Does Travelling Affect Your Period?

Yes, travelling can affect your periods. Travelling can also lead your periods to be late - if your circadian rhythm is affected and delays ovulation, your period will come later that month.

This weekend I went away with my eight besties, my period arrived ten days early! I only went to BUTLINS an hour away from home. Somehow the lack of sleep, excitement and disruption (vodka slushies) drove my hormones haywire and my body decided to reset. Luckily I always carry an emergency mini wetbag with reusable sanitary pads.

Last Summer I had my period for the whole of my week in Greece when I shouldn't have. I came home for a week then went camping where - you can guess - Aunt Flo appeared again, along with Covid!

Why does my period come when I go away? It has happened to me more than once so I decided to investigate and share my findings.

Travelling can disrupt your period because of a number of different factors, such as stress, changes in routine, altered eating habits, hormonal levels, changes to sleeping patterns and jet lag.

How Travel Affects Your Period

1. Stress

Stress can disrupt your normal menstrual cycle, a change of regular routine puts pressure on your body and adds tension. Our bodies are sensitive to even small changes in our routine.

2. Jet lag

Travelling across time zones can disrupt your body's internal clock, affecting hormonal balance and potentially causing changes in the timing of your period. Flying across time zones ruins our sleep cycles. Your circadian rhythm influences hormone releases and can disrupt your oestrogen and progesterone levels.

I am not sure Butlins counts for this. 

3. Hormonal Changes

Hormone secretion levels are likely to change while on holiday This can influence your menstrual cycle. This is due to things like dietary changes (eating different foods), eating schedules, and hydration levels. Most of us indulge in richer foods and more alcohol when we are relaxing on holiday.

4. Environmental Changes

Exposure to different environments, temperatures, or altitudes might also influence your body's physical processes, potentially affecting your menstrual cycle.

We tend to change our exercise routine when we take a break from work, either missing our gym workouts or getting extra steps in walking round the colosseum. 

5. Holiday bugs

I have come back from three trips away with covid and it affects my periods every time. There are medical studies linking covid (and other viruses) to menstrual changes. I am not sure if it anecdotal evidence but that air conditioning on the plane shares all the germs!

"Utterly brilliant customer service, responded quickly and gave great advice that felt authentic. Returns system worked well and even got my exchange out to me quickly in time for a holiday.

I love my new pants, all three different pairs and they certainly saved my camping trip! My favourite part is probably that the padding goes much further back - an essential when on day 1or 2 and heavy nights.

Love all Cheeky products and have done for years. Brilliant." Lara Sept '23 trustpilot

How To Deal With Periods While Travelling

You can make the disruption to your periods and your holiday minimal by -

• Being prepared with period products - I'd packed one pair of side opening period underwear and a few pads for Greece, they dried so quickly poppered to my balcony
• Don't panic and immediately assume you are pregnant if your period is late
• Manage sleep changes by napping in the day if needed - SIESTA
• Staying hydrated - flush those stress and excitement hormones out of your system
• Using comfortable period protection such as period pants or reusable pads in your regular underwear
• Pack period-proof swimwear to prevent leaks

If you enjoyed this blog we have more - 

Do you have to carry blood around all day?

Can I swim on my period?

Using washable cloth baby wipes on holiday

Take your Cheeky cloth baby wipes on holiday

If you would like more help, please drop the team a line or use the website chat function. We all use the products ourselves and just LOVE to chat pee poo and periods, all day long. Nothing is TMI and we all love to overshare based on our own experiences.

About the Author: Kirstin on our customer services team loves spending her days helping customers with their reusable period product needs and advising cloth nappy using families. Kirstin lives with her three teenagers and loves walking and sea swimming year round in our beautiful bay.