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We’ve all been there once or twice. We wake up thinking we’re going to get our period. But it doesn’t come.

We wake up the next day. Still no period.

Then we start to panic.

We do some backwards maths and work out if we might be pregnant. We start frantically Googling and cursing our bodies for messing with our heads.

In this episode, I’m going to save you from that long fall down the Google rabbit-hole and share with you the top reasons why your period might be late. And none of them mean you’re pregnant.

 

Here’s what we cover in this episode:

• How your body keeps your sex hormones balanced and functioning.
• Why stress throws your hormones off-balance.
• Why your weight and body fat impacts your menstrual cycle.
• PCOS and irregular cycles.
• Menopause.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

We’ve all been there once or twice. We wake up thinking we’re going to get our period. But it doesn’t come.

We wake up the next day. Still no period.

Then we start to panic.

We do some backwards maths and work out if we might be pregnant. We start frantically Googling and cursing our bodies for messing with our heads.

So, in this episode I’m going to save you from that long fall down the Google rabbit-hole and share with you the top reasons why your period might be late. And none of them mean you’re pregnant. Let’s dive in.

Most period irregularities are caused by hormonal imbalance, so imbalance between your major sex hormones oestrogen and progesterone. And there are many reasons why your hormones can become imbalanced. The menstrual cycle is driven by your hormones and it’s a really delicate system. As one hormone level goes up, it influences the levels of other hormones. So for example when oestrogen levels rise before ovulation in the first half of the menstrual cycle, levels will eventually reach a point where it triggers release of FSH and LH which then triggers release of the egg at ovulation. Our overall health, stress, our environment can all throw off this delicate balance and lead to an imbalance between our hormones. And that’s exactly what we’ll be talking about in today’s episode.

The HPO Axis

Ok, so what is it in the female body that actually causes the menstrual cycle to happen month after month? It’s called the HPO axis and it’s the communication pathways between the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland and the ovaries. HPO.

So, the hypothalamus is in the brain and releases hormones, in particular growth hormones that have an enormous impact on thyroid function, as well as oxytocin. The pituitary gland is also in the brain, just under the hypothalamus and it also releases growth hormones, oxytocin and FSH and LH which we know plays a key role in ovulation. Then we have the ovaries which produce the sex hormones and obviously store and release eggs at ovulation.

So together, the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland and the ovaries form the HPO axis. The hormones released by the hypothalamus talk to the pituitary gland, and the pituitary gland talks to the ovaries and tells it to produce the sex hormones that control your menstrual cycle, ovulation and your period.

The hypothalamus, the pituitary gland and the ovaries do not start talking to each other until you start menstruating. When you get your very first period, the HPO axis starts the communication channels and they’ve never done this job before and they’re all still figuring out what exactly to do, and this is why your period can be irregular and wonky for the first couple of years of menstruating, while the HPO axis is figuring things out, and it can actually take up to 5 years for your menstrual cycle to regulate. Once the HPO axis has matured, you will likely see a more regular menstrual cycle as these hormones become more balanced, unless there is an underlying health concern that could be preventing this. Or, other influences impact this delicate hormone balance and create irregularities in a once pretty typical menstrual cycle.

Let’s dive in to some of the key reasons why your period might be late or your menstrual cycle may become irregular:

1 – You’re Stressed

Chronic stress can wreak havoc on your menstrual cycle, and I’ve recorded an entire episode all about the impact of stress on your menstrual cycle – Episode 5. Stress is so disruptive to your menstrual cycle because stress causes the release of cortisol and adrenaline, the stress hormones, that trigger a flight or fight response.

This response is that primitive reaction in our bodies when we believe we’re in danger – sweating, increased heart rate, breathing – our sympathetic nervous system is in overdrive and this reaction goes back to our cave-woman days when we were running away from a lion. So this reaction keeps us alive when we’re in danger. But these days, we’re not running away from lions and this reaction wasn’t designed to linger for a long time. It was a short burst of sympathetic activity to keep us safe.

But the way we live our lives these days, we are under chronic stress, and so our bodies are in this flight or fight response for long periods of time, meaning our stress hormones are hanging around longer than they should. And when the body thinks it’s in danger, its priority is to keep us alive, keep us away from that lion, which means it believes now is not the ideal time for pregnancy, and so it’s not prioritising keeping our sex hormones balanced. So the stress hormones dominate and our sex hormones lose their delicate balance. This triggers irregular and unpredictable cycles, heavy bleeding, missed periods, PMS, period pain, headaches.

And so anything in our environment that can create this stress response can lead to a hormone imbalance – not just emotional stress and feeling overwhelmed, but also anything that stimulates the release of adrenaline and cortisol like excessive exercise, poor diet, illness, travel, changes in your schedule, anything that causes that stress response over a long period of time. This is why stress management and relaxation strategies are so important. I talked a lot about this in Episode 5 but for things like high-intensity exercise, it’s a good idea to incorporate these relaxation strategies into your cool down, like deep breathing, stretching and really trying to calm down the adrenals so that we don’t spend the rest of our day in that stressed state.

2 – Your Weight Has Changed

This one goes both ways. If you’ve recently lost a significant amount of weight, either through a restrictive diet or excessive exercise, then a lower percentage of body fat can alter your hormone levels to the point where ovulation and menstruation just don’t happen.

If you missed multiple periods after losing weights, it’s important that you seek advice from a healthcare professional to make you’re your body is getting all the nutrients it needs to function well. But, being overweight can also affect your menstrual cycles.

Fat cells contribute to almost 1/3 of oestrogen in your body, which means that body fat has an effect on oestrogen levels and therefore your menstrual cycle and overall hormone balance. If you’re eating low calories and not getting adequate nutrition – either through eating crappy food or just not enough food, your menstrual cycle will be affected.

The Royal College of Nursing has suggested that a healthy body fat percentage for women between the ages of 20-40 is between 15 and 30%. Most women will sit around 25-30% and as you get older your body fat percentage will likely get higher. And you need at least 17% body to fat to actually get pregnant.

If your percentage body fat is too low, 5-10% is considered dangerously low, 10-15% is often seen in elite athletes. At the other end of the spectrum, 30-34% you’re heading towards obesity and above 35% you’re at a higher risk of developing diabetes and heart disease.

If your body fat is too high, you have more fat cells and adipose tissue which produces oestrogen. So you will see oestrogen dominance as oestrogen and progesterone levels become imbalanced and this reduces the ability of oestrogen to bind to the right receptors and communicate with other hormones in the body. Excessive adipose tissue with also have an effect on egg quality. Which means that obesity contributes to irregular cycles and a higher rate of infertility as well as those other long term health effects.

So, just like with chronic stress, very low body fat means that the body thinks you are in a stressed state, and again it’s not an ideal time to be reproducing. So what does it do? The HPO axis shuts down. LH produced by the pituitary gland isn’t produced, so the ovary doesn’t release an egg, and it doesn’t produce oestrogen or progesterone. So this creates a menopausal state.

3 – You Have PCOS

PCOS is thought to affect 1 in 3 women and it is the most common problem affecting the ovaries and contributing to irregular cycles and difficulty conceiving. PCOS is a hormonal disorder that leads to an overproduction of the male hormones, particularly testosterone, that affects regular ovulation. It’s a syndrome, not a specific disease or disorder, which means that it can include a number of different conditions and is ultimately an umbrella term for a group of symptoms. Which causes a lot of confusion and makes it difficult to get a clear diagnosis. The key symptom that you usually see with PCOS is an excess of immature follicles in the ovaries that never mature and actually release an egg. All of the symptoms that go along with this reflect a hormonal imbalance that will influence your menstrual cycle. And in PCOS you often see long cycles, more than 35 days, or irregular cycles where you may not actually ovulate. There might be a long period of time where you’re not seeing any cervical mucus, or you might see a few days of fertile mucus, then it goes away for a few days, then it comes back, then it goes away, as your body attempts to ovulate but is not successful. Because of excessive amounts of the male hormones, you might also see typically male characteristics like excessive body hair, hair loss, acne especially around the jaw line and obesity.

Internally, you will see increased testosterone and LH levels and so you produce more LH than FSH, which is usually the other way around. When it does occur, ovulation might be abnormal, so the egg or the corpus luteum might not have developed properly.

There’s so much I could say about PCOS that it really needs its own episode. But, it’s this hormone imbalance and abnormal ovulation that ultimately leads to long and irregular cycles. And so, especially if you’ve come off hormonal contraceptives like the pill and you’re so used to that textbook 28 day cycle that the pill creates, and you’ll be wondering why your period is so late all the time. And so for PCOS especially charting can be really helpful to figure out where in your cycle you are on a given day, and especially to help you to confirm when the body is attempting to ovulate and when it actually has happened, which then allows you to predict when your next period is due.

4 – You’re Approaching Menopause

The word itself carries such a stigma, it’s this thing that women dread and we don’t talk about it. It happens to us all and menopause is defined as the permanent cessation of menstruation and it’s confirmed one year since your last period.

Premenopause refers to the years leading up to menopause when your cycles start to change. Perimenopause refers to the years immediately before and the year after menopause.

The average age for the onset of menopause is around 52 years old and it happens over a long period of time as your ovaries gradually become less efficient and eventually stop responding to the hormones that drive ovulation. For some women, you might start to observe changes in your cycle from age 40 and one of the key signs is an irregular menstrual cycle, as well as hot flushes and vaginal dryness.

The majority of women will see a change in their cycles as early as 7 years before menopause. Periods might become heavier and more frequent as their cycles shorten, then ovulation starts to happen less often and with less regularity and periods then become lighter and less frequent. You’re still going through those four phases of the menstrual cycle, it’s just that cycles are longer and more irregular than what you might be used to.

Unless you are charting your cycles, menopause could leave you panicking that you’re pregnant because it’s normal to start skipping a period as ovulation doesn’t happen, making the menstrual cycle longer. And so, a missed period could be a sign of pregnancy or menopause. Home pregnancy tests and ovulation predictor kits become unreliable because of fluctuations in your pituitary hormones and high levels of LH that don’t necessarily trigger ovulation. If your basal body temperature remains elevated for 18 consecutive days, you could be pregnant, but if your temperature is low and your charts are showing delayed ovulation, then these longer cycles will likely suggest you are approaching menopause.

They are the 4 key reasons why your menstrual cycles might be irregular or longer than expected, why ovulation might be delayed and ultimately why your period is late.

So, to recap, we talked about the HPO axis and the communication lines between the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland and the ovaries and the key role the HPO axis plays in maintaining a balance between the key sex hormones.

And to recap, here are the 4 key reasons why hormones can become imbalance, the HPO axis can be affected and you see changes in your period:

• 1 – You’re stressed – whether that’s chronic emotional stress or the stress we put on our body through our diets, excessive exercise and general lifestyle and environment.
• 2 – Your weight is playing a role, and we talked about ideal percentage body fat and the effects on our menstrual cycles if body fat is too high or too low.
• 3 – PCOS – how excessive testosterone influences our sex hormones and leads to longer cycles and abnormal ovulation
• 4 – Menopause – what actually happens and what it looks like in the years before your periods officially finish

I really hope this episode helped to answer a few of your burning questions. There are so many reasons why your period could be late and your menstrual cycle could be wonky. Remember, ovulation doesn’t always happen on the same day every cycle – day 14 ovulation is a myth. And of course, life gets a little less stressful when you’re charting your menstrual cycle every day. Because charting the physical signs of your fertility helps you to identify where you are in your cycle, confirm when you’ve ovulated and allows you to count ahead to identify when your next period is due. And even if you’re stressed, even if your cycles are wonky and irregular and unpredictable, even if you are approaching menopause, charting allows you to keep track of what’s going on and stop feeling clueless about what’s happening inside your body.

If you learnt something new in today’s episode, as always I’d love to hear from you! You can connect with me on Instagram @manawomenswellness – ask your questions and let me know what you want me to talk about in upcoming episodes. Because if you have a question, there’s a good chance there are hundreds of other women wondering the exact same thing. So be brave and ask away. This podcast is for you and so I want to talk about the things that are most important to you!

You can get today’s show notes with all of the things I talked about, as well as links to freebies and other related episodes at fertilityco.com.au/23 and right there, you’ll also be able to get your hands on my brand new fertility roadmap! This is my 3 step system to understanding your body’s natural fertile signs and confirming ovulation so that you can use this knowledge to achieve (or avoid) pregnancy. If you want to ditch hormonal contraceptives or if you’re ready for pregnancy and you want to improve your chances of conceiving quickly and naturally, then head over to today’s show notes and get your hands on the roadmap.

I will see you in next week’s episode, where we are talking a little more about hormonal imbalance and I’m sharing the most common things in your house that could be impacting your hormones and your fertility.

Ok, bye for now and don’t forget that knowledge is power!

When you truly understand your body, you are empowered to make informed decisions and take control of your health!

Until next time.

LINKS & RESOURCES

Want to say goodbye to hormonal contraceptives and their weird and unpleasant side effects?

Want to improve your chances of conceiving quickly and naturally?

You need my Fertility Roadmap – My simple 3-step system to understanding your body’s natural fertile signs and pinpointing ovulation day so that you can use this knowledge to achieve (or avoid) pregnancy.

Related Episodes:

Episode 1 – Menstrual Cycle 101

Episode 2 – Am I Ovulating? The One Check You Can Do Every Day to Know For Sure When You’re Fertile

Episode 5 – Stress and Your Menstrual Cycle: Why Your Period is Irregular and Your Hormones Are Haywire (And What You Can Do To Fix It)

Episode 9 – Can I Get Pregnant During My Period?

Episode 12 – The Menstrual Phase – Menstrual Cycle Masterclass Part 1

Episode 13 – The Follicular Phase – Menstrual Cycle Masterclass Part 2

Episode 14 – The Ovulatory Phase – Menstrual Cycle Masterclass Part 3

Episode 15 – The Luteal Phase – Menstrual Cycle Masterclass Part 4

OTHER FREE RESOURCES

Does your pelvic floor need a little extra TLC? Take the Pelvic Floor Quiz and find out how to start strengthening your pelvic floor today!

 

Want to make sure you’re exercising safely during your pregnancy? Get your Free Guide: 10 Exercises to Avoid During Pregnancy.

 

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