DECEMBER 10, 2009

Beat PMS

Most of the time you relish the power, beauty, intuition and other advantages that come with being a woman – except for those few days a month when you curse Mother Nature. For many it's a minor annoyance, but four in 10 women of childbearing age have physical and emotional menstrual symptoms severe enough to interfere with their daily routines and activities – including those where concentration really matters, like work. And for ambitious career women, that's simply not acceptable. So what can you do about it?

"We now have much more clarity about menstrual phenomena," says Diana Taylor, author of Taking Back the Month, which helps women "identify the symptoms most bothersome to them and provides a guide to determine which lifestyle modifications or remedies are likely to work best."

Taylor says the first step to symptom management is tracking symptoms – to chart and rate their severity. (These sites and apps will do it for you.) "Then you can diagnose your PMS pattern, as well as how food, stress, exercise and sleep affect your symptoms."

Are certain symptoms keeping you down? Try these focused remedies for cramps, bloating or water retention, headaches and mood swings – like drinking plenty of water, laying off the salt and using pads instead of tampons when possible.

Want more? iVillage's YourTotalHealth.com provides guide to PMS, including possible underlying causes and prevention. Plus, Uptodate.com, written and edited by doctors and medical experts, explains a variety of treatments.

Bonus PINK Link: Is menopause impacting your career?