How to Understand Your Menstrual Cycle

Have you ever noticed your mood, energy levels, hunger, cravings, and self-confidence change throughout the month? Have you considered that this could be linked to where you are in your menstrual cycle? Today, you'll learn more about the menstrual cycle and how key female hormones work. By understanding yourself better, you can get the most out of yourself on a personal level, from a health perspective, in your training, relationships, work, and life in general.

The Menstrual Cycle – Your Inner Rhythm

For those with female biology, the menstrual cycle is your natural inner rhythm. Depending on where you are in your cycle, it's natural to feel different from day to day and from phase to phase. The menstrual cycle is largely predictable, with a similar pattern repeating month after month in a regular cycle. This allows you to start using your menstrual cycle as a source of information and a powerful tool.

How long is the menstrual cycle?

The menstrual cycle is individual, and everyone has cycles of different lengths. From a health perspective, a 'normal' menstrual cycle is between 26-32 days. Womensync uses 28 days as a baseline because it's the average for a healthy cycle, although only 13 percent of women regularly experience a 28-day cycle. Ovulation is the central event of the menstrual cycle, and it's before and during this time that the egg can be fertilised. If the egg is not fertilised, it leads to a period approximately 12-16 days after ovulation.

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Which hormones control the menstrual cycle?

The key hormones that influence your menstrual cycle are oestrogen, progesterone, testosterone, luteinising hormone (LH), and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which rise and fall in a specific pattern throughout the cycle. Oestrogen dominates the first half of the cycle, with a sharp peak at ovulation. After ovulation, progesterone is dominant, and oestrogen remains at a medium-high level until your period, when it is at its lowest. Testosterone peaks at ovulation. The hormone FSH contributes to egg production and is highest during your period and ovulation. The hormone LH contributes to ovulation and is highest just before and during ovulation.

How is the menstrual cycle reflected in daily life?

Your sex hormones affect how you feel, your energy levels, your self-confidence, focus, how hungry you are, and your desire for intimacy. These hormones influence whether your body burns or stores fat, they play a role in the quality of your sleep, and they impact your mood. The different sex hormones affect whether you feel calm or anxious, social or withdrawn – which in turn influences your self-talk, the food choices you make, and how you choose to act or react in daily life. When you experience menstrual-related issues, it can mean that one or more of your sex hormones are higher or lower than their optimal balance in relation to each other. Therefore, different symptoms are signs we can learn to read and manage through lifestyle tools.

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