Dr. Stacy Sims

I remember sitting in a high-performance meeting just maybe three years ago, and the leading athletics coach stood up and said, I know when my athletes are ready to perform on the world stage when their periods stop.

And all of us went, what?

It's like, no, that's the time where, like, we have to really look at your athlete is getting ready to crack and be injured.

And it's still this pervasive idea, and it's still pervasive even in the fitness industry that losing your period is okay because that means you're training harder.

But I think the other part of it is for women who have mayharanja or heavy bleeding and heavy cramping, they don't realize that they can get help with that as well.

And that's the conversation that isn't followed through when we're like, yes, get your period.

But if you're someone who suffers from really bad cramps, we also have to educate that there are things that we can do to help with that.

Have you noticed the norms have changed?

Yeah, because the norms that often get measured for us... Because they tripled, right?

They were 15 and then they went up to 40.

So now they're saying 20 and above is normal.

And when I look at a lot of women who are sitting 20 to 30, they can't get help.

They cannot get help.

And it's like, whoa, it was maybe four or five years ago.

If you were below 50, then we would look to get help.

But now with the norms that have shifted with the sicker population...

We can't get women help unless they are below 20.

It is.

We have some pilot data looking at taking some of the nuances of recovery and looking at how to dampen inflammation.

So we have some pilot data that's showing when women do cold exposure, that it dampens inflammation and improves their symptomology.