that encases an egg in the ovaries will mature and burst as the egg is released into the fallopian tube and the remaining follicle sac becomes the corpus luteum which secretes progesterone to promote ovulation. Without enough progesterone, we won’t be ovulating at the correct time which can make our period come earlier.
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6. Perimenopause
Perimenopause is the last answer to the question ‘why is my period early?’. This is because perimenopause is the transition stage into menopause which occurs in women's late to mid-forties. In this stage, your hormone levels are fluctuating and changing which can result in early periods, but also late periods. Other symptoms of perimenopause include vaginal dryness, hot flashes, difficulty sleeping, and missed periods.
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