Written By: Debjani Arora | Updated : October 23, 2017 7:50 AM IST
Most women face debilitating menstrual cramps which make it difficult for them to get going with their regular chores. Many look for remedies to help soothe the pain. While there are a lot of home remedies that promise relief from menstrual pains, abdominal massage is one of them. Nobody even told me about this method and it never crossed my mind that a gentle abdominal massage might give respite to period pains. Here are 10 home remedies to beat period pains.
Recently I met someone who swears by aromatherapy and its benefits and told me about how essential oils work wonders to give relief from period pains. Since I am a staunch non-believer in alternative therapy I didn t take this advice seriously. But reluctantly, I did try oil massage during periods and yes it worked. This made me do some research on the same to find if really essential oils helped in alleviating menstrual cramps. I was surprised to find that there were studies that proved abdominal massage with essential oil did help to take care of period pains. Read to know if period pains are normal.
A study published in the year 2012 in The Journal of Obstetrician and Gynecology Research explored the analgesic effect of essential oils on women suffering from dysmenorrhea or painful periods. The study took into consideration 48 women who suffered from painful periods and divided them into two groups of 24 each. One group was given a synthetic fragrant cream to massage in the lower abdomen while the other was given a mix of essential oils where lavender (Lavandula officinalis), clary sage (Salvia sclarea) and marjoram (Origanum majorana) were mixed in a 2:1:1 ratio and diluted in unscented cream at 3 percent of its concentration. Both groups used the cream daily used the respective creams to massage their lower abdomen from the end of the last menstruation continuing to the beginning of the next menstruation.
In the end, it was seen that the duration of pain was significantly reduced from 2.4 to 1.8 days after aromatherapy intervention in the essential oil group. The blended essential oils contain four key analgesic components that amount to as much as 79.29 percent of the diluted creams; these analgesic constitutes are linalyl acetate, linalool, eucalyptol, and -caryophyllene. This study suggests that this blended formula can serve as an alternative and complementary medicine to treat primary dysmenorrhea or painful periods.
Reference:
Ou, M. C., Hsu, T. F., Lai, A. C., Lin, Y. T., & Lin, C. C. (2012). Pain relief assessment by aromatic essential oil massage on outpatients with primary dysmenorrhea: A randomized, double blind clinical trial. Journal of obstetrics and gynaecology research, 38(5), 817-822.
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