Your menstrual cycle is like a built-in health report, giving you clues about your body’s overall well-being. It’s not just about tracking the start date of your period; your cycle reflects everything from your hormonal balance to how stress, diet, and lifestyle choices are affecting you.
Paying attention to it can help you feel more in tune with your body and take charge of your health before things get out of hand.
What Can I Learn From Tracking My Cycle?
- Irregular periods, heavy bleeding, or unusual symptoms can signal hormonal imbalances or other issues like stress or thyroid problems.
- Identify Fertility: Whether you’re trying to conceive or prevent pregnancy naturally, tracking your cycle helps you know when you’re most fertile by identifying ovulation.
- Manage PMS and Symptoms: Recognizing patterns, such as mood swings, cravings, or low energy, can help you discover natural ways to manage PMS, support hormonal balance, and address underlying issues that cause or exacerbate PMS symptoms.
- Sync with Your Body: Each of the four phases of your cycle has different needs, such as more energy for intense workouts during ovulation in phase 2 or gentler self-care before your period in phase 1.
.By watching your cycle, you’re not just tracking your start date; you’re learning how to live in harmony with your body’s natural rhythms God designed you with.
What A Healthy Cycle Should Look Like
- A regularly occurring period that comes about every twenty-eight days
- Four days of bleeding in which you soak a tampon, pad, or menstrual cup every four hours, not more or less, with no cramping or spotting.
- If you’re tracking ovulation, you should be ovulating on cycle day fourteen, and you should notice abundant, stretchy “egg white” cervical fluid on or before ovulation.
- No PMS symptoms before your next period starts.
What Your Cycle Bleeding Means
The type, amount, and timing of bleeding during your menstrual cycle can reveal a lot about your overall health. It’s a reflection of how your hormones, uterus, and even lifestyle choices are working together.
Which one best describes you?
- Bright, cranberry red: Usually the sign of a healthy, regular period
- Pinkish: Low estrogen levels (especially when blood flow is lighter than usual), poor nutrition, polycystic ovary syndrome, or perimenopause
- Diluted or watery-looking: Nutritional deficiency, such as severe anemia
- Dark brown: Older bits of uterine lining and blood, which have had time to oxidize, are finally making their way out of the body—this is usually normal.
- Jam-colored red with large clots: Low progesterone and high estrogen, with large clots possibly indicating a severe hormonal imbalance; possibly uterine fibroids, though they are often benign
- Gray and red mix: Possible infection, such as a sexually transmitted disease or yeast infection
If your bleeding patterns change suddenly, are consistently painful, or interfere with daily life, it’s definitely time to do some digging and find out what’s happening.
Understanding cycle bleeding helps you tune in to your body’s signals, making it easier to address imbalances or seek support when needed. It’s another way your body keeps the conversation about your health going!
What causes PMS?
We are going to bust some myths.
Ready for the biggest myth of all?!
PMS and cramping are normal, and there’s nothing you can do about them.
WRONG. While those conditions are incredibly common, they are NOT normal.
So let’s dive in.
PMS (premenstrual syndrome) is a cluster of symptoms that can occur between the time of ovulation and the beginning of your period.
Common symptoms include: breast tenderness, bloating, constipation or diarrhea, mood changes, irritability, migraines, fatigue, cravings, anxiety, and insomnia, all of which are related to your body’s response to hormonal fluctuations.
Think of PMS like a monthly stress test on your body.
Each PMS symptom, and its severity, gives you information about how your body systems are responding to the additional stress of the hormonal fluctuations that come with Phases 3 & 4.
At the end of your cycle, your body undergoes a process to break down the excess hormones still circulating in the bloodstream. If everything is working ideally, these hormones are processed by the liver and cleared efficiently, resulting in a PMS-free cycle.
This means that your liver plays a key role in regulating PMS! Isn't that surprising?
The Liver's Role in a Healthy Cycle
The liver plays a crucial role in managing symptoms of PMS because it is responsible for metabolizing and detoxifying hormones, including estrogen and progesterone.
The liver breaks down excess estrogen through specific enzymatic pathways. If the liver is sluggish or overwhelmed, estrogen levels can stay elevated, leading to bloating, breast tenderness, and mood swings.
The liver also processes environmental toxins, medications, and alcohol, which can interfere with hormone metabolism. An overburdened liver may struggle to regulate hormone levels, exacerbating PMS symptoms.
Poor liver function can lead to increased inflammation in the body, which may intensify PMS symptoms such as cramping, headaches, and fatigue.
The liver stores and processes vitamins and minerals essential for hormone production and balance, including B vitamins, magnesium, and zinc. Deficiencies in these nutrients and an improperly functioning liver can contribute to PMS.
So, what's your cycle telling you about your health? Click the graphic to take your Hormonal Health Quiz.
Click Here to book a complimentary Q & A Call to discuss your Hormone Health Quiz Results, or continue reading Solutions for Your Cycle Symptoms.
