Periodic Mood Swings

Many people have experienced the mood swings in a woman during her menstrual cycle. Here''s a summary of the famous mood swing phenomenon.

According to my observation, all of us experience our share of mood-swings, but for some reason, females tend to be more associated with them. After some research, I came to a conclusion that most of these mood-swing-behavior in women has a biological explanation and is attributed directly to a woman''s physical make-up.

This mood-swing phenomenon is nothing new and has been around throughout the history, but it was not until 1931 that it was recognized and named as "premenstrual syndrome" or "PMS". PMS was originally seen as an imaginary disease but more interest increased in the early 1980s after being used as a criminal defense in Britain. PMS is also known as "premenstrual tension" or "PMT", "premenstrual stress", and "periodic mood swings".

PMS commonly appear in about 80% of women of reproductive age during the 7-10 days before and usually ending a few hours after onset of menses. More than 200 symptoms have been identified and are both physiological and psychological, but the exact symptoms and intensity vary from woman to woman. The most common PMS symptom category is PMS-A and is related strongly to an estrogen excess and progesterone deficiency in the lutheal phase of a woman''s menstrual cycle.

Several studies suggested that estrogens appear to affect mood by suppressing type A-monoamine oxidase while enhancing type B-monoamine oxidase. Estrogens affect these enzymes to increase the levels of epinephrine, norepinephrine and serotonin, while decrease the levels of dopamine and phenylethylamine.

It is known that the increases of epinephrine triggers anxiety, whereas an increased level of norepinephrine is associated with hostility and irritability, and high levels of serotonin result in nervous tension, drowsiness, palpitations, water retention, and inability to concentrate and perform. Dopamine is believed to counteract these amines by inducing a feeling of relaxation and increasing mental alertness.

Markus Naraed Wiedenmann