Exploring the Effects of Sex on Menstrual Cramps

If you have ever wondered whether or not sex can help with menstrual cramps, I assure you that you are not alone. Quite a number of women have considered that possibility. In an email from a reader, she said: “I wonder if it is real. I want to experience it.” So, in this article, we bring you answers to the question: can sex help with menstrual cramps?

To answer the question, we will first attempt to figure out how menstrual cramps happen. While this may sound like yet another lecture on sex education, it will be more than that.

During a woman’s menstrual period, her uterus sheds its lining. That is to say, the lining of her endometrium is sloughed off and shed. This shows up as bleeding.

The sloughing process and the evacuation process are both somewhat painful.

You see, for the lining to be sloughed off, there has to be some form of detachment of cells—most times, dead cells. This causes some pain, even though the pain is usually not of much consequence.

The pain which seems to be of much consequence, is usually the pain that comes from the contraction of the uterus.

The uterus, you see, has to contract in a bid to push out all the contents that need to be out of you before the start of a new menstrual period.

The uterus, being a muscular organ, exerts force. This force is what makes the cramping happen. Sort of the way you may feel pain in your arm if you flex your muscles too strong, and for too long.

Prostaglandins, which are hormone-like chemicals, are often released during these contractions. Prostaglandin adds to the sensation of pain. Just the way your other pelvic muscles can elicit their own pain stimulus.

So, we see that menstrual pain is a sensation of muscular, hormonal, and perhaps even vascular origin. This can help us answer the question even better.

The answer is yes.

In some women, sex tends to help a lot with relieving menstrual cramps.

Alica tells us: “Sex for me during my period is very therapeutic. It makes the menstrual cramps disappear in barely an hour. So that I feel a lot better in no time.”

Queency also says something similar: “I think sex really does help with menstrual cramps. At least for me. It makes me feel better in no time. I almost forget having had cramps before the sex.”

The means by which sex helps with menstrual cramps are both physical, mental, and emotional.

Here are five main ways:

Your body, thankfully, has its own pain relief system. That is such a marveling and amazing thing.

Your body’s pain relief system is a complex system of hormones that can suppress pain receptors and make them less responsive to pain stimuli.

A group of such hormones is called endorphins.

Endorphins are released when we have sex. Which is to say, sex has an indirect painkilling effect. And it goes beyond even menstrual cramps. Some people report that sex helps reduce regular headaches and a clogged nose, but this varies from person to person and isn’t guaranteed.

I have especially found sex helpful with my allergies. One time, when my nose was quite blocked, I had sex for around fifteen minutes–and to my surprise, my nose was clear before I could even realize it.

A lot of women seem to experience the same things.

Bella says: “Sex on my helps with more than just the menstrual cramps; it also helps with other pain too. Like a headache. If I have one, the sex makes the pain go away.”

Have you ever had a small wound when you were in activity? Let us say you were in the gym or something and a little prick made you bleed. Chances are you were so caught up in what you were doing you barely had the time to even notice that wound. It has happened to be before. I had been playing football with my friends when I stepped on something sharp. I didn’t even notice the wound until hours after, when it was time to wash up.

This shows that pain has mental roots too. You can feel pain more when you are focused on that area.

During cramps, since it hurts so much, we tend to be very mentally focused on that pain. We think about it with every move and try to align ourselves in a way that alleviates the pain.

This changes when we have sex. Sex takes our mind away from the pain and sets it on something we truly enjoy. It also produces a lot of pleasure. That pleasure can do a great job of drowning the pain.

Pleasure is good for when you feel pain. It can be very distracting.

Yes, sex can help muscles relax. Hormones produced during sex can enhance muscle relaxation and make things a lot less painful. Remember that we had mentioned that cramps also have a muscular origin.

The tightening of those muscles around your pelvis and uterus is what causes the pain.

Sex helps to keep this from happening. Sort of the way rubbing cold clothes on a particular muscle group can stop muscular cramping and relieve pain.

You just have to be careful to make sure sex does not add any more pain. In our forthcoming article: “Period sex: The Do’s and the Don’t’s,” we show you how to have period sex the right way.

Increased blood flow can help with cramps by bringing in more oxygen and more nutrients—and even more endorphins—to the uterine muscles. Sex causes an increase in blood flow, and this, can be useful to relieving cramps.

Many women agree that sex can help relieve menstrual cramps. We think it is true.