“I’m sure the pain isn’t that bad, you’re just exaggerating…”

“It’s like you talk to each other in code”

During a break in one of our recent meetings we realised how often women talk about health issues in whispered tones or even in complete code; Aunt Flo, Code Red, The Change, Mid-Life Crisis. They’re passed down from mother to daughter, you learn them from your friends, you hear them in TV shows and read them in books. It’s something we pick up over time. We’re not outright told never to use the actual words but embarrassment, social norms and 'politeness' means we too often shy away from talking about important aspects of our health. It might be something we've done forever, but we believe it's something that's hurting us instead of helping us. 

Take period pain, for instance, or to use its technical term dysmenorrhoea. An estimated 80% of women suffer from some kind of period pain, it’s something that a large majority of us have to deal with while going about our daily lives. Concentrating in lessons, sitting exams, taking care of our kids, giving a presentation or even swimming in an Olympic final - all things that can be hard to do on a good day are made exponentially worse by having to cope with sometimes debilitating pain - and to make matters worse, the phrase “it can’t be that bad” is still bandied around way too often. As we get older, a lot of us learn to stop mentioning the pain. It’s something most of us go through, it happens all the time, it’s normal…it’s only when you read into these things further that you realise it shouldn't be. That there are things that can help reduce the pain; lifestyle changes, herbal supplements, hormones or you might even have an underlying health condition that you're unaware of. 

If we were able to talk about it more, if we were more open about our pain, our experiences, our health then maybe we could bring more awareness and understanding to what should and should not be normal.

And that’s just one example; our periods are just one stage of our lives, there are so many other things that we need to be talking about from under diagnosed health issues to underrepresented symptoms of major health problems. That’s why we are launching our first ever Women’s Health Month. A whole four-ish weeks dedicated to talking about women’s health from facts and symptoms that you might not know to tips and tricks that might be able to help you. 

As a company run by women for women, bringing more attention to Women’s Health is something that’s close to our hearts and actually one of the main reasons why we dedicated ourselves to starting this company. We want to shine a light on women’s health issues that we all go through, yet know so little about. We want to help scrub away the taboo and embarrassment that surrounds some of these issues. We want to add to the conversation and encourage others to do the same. We want to make the effort to dedicate some time and attention to help highlight some issues that just aren’t talked about enough, including: 

• PMS
• Menopause
• Perimenopause
• Thrush
• Osteoporosis
• And more 

We also want to use this time to help educate our other followers as well and encourage them to join the discussion, people who might not go through these issues but are also affected by them. If your mother, wife, sister, daughter, or friend is having these experiences, it can be helpful to both you and her to understand what it is that she’s going through. We don’t live in a vacuum and our health problems can affect our loved ones so it can be helpful to both us and them to involve everyone in the discussion. It might be uncomfortable and it might be embarrassing at first, but talking about it really can help. 

We won’t be able to tackle everything, but we want this to be the first The Naturality Lab's Women’s Health Month of many, so this month won't be the only time we talk about these topics. In fact, if you're new to our community you might have missed our blog on menopause, which you can read here. 

We hope you enjoy this month and maybe learn something you didn’t already know. You can tag your friends and family in our social media posts to help you start a conversation with them or, if you’re comfortable, talk about some of your personal experiences in our comments.