Navigating Your Period: Tips & Insights

Your period is the big event whereby, every month, blood comes out of the vagina for usually 3-5 days. If you have gotten your period already, you should tell someone you trust who can help you choose how to care for yourself during this time.

When you get every period, record the date in a period tracker app or a notebook. Most period tracker apps have a free version, where you can chart your menstrual cycles, learn when you may be ovulating, and when you may expect your next period.

Things to know about periods

Period blood comes from your uterus, which is inside your body, just underneath your belly button
You will not die from your period
Periods are not dangerous, but they may be painful (period pain)
Everyone gets their period at a different time, but usually between the ages of 10-15
Those with low body fat often get their periods a little later because fat cells are needed to help make hormones
Your period may make you feel tired
The week before your period, you may feel sad, angry, irritable and cry more easily (call premenstrual symptoms or premenstrual syndrome, PMS)
Severe emotional disturbances before a period may be premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD)

What to do about painful periods

Period pain is very common when you first start getting periods, because your poor little uterus has never had a cramp before. The way your uterus gets the blood out of your body is to cramp, like a spasm, to push the blood out. This spasm really hurts, though how much it hurts depends on each person.

Some of you will have terrible pains, while others will only get a little. Usually, period pain gets less severe as you get older, as your uterus – like any muscle – gets stronger, and you learn strategies to help.

There are a few things you can do about painful periods, from taking anti-inflammatory painkillers to massaging your uterus (which is free and works!). Check out our guide on treating period pain for an in-depth guide to managing period pain.

How to deal with period blood

You need to soak up the blood up using sanitary pads, tampons, a menstrual cup or period undies. You can use a mixture of all four options if you can access them. Tampons and disposable pads are thrown away after one use, while menstrual cups, period undies and menstrual cups are washed and reused.

These period (‘sanitary’ or ‘menstrual hygiene’) products are very absorbent, needing to be changed regularly, depending on how heavy your period flow is.

Understanding period flow – heavy or light, and how do I tell?

‘Flow’ refers to how much blood is coming out and at what rate, but there’s no real way to measure this unless you saved and weighed all your menstrual products – nobody is doing that. So, we measure flow by how long it takes to fill up a menstrual product/how often it needs changing.

Normally the first 1-2 days are the heaviest, then it tapers off to a brown smudge by the end. Your flow may have a lull in the middle where you think it’s finished, then your favourite underwear get ruined because it was not done yet.

If you are using up a super tampon or maxi pad every hour or two, that is a very, very heavy period. If you are only using up 1-2 regular pads or panty liners per day, that is lighter flow. Usually, it’ll be somewhere in the middle.

Sanitary items cost money, so if you don’t have your own money, you’ll need to ask someone to buy them for you. Some schools or sexual health clinics may provide menstrual products free. Ask.

You cannot reuse pads or tampons, but you can rinse out and wash a menstrual cup, and wash period undies in the washing machine. We don’t recommend ‘free bleeding‘, which is just letting your period go onto your clothes.

How to figure out when your period is coming

If you’ve never had a period before, it may be impossible to tell when your first bleed will happen. There may be some ‘false starts’ as your body prepares for ovulation.

Ovulation is always followed by a period, so in fact, the first thing to look out for is ovulation signs! Your period will come about two weeks after that.

Most likely, you’ll go to the toilet, and there will be blood in your underwear. There’s simply no other way to know, until you start to recognise the signs and symptoms, and start tracking.

Once you get the hang of it, you may start to notice certain signs that your period is getting close, for example, your breasts might feel tender and sore, you may get extra hungry (and keep eating even though you’re full), and you may be moody, cry easily, be completely unreasonable and get into fights with the people around you.

Tracking your periods is important just because you don’t want to get caught out with blood in your underwear, totally unprepared with no tampons, pads, or whatever in your bag or pocket. Don’t worry – you will be taken by surprise, all the time, but at least a period tracker helps you work out when your period may come.

Period tracker apps are great, but a calendar also works just fine. You will start to be able to count the days from Day 1 of your period to Day 1 of your next period, and they’ll often be similar, but probably not the same each month. This is your full menstrual cycle.

“I’m on my cycle” – wrong! You’re on your period

Your period is not your cycle; periods are part of your cycle. Calling a period a ‘cycle’ (“I’m on my cycle”) could be confusing. You’re always on your cycle!

Not very many menstrual cycles are exactly the same amount of days. Your cycles may be 21, 26, 28 or 32 days long, or anything in between. Your cycles are unlikely to be less than 21 days apart, or more than 35 days apart.

If your full menstrual cycles are 21 days or less, or 35 days or longer, these menstrual cycles are considered too short or too long and there may be something amiss if this happens for more than three menstrual cycles in a row.

Using tampons

Tampons are a great invention, but they can be a little tricky to figure out how to use. We’ve written so much on how to use tampons, but start off with our simple guide to putting in a tampon.

Using menstrual cups

If you thought tampons were hard, menstrual cups take that a little further, but once you get the hang of putting in a menstrual cup, you’ll never look back.

Menstrual cups are a one-off cost that will last you for a while. You squish the soft silicone cup, pushing it up into your body so it sits just under your cervix, catching all your period blood. It sounds weird, but they’re great.

We recommend taking your time to figure out how to use menstrual cups. Read more about menstrual cups.

Using pads and panty liners

Pads come in various absorbencies and are designed for a lot of blood, while panty liners are more for discharge and very, very light bleeding.

Panty liners are designed to protect your underwear from ‘stuff’, while a pad is designed to absorb a lot of period. We’ve written a big article about pads and panty liners.

Using period undies

Period undies are a recent invention that allow you to essentially free bleed into your underwear, without fear of leakage.

You can wear period undies if you are prone to filling up a tampon and leaking (including during the night) and don’t want to ruin yet another pair of undies, or if you just like them because if you get a few of them, you can not pay for tampons or pads.

We love period undies – read more.