Can I practice yoga during my menstrual period?

Nowadays, yoga has become a favorite fitness exercise for most women. Practicing yoga can not only help you lose weight, but also cultivate your sentiments, allowing you to learn to be calmer and think more. There are many yoga movements, some are simpler, some are more difficult. You can choose according to your actual situation. So, can women practice yoga during menstruation?

First of all, it may be necessary to understand that traditionally, or at least in ancient India, very few women practiced yoga (at least not publicly). It was not that they were prohibited, but the social, customary and cultural conditions at the time made women engage in quite different activities and roles from men. Unlike today's modern society, women are used by society in their careers and jobs almost like men, bearing the same pressure and responsibilities, whether voluntarily or under economic pressure or for any other reasons. Women in the past did not practice yoga, perhaps for the same reason as fewer modern men practice yoga (no one prohibits men from practicing yoga). Yoga belongs to the male category due to its original seriousness, philosophy, academic and ascetic nature (it has nothing to do with female vocabulary such as flexibility, weight loss, staying slim, maintaining figure, helping with prenatal and postpartum problems, etc. If you can read the Yoga Sutras for an hour without feeling tired or bored, perhaps you will understand what I mean by seriousness). But unfortunately, due to commercial hype, yoga has gradually lost its seriousness and philosophy, and has become a cheap fashion. Elegant men think it is too popular, popular men think it is too feminine, orthodox men think it is too alternative, and alternative men think it is too similar to fitness. In short, all these misunderstandings cannot be cleared up even if you jump into the Yellow River.

In India, women call their menstrual period "moonday," a day for introspection, retreat, rest, purification, and meditation. From a physiological point of view, due to the impact of changes in hormone secretion on physical strength and emotions, it is recommended to minimize intense and busy external activities and stimulation, and instead enter a state of introspection and meditation. Working women may not have much choice to "retreat" when they have to go to work, but they can still practice moving, working and interacting with people in a low-key and retreating mentality during these days and change the way they practice yoga. In principle, practicing yoga during menstruation should help us eliminate discomfort and fatigue, restore physical strength, stabilize emotions, and maintain inner peace (although the opposite is often the case). The degree to which each woman is affected physically and mentally during menstruation varies. Therefore, ladies who practice yoga regularly should develop an inner "hearing" to listen to the signals sent by the body and mind, and use your intuition to judge whether you should practice asanas today, what to practice and how to practice, etc. No one can make decisions for you except yourself. You can choose to take a complete break and stop any asana practice, or you can choose very gentle practices to better relax, such as supine and forward-bending poses, either sitting on the ground or supported by a cushion.

The key words here are: rest, relaxation, peace and introspection.

Based on this principle, exercises that should be avoided during menstruation are:

1) Avoid all inversion postures (those in which the uterus is above the heart), which interfere with the natural downward movement of the body's energy (apana) during menstruation.

2) Postures that are too intense and can easily cause tension and fatigue.

3) Maintaining a standing or balancing posture for too long.

4) Intense backbends such as bow pose, camel pose, wheel pose, etc.

5) All postures that involve intense abdominal contraction and movement such as abdominal rotation (jatharaparivartanasana), supine leg raise (urdhva prasaritapadasana) and boat pose (navasana).

In short, women can still do yoga exercises appropriately during menstruation, but it should be noted that some high-intensity movements should not be done. For example, jumping is an action that can hurt a woman's body if she is not careful, and can easily cause her to suffer from gynecological diseases. In addition, women practicing yoga during menstruation should not learn new movements, but practice the movements they have learned.