The menstrual cycle
I’d like to explore the menstrual cycle today and the impact this can have on your mental health.
Menstruation is a normal part of everyday life because, for a lot of the population, we are always experiencing a menstrual cycle. This means, it’s not something you deal with for a week or two in the month and move on from it. If you experience a menstrual cycle, it affects you every day.
If you experience a regular cycle where day 1 is identified by menstrual bleeding, then the rest of the month your hormones fluctuate. However, if you don’t experience a regular menstrual cycle, maybe you have endo, PMDD, PCOS or are on contraception, you still experience a cycle, it just looks different.
I have been exploring this idea and how I can work with clients who experience a menstrual cycle, regardless of diagnosis or medication. This is when I came across @thehormonehacker. Angie talks about learning to work with your menstrual cycle, rather than against it. This a philosophy many of my clients will have heard me saying (whether about menstruation, neurodivergence, anxiety, low mood, relationship issues etc etc).
Angie also talks about using seasons of nature to interpret your Menstrual cycle. I like this for a few reasons.
If you have an irregular cycle, if you can tune in with what your body is telling you, you can adjust your life/ lifestyle accordingly.
It encourages you to lean into your cycle, to work with it and to do what your body is signalling to you rather than just pushing through the menstrual stage until it’s finished.
How am I implementing this in my work? I’m encouraging clients to listen to their bodies, asking themselves questions such as: Am I feeling an urge to slow down? To comfort myself? Maybe they are in their Luteal Phase. Do they feel energetic and want to socialise? Maybe they are in ovulation.
By doing this clients are tuning into their intuition, and life can feel more sustainable and manageable.
I often hear clients tell me “Oh, I’m probably just on my period.” Some say this as though it invalidates what they are experiencing. Let’s put this kind of language behind us and start working with the menstrual cycle and not using it or seeing it as a way to oppress you.
Research shows a direct link between mental health and menstrual cycles. Reading Handy et al., 2022 truly highlights the diverse nature of the menstrual cycle. While one body of research shows increased calmness during the late luteal phase, another shows increased anxiety where the individual is predisposed to anxiety. This message rings true for several mental health issues discussed in the paper.
Bearing this in mind, I feel more confident in the importance of following your cycle intuitively. Below are some examples of the characteristics of each phase. I feel it’s important to highlight that while this is described as a cycle and the image I’ve created is a circle, those with irregular cycles won’t follow this in a cyclical pattern. For example, You may be in your menstrual phase for longer than 7 days or not at all in ovulation.
You could try this out over the next month with your cycle. If you’d like some support with this, I’d love to talk to you more about it.
References
Angie (2021). The Hormone Hacker. [online] The Hormone Hacker. Available at: https://www.thehormonehacker.com/blog/inner-seasons [Accessed 20 Mar. 2024].
Handy, A.B., Greenfield, S.F., Yonkers, K.A. and Payne, L.A. (2022). Psychiatric Symptoms Across the Menstrual Cycle in Adult Women: A Comprehensive Review. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, [online] 30(2), pp.100–117. doi:https://doi.org/10.1097/hrp.0000000000000329.
