If you're a woman looking to feel more connected to your body, vibrant in your mood, up level your focus and performance and feel the deepest levels of zest for life… this episode is for you!
Today we are talking about Menstrual Cycle Syncing 101 and how to live in your Femme FLOW and really make the most of biohacking your menstrual cycle.
You'll learn:
Living in alignment with the 4 different phases of your menstrual cycle is the first step as a woman to optimize your heath and hormones, reduce period discomforts, feel more radiant in your body, confident in yourself, magnetic in your work, turned on in your intimacy and connected in your relationships.
Resources and Episode links:
Thank you so much for listening. I’m so honored that you’re here and would be SO grateful if you could leave me a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify, that way we can inspire and educate even more people together.
I’d love to connect with you on IG: www.instagram.com/bindistables
Visit my website for more resources and ways to work with me: www.bindistables.com
If you're a woman looking to feel more connected to your body, vibrant in your mood, up level your focus and performance and feel the deepest levels of zest for life… this episode is for you!
Today we are talking about Menstrual Cycle Syncing 101 and how to live in your Femme FLOW and really make the most of biohacking your menstrual cycle.
You'll learn:
Living in alignment with the 4 different phases of your menstrual cycle is the first step as a woman to optimize your heath and hormones, reduce period discomforts, feel more radiant in your body, confident in yourself, magnetic in your work, turned on in your intimacy and connected in your relationships.
Resources and Episode links:
Thank you so much for listening. I’m so honored that you’re here and would be SO grateful if you could leave me a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify, that way we can inspire and educate even more people together.
I’d love to connect with you on IG: www.instagram.com/bindistables
Visit my website for more resources and ways to work with me: www.bindistables.com
Intro
Welcome to the Vibrant You podcast. I'm your host Bindi Stables and here we talk all things wellness and vibrant living. You'll learn about integrative health, functional medicine, holistic, and biohacking, and enjoy raw and real conversations on personal growth, mindset, and motivation. Optimize your body and mind and become the happiest healthiest, most vibrant, and you enjoy the show.
Hey, and welcome back to another episode of vibrant you. If you are a woman that's looking to feel more connected to your body more vibrant in your mood, to uplevel your focus and your performance and to just feel at the deepest levels. zest for life, then this episode is for you.
Today we are talking about menstrual cycle thinking and how to live in alignment with your femme flow. So when you are empowered with understanding your hormones and the different phases of your menstrual cycle, and how to align your daily activities in a way that unlocks your innate feminine and hormonal advantage versus going against nature in a way that leaves us feeling depleted and even resentful, we start to open ourselves up as women to the flow or energy of life and of nature. This is a way of living that is deeply nourishing to us and energizing way of living that feels vibrant and balanced and just so delicious in every way.
Living in alignment with the four different phases of our menstrual cycle. This is what cycle syncing is and the Femme FLOW, as I call it. This is really the first step as women to optimize our health and hormones to reduce things like period discomforts or PMS, to feel more radiant in our bodies to feel more confident in ourselves more magnetic in our work, and even turned on in our intimacy more connected in our relationships.
The reality is, is that most health advice out there like diets and biohacking practices, they're made for men's bodies, and they're done to the hormonal advantage of men. They've done studies on men, not women. And so so many of the fad diets and extreme practices and things that we hear out there are not actually what's best for women's bodies, or at least not at every phase of our menstrual cycle. So if you haven't listened yet, the last episode was all about the menstrual cycle or hormones. So if you haven't listened to that episode, please go ahead and listen to that one first to get an understanding of what the menstrual cycle is, your hormones, and how to unlock your hormonal advantage. I'll link that up in the show notes below and then come back to this episode.
Today, we're gonna get really clear on the five different areas that you can start to optimize, live in alignment with your femme flow, and start to unlock your hormonal advantage. So so many things out there are made for men's bodies. They've done studies on men's hormones, and in many cases, the things that we're seeing out there in terms of health and biohacking things like HIIT training, high-intensity interval training, or intermittent fasting. These aren't necessarily what's best for women's bodies, there are very few, and it drives me crazy. There are very few studies and research out there done on women's bodies. And even a lot of the studies that are used for Women's Health weren't even done on women's bodies, it was done on studies for men, how mind-blowing is that?
I want to be very clear before we dive into these five different areas, how to cycle syncing how to live in your Femme Flow and unlock your hormonal advantage. First, I want to be very clear that everything that we're going to be going through today is not a rigid list of do's and don'ts. So cycle thinking or living in the Femme Flow, as I like to call it isn't about a rigid list of chores, you have to do it this way, you can't do it that way.
It's not about a rigid way of living that abandons all responsibilities when you're bleeding, when that'd be nice if we could just genuinely unplug and not have anything to do on those days, but it's real life. However, what this Femme Flow and living in alignment with it is all about is it's about turning inward and tuning into the natural rhythms and cycles of your body. To understand your body's own innate wisdom and understand how to honor your flow your abs and your falls your ability to empower yourself to know how to take care of yourself at each and every phase.
What is Femme Flow and living in alignment with your menstrual cycle?
So ultimately Femme Flow and living in alignment with your menstrual cycle. It's about learning your body so that you can listen to her more deeply and ask in every moment, what is it that I need to feel balanced to feel vibrant, and well? Let's get right into it.
Today we're talking about the five key areas that you can start to optimize to live in your femme flow and unlock your hormonal advantage.
The five main areas that we're going to be focusing on, and we're just going to give a little introduction. So it's not too overwhelming, but just to give you some ideas of where you could start to work and maybe you start with one and build up and start to add other pieces as you go with
5 key areas to unlock your hormonal advantage
The five main areas are number one, nutrition, two optimizing exercise, three, self-care for optimizing our workflow in our responsibilities, our priorities, and work and five relationships, or our social life, our dating life, our intimacy, and things of that nature.
How to optimize your nutrition
Number one, how to optimize your nutrition to live in your Femme Flow and unlock your hormonal advantage. nutritional needs throughout the month change day by day, you as a woman are not the same every single day, a man's hormonal rhythm, that guy is the same every single day hormonal speaking. And of course, our hormones have a huge impact on how we think how we feel, and what nutritional needs, we need. All of these different things, especially as women, our nutritional needs change day by day. And again, it's not about rules of restricting, but rather empowering ourselves with the knowledge to know what foods are going to be most supportive, most nourishing at each phase of the cycle so that we can maybe invite a little bit more of those foods in. Another interesting thing to know is that our metabolism as women changes up to 10% throughout our cycle. And so of course, naturally, our food requirements, our calorie intake requirements would naturally change throughout the cycle as well.
So we're gonna get into each of these five categories, a really brief overview of how to eat and your menstrual phase, your follicular phase, you're ovulatory phase, and your luteal phase.
So again, if these words feel unfamiliar to please go ahead and listen to the previous episode before this one, where we break down the four different phases. And what's happening hormonally and all of this first, okay, so how do you eat in your menstrual cycle, so menstrual cycles, usually about three to seven days.
How to optimize your nutrition - Menstrual phase
So these are our bleeding days. So because of our natural blood loss through our period, we want to focus on iron and zinc-rich foods. Naturally, our digestive power is a little bit less at this time as our body is going through quite an intense event. Just think about this for a sec. A period, of course, is the most natural thing to a woman and a very natural part of our existence. And yet, sometimes we forget that when we're on our period, that woman has an internal organ that's hemorrhaging. And we don't always think about it this dramatically. But the truth is, is that you're bleeding out. And yes, it's natural, and it's beautiful, and all of this, but we need to realize that we're losing blood.
To think that going and going about our normal food and normal daily routines at that time is optimal for us, we might reconsider that our digestive power is naturally less because there's a big event happening inside of our body that requires a lot of energy. Another interesting thing with periods is during this menstrual phase, I call it period poops. It's a very real thing. And because of the progressive, the presence of progesterone as well as prostaglandins, which is basically the hormone telling your uterus to cramp and to release, its uterine lining. It also has an impact on our bowels.
So women may in the luteal phase right before their period and through their period have changes in their bowels someone women will lead more towards constipation, but most will have more loose stools, you simply put more when you're on your period. So that's something good to know.
Easier to digest foods and foods rich in minerals, especially iron, and zinc, those types of things are going to be really supportive. I really like during my menstrual phase to focus on things like soups and stews and things that are really warming and grounding and nourishing. Naturally, as well. We want to have adequate levels of carbohydrates in this phase as our serotonin because of the reduction in estrogen or hormonal concentrations, being lowest at menstruation and our serotonin is naturally lower at that time as well. So we need more starches and complex carbohydrates. However, we do want to avoid eating naked carbs as I call them because we don't want this big spike in blood sugar which can again deplete our serotonin levels and make us feel a little bit more low mood or anxiety.
We want to pair a nice healthy starchy carbohydrate with protein, fat, and fiber to keep our blood sugar nice and stable. And we'd want to incorporate foods as well that help with reducing inflammation in the body as the prostaglandins that our body releases to basically tell our uterus that it's time to shine, it's time to release naturally. It's a slightly inflammatory event happening in the body. It's telling our organ to release its lining.
We want to focus on foods that are high in omega threes. This is a great way to reduce cramping and period discomfort. Vitamin E is a godsend when it comes to period cramps, foods high in magnesium as well as vitamin B six. All of these are going to reduce men Start cramping.
Some good foods to focus on are things like Nori and seaweed. So I usually at least once during my period, I'll have sushi. I eat a plant-based diet. So it's plant-based vegan sushi, but you can use whatever sushi is nice for you things like chia seed, I add that into my morning smoothie during my period, almonds and pumpkin seeds, walnuts, avocados, dark leafy greens, all these iron and mineral-rich foods are going to be really excellent. And then finally, our metabolism starts to decrease during this time of administration.
Our metabolism changes again by 10% throughout our cycle, and it actually gets to its lowest point in the follicular phase, which we'll get to in a sec, and then raises until the next period. So during our menstrual cycle, right, right before our period, our hunger levels are higher, our metabolism is at its highest rate before our period, and we need more food at that time. That's why we crave things like sugar, and we crave things like chocolate, we need that nutrition because our metabolism is simply Higher, higher metabolism, we need more food, however, in our menstrual phase, and in our follicular, our metabolism is at a different level. It's at the slowest at this time. So we actually don't need as much food during that. You might notice that happening naturally within your own body as well.
How to optimize your nutrition - Follicular phase
How do we eat in our follicular phase? This is about seven to 10 days after our bleed finishes. So we want to focus on nice healthy foods that are going to support the production of the follicle right which is going to be released at ovulation. So metabolism is slowest here. So we want to focus on lighter foods, fresh foods, more vibrant foods, think salads, think fermented foods that are going to help rebalance the gut microbiome, lean proteins, vegetables, sweet potatoes, these types of things.
We still want to continue to replenish our iron and our mineral reserves from the loss of blood through our period. So again, pumpkin and flax seeds are really great at this time for their mineral content as well as they have a nice estrogenic effect to help build up that follicle for ovulation how to eat, and our ovulatory phase.
How to optimize your nutrition - Ovulation phase
So this is ovulation is really only a one to two-day event. But let's say for about three to five days before during and after ovulation. We'd want to eat in this way to nourish that ovulation and to actually get the health benefits of ovulation.
Remember, in the previous episode, we said ovulation is not just about getting pregnant or not getting pregnant, there are health benefits to you ovulating so we want to have an amazing egg and an amazing ovulation amazing production of hormones from the release of that egg. And we want to eat in a way that nourishes that so we get all the juicy mood-boosting and gut microbiome and immune-boosting effects of ovulating.
So ovulation we want to eat foods that are anti-inflammatory and antioxidant-rich to really nourish that follicle and that egg so things like berries, really vibrant colored fruits and vegetables at this time to support ovulation and to support progesterone production, which again is so much more than just making a baby, of course, we need that if we want to fall pregnant, but also for our mood.
If we have low progesterone because we're not eating well during our follicular and ovulate Tory phases, then we're going to have really low moods we're going to have anxiety before our periods. So eating well in ovulation is actually really important to feel really good and that premenstrual phase as well. We also want to start to incorporate in this obvious Kotori phase, more liver-supporting foods to help metabolize so your liver metabolizes a lot of the excess estrogen floating around in the body. And a lot of the premenstrual symptoms that we might face. Water retention, PMS, weight gain, breast tenderness, moodiness, anxiety, all of these things are actually because of too much estrogen floating around in our system and too low progesterone.
So we'll talk about how to boost progesterone and reduce estrogen. One of the main ways is to eat more liver-supporting foods to support your liver and do what it does well, which is metabolizing those excess estrogens and eliminating them from the body as well. We want to add more things like fiber into our diet to help bind that excess estrogen and eliminate it. So those liver-supporting foods are going to be things like your cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower and brussel sprouts. And finally, in this odd military phase, of course, our metabolism is starting to build at this phase.
You may notice a natural increase in your hunger. Like for me, it's so clear, it's like I ovulate and my body starts to be hungry right away and it increases until I bleed again usually like two days before I bleed. My hunger will be like oh my god, I'm just so hungry all the time. But we can learn that and know our bodies and find intelligent ways to optimize that and to listen to that innate intuition.
How to optimize your nutrition - Luteal phase
Okay, how to eat in our luteal phase. So this is about 10 to 14 days before a period in this premenstrual luteal phase, our metabolism is actually at its highest. So you are genuinely more hungry at this time, your calorie needs, your nutritional needs are a bit higher.
At this time, we want to focus on balanced meals again. So always combining protein, fat fiber starch together to keep our blood sugar nice and stable so that we don't have really strong sugar cravings. Oftentimes, these strong intense sugar cravings are when we genuinely need more carbohydrates. So making sure that we're getting that we don't have sugar cravings and reach for the ice cream or whatever, but also to balance our serotonin levels which because again, our estrogen goes down and towards the end of the luteal phase, we want to have foods that help support serotonin production because it's naturally at its lowest at that time.
So to minimize PMS symptoms to prevent cramps and discomforts before the period we want to be including, again, anti-inflammatory foods and nutrients, things like omegas we want to bring in minerals like magnesium and vitamin E, B vitamins, especially vitamin B6, which are all very natural painkillers and reducing cramping in the body as well.
In this phase, we can focus on maybe animal-based proteins if you eat them or protein-rich foods B, vitamin-rich foods, starchy vegetables, fruits, healthy grains, these types of things. And we want to bring in more calcium and magnesium at this time, because of course, we want to reduce any pre-menstrual discomforts, things like leafy greens, chia seed, avocado, things like banana, and finally some grains that are going be very supportive for reducing water retention in the body.
So things like quinoa and buckwheat, they're high in fiber, they keep the bowels eliminating the estrogen properly, as well as they're great for just bringing down water retention, as well as bringing in things like roasted or baked root vegetables to help with that, again, flushing of estrogen from your system and reducing water retention.
This is how to eat and how to use nutrition as a bio-hack through the four phases of your menstrual cycle.
How to optimize your exercise
Let's get into the second biohack, which is an exercise based on our infradian rhythm. So again, men have the circadian rhythm for their hormones and hormonal patterns, we have a secondary rhythm beyond the circadian rhythm, called the infradian rhythm and this is our 28 Day or 28 Day ish cycle, and the different phases that we go through based on this infradian rhythm, our metabolism, and our resting cortisol levels change again through the different phases of our menstrual cycle.
How to optimize your exercise - Menstrual phase
In the first phase of our menstrual cycle. menstruating women have an easier time burning fat and gaining lean muscle because of their hormone profile at that time. So our hormones are at the lowest concentration, we're actually in a more fat-burning state at that time, and we can build lean muscle. That's not to say that we should be doing strong intense hit workouts at that time. But just knowing that we have the capacity to build muscle at that time, we can use that to our advantage, as well as as we move especially from menstrual into follicular.
We have an excellent time building strength and energy and physical stamina at that time as well. This right there really makes the first half of our cycle the best time for things like high-intensity workouts. However, in different phases towards the second phase of our menstrual cycle, our ovulatory and luteal phases can actually have more harm than good in these high-intensity training sessions. Because we're increasing cortisol in the body when we do high-intensity training. And cortisol and progesterone are opposite hormones in the body.
We love progesterone, it is this delicious, juicy, calming, vibrant hormone that, of course, builds the possibility of pregnancy in the body, but also keeps our mood really vibrant our immune system well, and so many other things. So cortisol and progesterone that when cortisol goes up, progesterone production goes down.
Basically, for our body to produce cortisol, it steals the raw nutrients that progesterone would need for its production and our human body. Our woman's body is so intelligent, our brain will tell our body that if stress levels are high, meaning cortisol is high, our body will say we need to focus on the fight or flight response in the body and keep cortisol high, shut down the body's reproductive hormones, we don't need it that's not essential for survival. We got to produce this cortisol, the stress hormone to put our body into fight or flight to save ourselves from the stressful situation. And we're going to put reproductive sex hormones to the side.
It's not essential for our survival but stress hormones are. We don't want to be doing things that really stimulate a lot of cortisol because it's going to shut down that progesterone. A lot of women struggle with infertility or miscarriages and things like that. It's too high of cortisol that's not allowing this progesterone to keep itself in check to maintain the pregnancy and as well as so much premenstrual moodiness and fatigue those types of things as well. We want to make sure that we're following how we exercise through our menstrual cycle our menstrual phase, so menstrual phase, I personally will never see myself doing intense hearty workouts during my period. Everything in my body is saying a big no the idea of lifting heavy things while I'm bleeding feels awful to me. If it feels good to you, you can, I'm speaking for myself in my body and the wisdom that I feel within me.
The things that I love doing at that time is gentle yoga, gentle walking in nature, and things that feel gentle and light, I might go to the gym, and I might just walk on the treadmill and listen to a nice podcast or something. But I personally don't lift any weights at that time, I want all of my body's energy reserves to go to that release and my hormone production. And I have actually in the past, tried going to the gym on those days, and I thought I was gonna vomit and I was exhausted. And yeah, I just felt really depleted and dizzy as well, because we're losing a lot of iron. This is not to say that you shouldn't work out on your period, we should remain active. And we also want to honor that cycle. And that part of us that maybe wants more rest at that time.
How to optimize your exercise - Follicular phase
Okay, follicular phase. This is when I love to start hitting the gym again, a great time for building up strength as our hormone concentrations naturally build up again towards ovulation. It's a great time to gain muscle in this phase. So I really take my workout seriously. At that time, I start to build and lift, heavier weights, lower rep heavier weights, building up my stamina. So that feels really good to me in my follicular phase, then around ovulation.
How to optimize your exercise - Ovulation
Halfway between our period and our next period, I do my strongest workouts at this time. So if I'm going to do any sort of hit training, you know high intensity work, and strong cardio those types of things. I'm going to do that around ovulation.
So in ovulation, our hormone concentrations are highest as is our energy, and our physical strength. So we want to use that to our advantage and build as much strength as we can in that part of our cycle.
How to optimize your exercise - Luteal phase
Finally, how do we exercise in the luteal phase, we might want to start to slow it down again, especially towards the end of the luteal phase right at the beginning of luteal we still might have lots of energy, we're feeling good, keep on going with all your strength, however, to maybe a week before your period, or at least a few days before your period, you might naturally and intuitively feel in your body that, oh, my body's just asking me to slow down.
We might go for more walks, we might switch it up from you know, hit training and weight training to more Pilates or yoga asana or maybe even just switching up our weights. So maybe doing higher rep less weight, or do higher weight, less rep, whatever feels best in our body. But we can trust that that's a great time to just slow down, and stay active.
To honor our body on our cycle and know that we might not want to have as much intensity at that time. Before knowing and understanding my cycle every month. I didn't know what it was. But there'd be days at the gym where I'm like, I'm on top of the world like I'm lifting heavier than I ever have before. I feel so energized. I leave the gym feeling amazing. And then other days, I'm like, man, I feel like I'm going backward. Like last week, I lifted this much and today that bar is not moving.
The truth is that your strength changes throughout your cycle. And this is not a bad thing. What you can lift and ovulation is not often what you can lift in your luteal phase. And that's not something wrong. That's your body going through its natural cycles.
You have other advantages at that time in the luteal phase that we want to unlock and, unleash. Not worrying about lifting five pounds less during one phase or another. As women, you know, you can do anything at any time. And there are athletes that win the Olympics on their period and that is amazing. What I'm talking about here is less about extreme athletes and people that that's their entire lifestyle and hopefully, they have a women's health coach that can help mentor them through how to support their hormonal wellness throughout all of their athleticism. What we're talking about here is less about extreme sports and more about hormonal wellness and unlocking our hormonal advantage.
If you really love working out on your period or your luteal phase, that's fine, you may just want to find other ways to find balance in different aspects of your life. So if you're really feeling called to like hit the gym so so hard in your luteal phase, then okay, maybe we added a little bit more self-care during that phase to balance it out.
Self-care throughout your cycle
How do we self-care through the different phases of our cycle? The truth is, is that you are not the same every single week. Your self-care practices shouldn't be the same either. I shared this a couple of podcast episodes ago on your morning routine. So I'm going to link that one up here for you. If you haven't listened to it yet I share my morning routine and amazing series of habits that we can cultivate as part of our natural self-care practices and morning routine. And one thing in that episode that I shared with myself is that when it comes to my self-care, I have a masculine structure of these are the bones of my self-care practices. This is the structure of my morning routine, and I let my inner masculine you know, hold that part up of this is the consistency This is my self-discipline, this is my structure. And then I let my feminine flow and decide intuitively how I want to fill that structure.
So basically, let's say my morning routine practice or my self-care is that I do something for my mind, something for my body, something for my soul. That's my masculine structure. And then in each phase of my menstrual cycle, I check in and I listen to my body and I say, okay in my menstrual phase, today I feel like doing this for my body, or in this phase, I want to do this for my mind. So, masculine structure, feminine flow. This is how we want to roll.
The first half of our menstrual cycle is an inward focus so hormonally, psychologically, and biologically, we tend to be more inward as women in the first half of our cycle half of the time our self-care is Epsom salts and meditation, and saunas, and the other half our self-care gets to be play and pleasure and laughter and adventure and that's just as important as our bubble baths.
Self-care throughout your cycle - Menstrual phase
So how do we take care of ourselves self care practices through the four phases of our menstrual cycle, In the menstrual phase, the theme is nourishing we want to nourish our body, nourish our mind, and nourish our soul. So think of things that are going to be more calming, rejuvenating, nourishing, and connecting to our intuition. Something I love to do is meditation.
During this time, I feel very spiritually in tune at this time, so it's a great time for inward and reflective meditation. I love a hot water bottle on my belly that feels really cozy and nourishing. I love Epsom salt baths at this time, you know, working with essential oils like lavender essential oil, or if I do have a little bit of mild cramping, I'll use wintergreen or peppermint essential oils over my womb space and that feels really delicious. A tea that you can work with as well like I am a big fan.
Self-care throughout your cycle - Luteal phase
I'm in my luteal phase at the moment, I have a really nice cozy tea here with me on my desk. But you can work with this time and a nice warm tea uterine tonic. So red raspberry leaf tea is delicious for your uterus. Nettle tea is really great, it's very high in minerals. So it re-mineralizes the body and brings back all that iron and zinc that you are losing through blood loss. And these herbs are going to help to tonify the liver and balance your hormones to you know, create a new cycle after menstruation, menstruating self-care, things like journaling, you know, connecting to your intuition, maybe doing an Oracle Card Reading, calling forth for guidance from within tapping into your intuition listening to the voice of your soul. All of these tend to be very nourishing activities at this time.
Self-care throughout your cycle - Follicular phase
How do we self-care through our follicular phase, the theme is, energize. So things that are new and exciting build energy. Things like walking out nature, social self-care, right, going to a yoga class with a friend, or trying new things, you know, fun self-care activities, like going to a float tank, if you've always wanted to try that or even calming fun into activities like doing a pottery class or trying a cold plunge. Those kinds of things are really great self-care activities during the follicular phase in ovulation. The theme is pleasure.
Our self-care is literally pleasure at this time. This is one that I feel that we miss as women, we're really good at understanding oh, I need more self-care in terms of rest and, you know, time to myself and journaling and all this inward stuff and that's huge. Another part of our feminine self-care is pleasure and joy and laughter and oftentimes our moodiness and premenstrual stuff that comes up for us where we feel really low and disconnected. It's often because, in our previous phases, we didn't connect to joy. We didn't connect to play and pleasure and adventure and social connection and all these things that give us lifeforce. And so by the time we get to the luteal phase, we feel depleted.
Self-care throughout your cycle - Ovulation
So during ovulation, what I would love for you is to do the things that really light you up, do things with friends do things that excite you this time, you know, you're naturally more magnetic and radiant and confident. This is a great time to do things like manifestation rituals or anything that connects you to your inner radiance, and more social self-care. Again, this is an outward phase. So going to a beach with a friend or meeting a friend at a cafe or often during this phase, we'll go to a sauna with a friend you know, something like that. It feels really nice.
Self-care throughout your cycle - Luteal phase
How do we self-care in the luteal phase, the theme is soothe. During this phase, we really want to focus on stress reduction. Again, cortisol, a stress hormone versus progesterone, a sex hormone, work in competition with each other. So naturally, our stress levels our cortisol levels will want to rise at this phase, especially when we're doing too much, which often our body's asking us to slow down to take it easy. And often as women we don't maybe we haven't learned this yet, or we haven't made it a priority in our lives yet.
So naturally, we want this phase to be about stress reduction, to reduce that cortisol, that progesterone this delicious, juicy hormone that keeps our mood balanced and prevents all these PMS symptoms can really work her magic. We love progesterone.
I know for myself that in this luteal phase I really only get grumpy or moody or kind of down when I know that I'm not resting enough. And I know that I'm taking on too much and doing too much and being more in my fierce independence, I can do it all myself, you know, that kind of vibe versus my self-care in my luteal phase is asking my partner, hey, can you do this for me and leaning into sometimes like the vulnerability of letting someone take care of you, as women, sometimes we're not very good at that. I know for me as a woman that for so many years rejected my femininity and said anything a man can do, I can do better and I can do it by myself and living fiercely independent and depleting myself for it and ultimately feeling resentful, and then guilty for feeling resentful. All of these things.
Self-care in the luteal phase is saying like, hey, babe, can you change the water? I would love to receive your love and support like that, or, hey, I would love for you to plan today's date for us, you know, and allowing us to be supported. That's the magic of self-care in the luteal phase how can I be supported? How can I not stay in the hustle, not stay in the grind, not stay in the push, the goal, the achievement and lean back and say I know that life loves me, I know that I'm worthy of love and support and care, how can I be open to receiving that? So that's the magic of the luteal phase, I love this phase, almost always, I'm going to treat myself to some sort of bodywork or self-massage, going for acupuncture treatment or getting some body work done. All of these are really great and always in this phase, because we want to really minimize estrogen from building up to high in the system, causing a lot of the premenstrual symptoms. We want to do things that support our body's detox pathways.
I'm always focusing on things like dry brushing for lymphatic drainage and self-massage for circulatory drainage and sauna, especially for detox pathway support. The fourth area is work, how to optimize work to live in our Femme Flow, our brain changes up to 25 freakin percent throughout the four phases of our menstrual cycle. I think that is so cool and so undeniable that what we need through different phases of our cycle naturally changes, what our strengths are through the different phases of our menstrual cycle naturally changes, and how we optimize the menstrual phase for work.
This phase is where the center of our brain associated with evaluation and intuition, is most active. So this phase, the left and right hemispheres of our brain are in greatest communication during my menstrual phase, I'm usually focusing on things that are detail-oriented things which requires a balance of my left logical brain, with my right brain of creativity and flow and that more feminine side. So it's a great time to like plant seeds of intention to evaluate how we really feel about situations in our work, like, is this job really for me? Or how can I do things in a different way that feels more nourishing in this position? How can we make this more productive in a way that feels better? How can I, you know, communicate this in a better way? So we're not necessarily taking action on those things during that phase. But we're most clear, we're more honest about how we feel about a situation in that phase. And we want to use that to our advantage. Things that require our evaluation and intuition. That's a great time for that.
Biohacking our menstrual cycle with work and relationships
That preovulatory phase follicular phase, how do we apply this in work? Let's focus on creativity. So our creativity and the centers of our brain are associated with creativity and higher thinking and newness and innovation, those types of things are the most active follicular phase of all this right brain stuff, a perfect time to start new projects to get the momentum going. So it may be in the menstrual phase, you know, the idea came to you in follicular you start to take action, you start to flow with that creativity and bring that project to life.
Ovulatory phase during work, the centers of our brain are most active in our communication and our magnetism. So our confidence naturally skyrocketed at this time when we compare menstrual and obviously Tory, it's night and day in terms of our confidence, our radiance, our energy, use this to your advantage.
This is an excellent time to have hard conversations, to make a request in our work, like ask for a raise or take, you know, important meetings at that time. Or it's a great time for giving presentations or speeches because naturally, the communication centers of our brain are most active. It's a great time to do interviews if you're job searching or to do networking events, those types of things. We're just magnetic and communicative at that time.
I'll even share with you about this podcast. I follow my menstrual cycle. When I was creating this podcast and putting together all of that, of course, I started in menstrual, and through follicular I started recording the episodes of ovulation. I'm like, Wow, I love this. This is amazing. And in ovulation, I was thinking how many times a week should I do an episode you know should I do once every two weeks should I do once a week should I do once a day, and in ovulation? I was like I feel amazing. I'm on top of the world. I could do this all day. I'm so in my flow and went through ovulation and landed in the luteal phase you know a week later and I'm like, what am I doing?
I told a friend I'm like, I think I'm going to do three episodes a week. She's like, wow, that's a lot but if you feel it, you go, girl. And then in the luteal phase, I was like, Oh, right. This is why we don't make long-term commitments based on how we feel in the ovulatory phase because we don't feel that way all month round.
I was recording the last episode in my luteal phase. I took four takes, I can't remember which episode it was. But it was like four takes, I kept stumbling over my words. And like I was not in my communication flow at all. And it felt very stumbly. It's not that we can't do these things.
The truth is, you can do an interview, ask for a raise, review financial reports, can do all of these different things at any phase in your cycle. I know that when I want to live in deeper alignment with my menstrual cycle and unlock my hormonal advantage I know just when I'm going to be most primed to do that thing. If I have the luxury of adjusting my life and my daily activities and my work activities in alignment with that, of course, I'm going to work with what nature is naturally bringing forward for me. Again, we can do it at any time.
Let's say that I have to record a bunch of podcast episodes in my luteal phase. So for example, right now I'm in luteal writing out my notes for this episode. I'm like in my logical brain, and I'm really analytical and creating the structure for it. Absolutely. I noticed there was a part of me that was more resistant to recording, I have to record a little bit earlier because I'm going to Canada super early tomorrow morning. I'm doubling up this week. So that my amazing assistant, can go ahead and get everything scheduled for us. But yeah, sometimes we're going to record or do work activities at times that are maybe not so aligned with our hormonal advantage. But what this means is that, okay, today, I'm recording this episode, it's all good and fine, it's going to be a great episode. And I'm not going to do any social events. For the rest of today, I'm not going to be going to the gym after this and working hard.
I'm going to record, I'm going to have a nice dinner with my partner at home. And then I'm going to go have an Epsom salt bath and that's going to be my flow. So I know how to then rebalance myself even though there is a bit more output a few days before my period. For example, with recording this final area that we're going to get into is how to optimize relationships and social life in alignment with your menstrual cycle.
We can apply this in our friendships or social life, in our relationships. Or if you're in the dating world, we can apply this knowledge there as well. So relationships in the menstrual phase. This is an inward phase, the inward phase of our cycle is menstrual bleeding days, and the luteal pre-menstrual days are outward phases, follicular, and ovulatory. So it's really great to know this in our menstrual phase, we want to have more time inward. So time to really nourish ourselves, we want to have with our partner the dates that we want to go on, and we want to have a romantic cozy dinner at home by candlelight, that is the menstrual phase date. We don't necessarily want to go to new places and try new things and be around a lot of people maybe we feel more sensitive at that time and just more inward. It's like nesting, right?
Just like in pregnancy, our menstrual phase has this very nesting energy to it, where we kind of wants to just stick to usual things. My partner and I, you know, sometimes we'll plan dates for each other. And I really love when he plans dates for us when I'm in the menstrual and luteal phase. I love feeling supported in that way and I don't have to think about everything and do everything. Whereas the ovulatory and follicular phases, I love doing those things and planning and creating and scheduling things. I know that the dates that we go on feel really cozy and inward. It's just the two of us and not social with a lot of people I feel so much more nourished by those than if he plans a date at a new place that we've never been on a menu I've never seen and I don't know how you feel about it.
When we go on dates like that in follicular, it's like wow, this is new and exciting. And I love this. So when we understand the power of our menstrual cycle and how we feel in these four phases, our relationships skyrocket. We're no longer unfulfilled and frustrated. Like we don't understand why is it that last week I wanted to go to this new place with you. And now that we're going on it in my luteal phase, I'm like, I don't want to go anywhere new. I just want to do what's easy and simple and all of these things so our intimacy up levels and our relationships and our capacity to feel connected and our friendships become richer simply because we're listening to and attuned to the feminine nature within us menstrual cycle cozy and familiar. These are the plans romantic dinner at home.
A friend of mine and we have a concept that we've coined called full cycle friends, which is the people and the sisters that you can be around at any phase in your cycle and everything's good. There are people in my life that you know, their follicular phase ENs and Avi literary friends where I love being around them at those times. But I know that when I'm with them in my luteal phase when I'm feeling maybe a little bit more inward and tender, I'm like, I leave the interaction feeling exhausted or depleted.
Whereas in follicular ovulatory it's so fun to be with them and adventurous and exciting and I want to hear all about them and I want to share a lot. But my friend and I, came up with full-cycle friends, which is the sisters, you know, that you can be with on your bleed and just chill out on the couch with a tea and not need to say much or just do something side by side. And these are the kinds of friends that we want to have around, full cycle friends, let's get into the follicular phase. So the theme for our follicular phase is fun, right, we are naturally more outward at this time. So we're programmed to want to do new things at this time.
Things with novelty, new things with friends, new places that you go on dates, you know, try a new class together go out on a date somewhere new and exciting. Our sex drive naturally builds at this time as well. That's a whole other episode or conversation but our libido our sex drive goes through all these different things. And there can be moments in your sex life where things feel really fulfilling and really juicy and delicious, and you're feeling really connected. Then it's like other times, it's like that wasn't so good.
Often it's related to our hormones and understanding what our sexual needs are, through the different phases as well to make our intimate life really delicious. That's the follicular phase, the ovulatory phase, this is going to be an outward face as well. So things like going on dates, if we're maybe looking for a partner, and we're just exploring and going on dates. It's a great time for that because we're more extroverted things like social events or big gatherings, things with a lot of people, this is a great time for that.
As women, we tend to be our most radiant and juiciest selves at that time. So it's a great time for double dates, you know, or big parties and events. It's funny like we can if we don't know this, then we think why is it that there are some times I love being around people and other times I'm just like, so depleted and I can't wait to get out of there. There's nothing wrong with you. You're just in your luteal phase and empowering ourselves with this knowledge makes everything make so much more sense for us. Follow the cozier things, it's nesting vibes. Bring in some romance and tenderness, nurture your inner femininity, connect with friends more one on one than in groups do self-care with friends like always go to a sauna with a friend during that time. Due dates that feel cozier and less social. So very similar to the menstrual phase vibe.
We did it we made it through the cycles thinking 101 These were the five different areas to optimize by living in your fun flow. We talked about nutrition, movement, work, and self-care relationships in each phase of your cycle and if you loved this episode, and you got a lot out of it, you enjoy living at your peak and all of this excites you we go so much deeper into this in two in terms of our female biohacking and lifestyle optimization and nutrition through your cycle feminine embodiment, and so much more inside of my new program called Femme Flow.
How you can support yourself with Femme Flow
Femme Flow is a six-week menstrual and hormonal wellness and lifestyle optimization portal for women to reconnect to their natural feminine essence. Learn your cycles and flow so that you can optimize your house and hormones you can reduce period discomforts feel more radiant in your body, more vibrant in your mind, more confident in yourself, more magnetic in your work, and turned on, and intimacy more connected in your relationships. By unlocking the power and hormonal advantage behind your menstrual cycle in Femme Flow you will be in close proximity and mentorship with me to reconnect to your feminine essence and cycle to optimize truly every area of your life.
We start on May 4th, there are limited spots available and I'm calling in the most empowered women that know the importance of this and are feeling this deep call from within to lean into this knowledge and to support and love and nourish yourself at the deepest levels. So you can learn more and apply over at my website bindistables.com/femme-flow or send me a DM on Instagram @bindistables to learn more. So that is all for today. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you back for another episode real soon. Take care.