5 Ways Stress Can Affect Your Period and the Rest of Your Cycle

Those who chart their fertility know that stress can affect their cycles. In particular, big stressors—whether physical, mental, or emotional—can take a physical toll, often manifested in various affects on ovulation and when their next period will begin. In fact, even women who do not chart their cycles with an app or fertility awareness method (FAM) may notice a delay in their period when the body is under stress. 

While it’s a beautiful thing when everything in life feels balanced, organized, and under control, for a lot of us, that feeling rarely lasts for very long. Between family, work, friends, self-care, and other commitments—not to mention a pandemic—many women today have a lot going on that can threaten a peaceful perspective. All these stressors can certainly add up, affecting our health in an untold number of ways. For women, our menstrual cycles reflect the impact of stress on the body. Many women have experienced how stress can delay their periods, or even cause missed periods.  

We know it happens. But why does it happen? 

The short answer is the female body goes through different hormone changes throughout each month, and stress can affect those hormonal shifts. 

A normal cycle, unaffected by stress 

At the start of a typical cycle, one part of the brain (the hypothalamus) must send a message to another part of the brain (the pituitary gland). This message from the hypothalamus tells the pituitary gland to release follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), which has a direct effect on the ovaries: in response to FSH, a follicle within an ovary develops to the point that a mature egg is released. At the same time, estrogen levels increase, triggering a surge in luteinizing hormone (LH), which, at its peak, causes that mature egg to exit the ovary and enter the fallopian tube. This synchronized process is more concisely referred to as ovulation—the pivotal event of the menstrual cycle. (Of course, for women on hormonal birth control, these brain messages get “scrambled” in order to prevent ovulation from taking place. Unfortunately, this seems to cause the bodies of women on hormonal contraception to react to stress similarly to bodies under chronic stress.)  

When stress affects your period—and with it, your entire cycle 

Stress can interfere with these hormonal shifts, whether the stress is from a busy season at work, emotional upheaval in a relationship, extensive travel, exercising too much, not eating well or not eating enough, or changing medications. When the body is under stress, hormones can get out of whack, causing abnormal cycles (and making it very difficult to conceive, if a woman is trying to get pregnant). 

Here are just some of the most common ways stress can affect your cycle, and how women who chart their cycles are at an advantage for identifying the effects of stress on their cycles. 

1. Stress can delay ovulation

Remember all the messages that must be sent to trigger the cascade of hormones that eventually end in ovulation? Well, when stress occurs in the follicular phase, that is, the stage before ovulation, the body may not trigger hormones to be released at the proper time. This can result in delayed ovulation.  

A woman charting basal body temperature (BBT) would recognize this situation on her chart in the delayed rise in temperature, as BBT rises after ovulation has occurred. Likewise, a woman who charts her cervical mucus observations would see the typical “build-up-to-peak” mucus pattern occurring later than usual. 

2. Stress can make your period late, and your cycle longer

We have already established that when stress occurs during the follicular phase, it can delay ovulation. A secondary effect of delayed ovulation is a longer cycle overall. For a woman who charts her BBT, once her temperature finally does rise, she would have an idea of when to expect her period to begin, based on the average length of her luteal (post-ovulatory) phase, which stays fairly regular across cycles. Likewise, a woman who charts her cervical mucus would know when to expect her period once she finally observes peak mucus.  

In this situation, a woman who does not chart her fertile signs but who merely tracks her period each month would probably notice that her next period is late. However, she might not understand why her period is late or know when to expect her next period to begin.  

3. Stress can stop you from ovulating altogether 

Stress early in the cycle may interrupt ovulation altogether, so that a woman experiences an anovulatory cycle. An anovulatory cycle is one in which neither ovary releases an egg. However, because a woman will still bleed as if she is having a period (a phenomenon sometimes called “withdrawal bleeding” or “breakthrough bleeding”), an anovulatory cycle can be difficult to spot without charting. This can lead to a lot of confusion and frustration, especially if a woman is trying to get pregnant. 

For example, if a woman is unknowingly experiencing persistent anovulatory cycles and  trying to conceive, she may wonder why she’s not getting pregnant when her monthly bleeding seems so regular. However, women who chart—and specifically, women who track their cervical mucus—can be clued-in to the reasons behind their difficulties in conceiving. Women who chart their cervical mucus patterns will notice a pattern of intermittent mucus that never reaches a peak when experiencing an anovulatory cycle, rather than the typical build-up to peak mucus one experiences during an ovulatory cycle. Likewise, women who chart their basal body temperature will never see the temperature shift signaling that ovulation has occurred, if the cycle is anovulatory.  

4. Stress can shorten your luteal phase

As mentioned earlier, the length of the post-ovulatory, or luteal phase, is typically more consistent than that of the follicular phase. However, when stress occurs after ovulation, it can shorten the luteal phase (which is normally between 12 and 16 days), and cause the period to begin sooner than anticipated. 

There are some fascinating reasons for this phenomenon. When your body is under significant stress, it signals to your body that “now is not a good time to get pregnant.” A too-short luteal phase can prevent a pregnancy from occurring, as it does not allow for enough time for an embryo to travel from the fallopian tube to the uterus, where it would implant in the endometrium—if the endometrium were not already sloughing off, due to the onset of menses (your period). That is precisely why a chronically short luteal phase (sometimes called luteal phase defect) is often discovered in women struggling with infertility, despite the fact that they are ovulating regularly. (Fortunately, a luteal phase defect can often be discovered via charting and blood hormone tests, and corrected through lifestyle changes and progesterone supplementation.) 

5. Stress can cause you to miss a period—or a few 

In more extreme cases, stress can cause a woman to miss a cycle—or a number of them—altogether. A woman who has missed three cycles in a row may be diagnosed with “hypothalamic amenorrhea,” or in other words, a lack of period caused by an issue with the hypothalamus. Women who over-exercise, under-eat, or who are under significant amounts of stress (or some combination of those things) may experience this chronic anovulation and lack of a period. When this happens, the body is so stressed out, it doesn’t release the hormones needed to reproduce. Fortunately, lifestyle changes that improve nutrition, exercise, and mental wellbeing can help to alleviate the condition. 

Charting alerts us to the impact of stress on our cycles, bodies, and minds 

Often, we take a head-down, power-through approach to the stressful seasons of life. But seeing the effects of stress on our bodies written down on one’s chart or in a charting app can elicit a change of heart. When we recognize that our bodies are trying to tell us things are out of whack, we can use that information to care for our overall health in a holistic, safe, natural, and long-lasting way. 

Whether or not a woman is trying to conceive, understanding the effects of stress on the menstrual cycle is information everyone with a uterus should have. Using what’s known in the medical community as Fertility Awareness-Based Methods (FABM), more informally called fertility awareness methods (FAM) or natural family planning (NFP) like those mentioned above, equips women to acknowledge that stress is a factor, identify ways to alleviate it, and reap the benefits of positive lifestyle changes that can help combat stress.   

This article was originally published on  May 5, 2018  as written by  Lindsay Schlegel. It has since been updated by Natural Womanhood to offer more resources. Last updated October 30, 2020.  

Additional Reading: 

How stress affects your fertility 

Start charting your fertility and discover your normal 

How Charting Your Cycle Can Help You Understand Stress Effects 

Five Ways to Naturally Induce Ovulation and Regulate Your Cycle 

Progesterone Deficiency: How Too Little Progesterone Can Mean Big Problems 

How Fertility Awareness and Gentle Nutrition can Assist in Eating Disorder Recovery—and Maybe Infertility, Too 

Managing Your Stress during Covid-19: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself