Could Menstrual Cramps Hurt Cognitive Performance?

For any woman who's dealt with period pain, menstrual cramps can create a wide-variety of health issues--including fatigue, nausea, and cramping in close to 40 percent of women. For 15 percent, they may experience even more severe symptoms.

Yet a new study looks at how menstrual cramps could potentially hinder cognitive performance throughout their stay.

"Pain is an extremely common experience and can have a disruptive effect on all our daily lives. Our research looked at how common everyday pain, experienced by many women each month, affects their ability to perform a range of complex tasks," said lead study author Dr. Ed Keogh from the Department of Psychology, via a press release. "This shows that the effects of pain go beyond the sensory experience, affecting what we think and feel."

For the study, researchers asked 52 adult participants to complete computer-based tasks that examined different aspects of attention during their menstrual cycle. All tasks measured selective attention, general attention span and divided and switched attention between two tasks.

Researchers found that instead of period pain having a specific effect of pain on these tasks, it dampened overall performance with a more general effect.

Furthermore, this research suggests that future studies should focus on developing certain strategies to help remove barriers that harm performance.

"We know that the impact of pain can be widespread," Keogh added, via the release. "The more we understand about how people experience pain, the better mechanisms we can put in place to help people cope."

More information regarding the findings can be seen via the journal Pain.