PMS (premenstrual syndrome) is different for everyone, which can make it hard to know what your individual symptoms even are. This becomes especially true when it comes to things like your mood. You may find yourself feeling good one moment and later find yourself becoming angry and irritable without a clear reason why. With these shifts happening in the background of your day to day life, it’s not surprising that it usually falls under the radar. 

If you’re looking to determine whether your mood is a symptom of PMS, you can start by tracking your menstrual cycle and your mood with an app like Aavia. After a few cycles, you’ll be able to identify if there are any trends—e.g., maybe you always feel irritable or angry in a certain week of your cycle. 

There’s no exact answer to why we experience these symptoms, though it’s often attributed to the fluctuation in hormones that happens throughout our cycle. So you might not be able to completely stop it from happening, but even knowing the reason you’re feeling moody can help to put things into perspective. If you do want to try to eliminate the symptoms all together, you can test skipping a week of your placebo pills. Just make sure to track it all so you can determine if it works for you!