|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Summary
Period syncing is a popular belief built on the phenomenon that women who live together will have similar periods due to proximity. However, science shows that this is just a myth. Realistically, women who live together have menstrual cycles that typically overlap over time.Â
If you have ever lived in a female dorm, spent lots of time with your girlie besties, or worked in a women-dominated workplace, chances are you have experienced menstrual cramps, mood swings, or start and finish your monthly cycle with any of them before. One of you might have joyously said, “Our periods synced.” The phenomenon of period syncing is a popular belief that women who are in close proximity or spend lots of time together begin to menstruate at the same time. It is a long-standing belief that has been passed down through generations over time. This ideal is continuously discussed among sisters, female colleagues, friends, dormmates, and roommates.
The origin of Period Syncing
Period syncing is the idea that women who live together or spend lots of time together may start to have their menstrual cycles align over time. Known as menstrual synchrony or McClintock in the medical field, period syncing is built on the notion that when two menstruating women live together, their pheromones might influence each other, leading to synchronised menstrual cycles.
This belief gained global attention when Harvard doctor Martha McClintock studied 135 college girls who lived in a dorm together to verify the belief of period syncing. The results of the study were in favour of period syncing. The result concluded that during the school year, period synchronisation increased among close friends and roommates due to eating together, spending time together, and experiencing similar stress. The study even suggests a theory named the “alpha uterus,” which is built on the notion that a woman can influence the period dates of an entire group of women.
In 2006, a study of 186 Chinese women living together in a dorm discredited Dr. Martha’s theory. The study’s result said that any period synching that occurred was purely by coincidence, not due to the belief of living together. Similarly, Oxford University did a larger study with 1,500 women using the Clue App, a period tracking app. The result also negates Dr. Martha’s theory. It’s said that the influence of one woman’s period on another is an unproven theory.
Additionally, Dr. Beverly Strassman, a researcher and anthropologist at the University of Michigan, used the mathematical approach to debunk the belief of period syncing. Dr. Strassman calculated that the possibility of a period overlap is due to coincidence, not synchronisation of pheromones as proposed by Dr. McClintock.
For better understanding, a period cycle is 28 days, and the longest time frame for two women is 14 days. Over time, a woman who has a 3-week cycle and another who has a 5-week cycle will eventually see their periods overlap. Hence, women who lived together for at least a year will likely experience periods together a few times due to probability, not proximity. Medically, menstrual synchrony does not exist. It is just the law of probability. So, the next time your period syncs with your sister’s or roommate’s, remember, it’s just statistical noise.
Conclusion
Although the popular belief of period syncing has been debunked by scientific research, to many women, period sync is a connection, sisterhood, and solidarity. Shared menstrual experiences become a lighthearted point of connection, something to laugh about, or commiserate over. Some friends even joked about forming a period sync club where everyone tells their painful experiences, snack on chocolates, and use painkillers. Whether scientifically proven to be true or not, the experience of period syncing often reinforces emotional bonds among women. It is not biology, it’s sisterhood.
