Work WITH your hormones
Women undergo tremendous shifting of the hormonal terrain every month. Though many of our external factors like diet, exercise, workload, stress, and sleep remain constant, our physiology fluctuates leading to periodic challenges in performance of the same tasks, recovery from the same events, as well as the mental and emotional variance that frame the same experiences.
Let’s consider working WITH the hormonal tide. Let’s do our best to acknowledge and honour the particular phase that we are operating in, and adjust our lifestyle to make for a smoother ride when possible.
How to know where you are in your cycle
The standard menstrual cycle follows the moon’s 28 day rhythm. Menstrual flow starts on day 1 of the cycle, lasts approximately 5 days, and is not too heavy (soaking no more than 7 regular tampons or 7 regular pads, or filling no more than 1 full menstrual cup), nor is it too painful.
Women are born with all of the eggs they’re ever going to have, and each egg is housed within a follicle. Ramping up on day 3 of the cycle, FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) released from the pituitary gland in the brain stimulates the maturation of a follicle, and as it grows it releases estrogen.
Estrogen continues to increase until it reaches a critically high level which triggers the pituitary gland in the brain to release LH (lutenizing hormone). LH triggers the follicle to rupture and voila! ovulation occurs.
The egg then travels down the fallopian tube towards the uterus. Meanwhile, the follicle transforms into a corpus luteum which starts pumping out progesterone, and it will continue to do so for about 2 weeks. If at that time there has not been a signal from a developing embryo (HCG – human chorionic gonadotropin which is what is detected in a urine pregnancy test), the follicle dies off, estrogen and progesterone drop, and menstruation begins, allowing the whole cycle to repeat.
Objective measures that determine where you are in your cycle
Dr. Sarah Goulding | Naturopathic Doctor
Need to test your hormones to figure out what exactly is going on with your health? Let’s do it 🙂
