11 How to harness your cycle, Le'Nise Brothers

Le’Nise Brothers is a leading nutritionist & yoga teacher specialising in women’s health, hormones and the menstrual cycle. Le’Nise’s first book, You Can Have A Better Period, was released in March 2022 and she also hosts the Period Story podcast, breaking taboos around menstrual health, hormones, perimenopause, menopause and beyond. 

In today’s episode, Le’Nise shares her advice on working to the rhythms of your body and harnessing the power of the four stages of the menstrual cycle to benefit you both professionally and personally.

FF&M enables you to own your own PR & produces podcasts.
Recorded, edited & published by Juliet Fallowfield, 2024 Fallow, Field & Mason.  Email us at hello@fallowfieldmason.com or DM us on instagram @fallowfieldmason. 

MUSIC CREDIT Funk Game Loop by Kevin MacLeod.  Link &  Licence

Transcript

[00:00:00] We are now a few days into the new year and you are probably starting to kind of dread going back to work in some ways, but also really excited too. This episode features Linee Brothers who talks a lot about female health. 

She discusses everything from. Why our bodies love routine. They love rhythm

why we should understand our cycles. 'cause we are not taking advantage of natural peaks and troughs that happen in that wider cycle. Why you can't keep taking energetic withdrawals.

Why the girl boss mentality might not be good for us

and why every craving that you have there is a reason behind it. So keep listening to hear all of Lenise's wonderful advice about owning it as a female founder, and tune in tomorrow to hear Emily Austin and all things productivity. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Hi Lenise. Thank you so much for joining us. Startup today. It's great to have you on. It would be wonderful if you could just kick off with an introduction as to who you are and a bit about the business that you founded.

LeNise Brothers: My name's ESE Brothers and I am a nutritionist specializing in Women's Health Hormone [00:01:00] and the menstrual cycle, and I'm also the author of the book. You Can Have A Better Period, and this is actually a really interesting subject for me because being a founder. Myself, I have to practice a lot of what I preach.

So things that I talk about today, I actually do myself. It's really interesting being a founder because I've spent about 15 years working in advertising communications, and so. Having to switch gears and realize that the buck literally stops with me. Once I kind of got that, I then realized that actually, you know, if the buck does indeed stop with me, that means that I really have to take care of myself because if I get sick.

Then I can't work. And then if I'm not working, I'm not bringing in any income. 

Juliet Fallowfield: But you are completely right because there are so many hours in the day. We do need to sleep, we do need to eat, we do need to look after ourselves. And I [00:02:00] think in this day and age, there's so many elements of you must meditate, you must eat 30 different plants a week.

You must go and practice yoga. Like what is the baseline basically of self-care. When it comes looking after yourself. 

LeNise Brothers: So I think what's really important as a female founder to really understand that you need to work differently to a male founder. You can't work in this kind of 24 7 kind of hustle mindset because our bodies, they work differently.

We have a different sort of cycle. If you work like that, you are going to, you're gonna end up being burnt out and it means that you're not taking advantage of the natural peaks and troughs that happen across a wider cycle that is inherent to the way that our bodies operate. So that's the kinda very kind of basic that I really encourage any.[00:03:00] 

Any female founder, even. Even if you are on hormonal contraception, I really encourage you to just start to bring, bring that in. You won't be having a period, like a kind of natural period, but it is something to bring in because you're not necessarily gonna be on hormonal contraception forever. 

Juliet Fallowfield: And when you say burnout, do you have like a brief definition?

Because again, it's a trending topic and everyone's saying I'm so burnt out, but what really. Qualifies as burnout. 

LeNise Brothers: Yeah, so burnout is you wake up and you're exhausted by the end of it. You've been using sugar and caffeine to prop up your energy throughout the day, and by the end of the day you have this feeling of being.

Tired, but really wired because of all the different things that you've been doing to artificially prop up your energy. Then you get to, I think there are different stages of burnout. You know, you're, you get to a point where you just, [00:04:00] you don't feel the same passion. You feel like you should feel for your business because you have no energy.

Your weekends, you feel like you have to catch up. You have to catch up on sleep because you've just been like pushing and pushing and pushing. You go on holiday 'cause you think that will make you feel better, but you get sick straight away. And it's just, I use this analogy of a bank account. You can't keep taking energetic withdrawals.

You know you have to deposit because you're gonna go in into energetic overdraft. 

Juliet Fallowfield: That's a really good way of thinking about it. And what were things that people can do to sort of build that? Stall back up again. 

LeNise Brothers: Yeah, so I think you really need to, it's really important for you to respect, respect your body, and respect your energy and know that actually it's okay not to [00:05:00] work flat out 12 hours a day.

You need to give yourself breaks. You know, you we're out of the eighties, kind of Wall Street mindset, you know, lunches for wimps, that sort of thing. Take your lunch breaks, take breaks throughout the day. Because what you'll find is actually you might get some amazing ideas when you're just staring out the window or you are taking your dog for a walk, or you're taking yourself for a walk.

That's when your best ideas might come when you're away from your screen. 

Juliet Fallowfield: So Drew, but everyone says you never gonna walk. You go around for a walk around the block, you'll never, ever regret it. But it's that need of a screen, isn't it? That draws you back in and it's. It's laptop guilt, which a lot of people have talked about.

Yeah. Breaking that habit. And do you find women are particularly bad at this, or is it just the fact that we have a different cycle, that we need to be a bit more aware about 

LeNise Brothers: it? I think it's both. So women can be particularly bad at it, [00:06:00] especially if you're a mom, because there's that added layer of you only have a certain number of hours.

A day. And so you feel like you need to pack it all in and if you do take a break during the day, there's a little bit of a guilt, like, I actually should be working, but 

Juliet Fallowfield: there's always something else to do. Yeah, 

LeNise Brothers: yeah. And so there's this kind of, you know, girl boss kind of hustle mentality of like, I just need to be working.

But you, as I say, you, you find that when you take those breaks, you give your brain a bit of space and the best ideas come, or you just feel a little bit more revived, and then when you layer on the kind of. If you look at the menstrual cycle and how there are times in our menstrual cycle where we'll naturally have a lot of energy, so around the middle, around ovulation, that's kind of classically the peak of our energy, and this is where we can really [00:07:00] take advantage because that also correlates with changes in the way we kind of.

Relate to the work that we do, communication, socializing, versus when you have your period, that's a time where you are wanting to kind of dial it down a little bit, even if it's just by 1%, take it a bit slower, and you find that actually during that time. Again, the kind of work that you are attuned to is different.

So that's a time where you might be diving into things that are a little bit more analytical. So maybe this is a time where, and you know, just hear me out because this is kind of contradictory to what we hear in the culture. Like you're supposed to be in agony when you have your period. But like your brain is so functioning.

Juliet Fallowfield: But I've had some women run their best marathon times when they have their periods. 

LeNise Brothers: Yeah, exactly. I mean, when marathon inherently you have to pace yourself. It's not about going flat out. Yeah. You kind of [00:08:00] think about you the menstrual cycle as a way of. Pacing yourself in life. You know, you are in your period, you go slower.

That's a time where you are more analytical. You can actually, you're more insightful because you're willing to dig a little bit deeper versus when you're in your midway point around ovulation, that's where you have all this fizzy. Kind of very social energy. You wanna be out in the world. This is where if negotiation and communication is part of your job, you'll find that you can negotiate your best deals around this time.

Juliet Fallowfield: Is that 'cause you are buzzing and ovulating, therefore you're meant to be attracting a mate and procreating. Is that what you sort of your best self as it were? 

LeNise Brothers: Yeah, but classically it's your best self. You know, you're a estrogen, which is your feminizing hormone is at its peak. But you also have this peak of testosterone, which is connected with confidence, you know, better communication.

So this is [00:09:00] where when we understand our menstrual cycles, it can give us a real advantage at work. It doesn't always work. Sometimes you have to give a presentation when you have your period. But even, you know, you know that and you can pace yourself during when you have to do that. 'cause you know that, okay, actually I just need to take a little bit more time over this because maybe I'm a little bit more tired, but I can do this.

Juliet Fallowfield: That is fascinating. So if you had your own month end as it were, you could do mapping when you're gonna be doing your accounts mapping, when you're doing your business. In the world of a startup and starting a company, obviously you don't have that much control over your diary, and as much as I'd say my biggest failing is my diary management and overbooking it or accepting too many meetings, I try to bring in no meeting Monday, work from home Wednesday.

Free for all Friday, but trying to have like some rules and structure in place in my calendar, but that was just week by week, but I didn't think about it in terms of the cycle. Is there anything else around [00:10:00] that that female founders in particular should be aware of or any sort of other golden nuggets that you've unearthed in your research?

LeNise Brothers: Yeah, so if you kind of look at your calendar week by week, but if you take a a wider view and if you are looking at it across however many days your cycle is, so that might be. 28 days. For some other woman it might be 27, 20, 30, you know, whatever it is. If you kind of are able to say, okay, you know, maybe early on in my menstrual cycle when I have my period, this is where I can, I'm not gonna, if it's possible, I'm not gonna schedule any big meetings during this time.

But equally what I find is that around ovulation, 'cause you feel great. You start to kind pack your calendar 'cause you're like, oh yeah, I can do it. It's fine. And then you get like a couple weeks later and you're like, why? Why, why did I do this? Yeah. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah. [00:11:00] I had a colleague once on a Friday. She's like, I said, what?

What are you thinking about Hannah? And she's like, I'm wondering how Monday Hannah is gonna feel about Friday. Hannah leaving this. Not done. I think I'm gonna do it now. So Monday, Hannah's grateful. But it's the same thing. It's like with those weeks apart, you're like, who was this person that built my calendar?

Like, oh it was me. Great. Well done. It was when I was on a high. Yeah. I thought I could do it all. So just be really aware. So obviously tracking your period is super important. Yeah. Being aware of your cycle. 

LeNise Brothers: Yeah. Yeah. Just being really aware of your cycle. There's lots of different. Ways you can track it these days.

So you know, you can use, there's lots of apps. So Moody is a great, it's a great British startup. That's a great app to track your period, but then also look at everything beyond your period in the rest of the menstrual cycle. You can use your, I use an app watch to track mine. Uh, you can use the notes app in your phone.

You can use pen and paper. I think the main thing is that if you're not tracking. Just see how you can [00:12:00] build that in. Even if it's just when does your period start, when does it end? And then when are you ovulating? Like that's the kind of very basic that I would encourage anyone with a period to do. 

Juliet Fallowfield: And in terms of, as we said, time is the most precious resource when you're starting a company.

Are there other factors in terms of. Nutrition, sleep. Any other areas around that? Should you factor in more sleep around certain times of your cycle or, I know you said to go a bit slower or gonna give yourself a bit more bandwidth over the time when you have your period, but anything else that we should learn about the cycle?

LeNise Brothers: Yeah, I think really with it when it comes to sleep, you know, we sleep is the foundation of our health. Again, this is another thing that I see a lot, this idea of, okay, well I can just kind of skimp on sleep during the week and then I can catch up at the weekend. But really, our bodies, they love a routine, they love a rhythm they love.

They we're very [00:13:00] cyclical beings in lots of different aspects and. Sleep is one of the, one of the fundamentals. So just something like going to bed around the same time every evening and waking up around the same time. It honestly, it can, it feels like such a drag, but it makes such, such a difference because.

Your body. It is, it's such a tune to, okay, I know I'm gonna be going to bed around 10 30. It gives your brain the opportunity to wind down, which is so important as a founder because you literally could work every hour of the day. But you know, if you say to yourself, I'm gonna have these boundaries, and you know, boundaries are really important in lots of aspects of our lives, but when it comes to sleep, being really boundaried about.

That wind down time, screen time, and then the time that you actually go to sleep and the [00:14:00] time that you wake up. And then of course, then you layer in the cycle where there are gonna be times where you might need a bit more sleep. So during your period, you might feel like, oh, I actually, maybe I should go to bed a little bit earlier because I just feel quite tired.

I feel quite. Quite drained because having a period in night, what is actually happening physiologically is quite an energetic process. Hmm. So that time where we sleep is not only rebuilding our bodies, but it's also rebuilding our brains. You know, our brains go through this process. It's called glymphatic cleaning.

It's like our brain is washing. Itself overnight. Yeah. And 

Juliet Fallowfield: But it can only do it whilst you sleep. 

LeNise Brothers: Exactly. So sleep is such a fundamental, and I know everyone knows that, but I think really trying to implement that, it can make such a difference. Yeah. 

Juliet Fallowfield: One question I wanted to ask is, obviously as you said, the period itself is an energetic.[00:15:00] 

Release and it's your body's going through a change. Are there any tips that you could give female founders that could support 'em through that? Are there sort of directory recommendations or particular exercises that you would suggest that they incorporate during that time? 

LeNise Brothers: Yeah, so when you have your period, I think it's really important to think how are you supporting yourself through nutrition?

So really listening to. What your body is telling you that it wants. So when we have a period, we lose iron through that process. And iron is really important, not only for making blood and kind of rebuilding that lining, but also for energy. It's what I see a lot in female founders and other, my other female clients, is that there's this kind of push at the moment to veganism and vegetarianism, but then you layer on.

Eating on the go and just eating kind of maybe in an unplanned way, not getting enough iron that has a knock on [00:16:00] effect on energy. It has a knock on effect. Them periods, it can make them heavier. So just really looking at how much iron you are eating in your meals. So you might find that actually during your period, and I hear this a lot, you crave red meat.

There's a reason for that. The iron is a really, really easily absorbed in red meat. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Sadly, I don't crave spinach. Only is, yeah. Yeah. If only it was the same craving. It's like, oh, I really want a bar of spinach, not chocolate. 

LeNise Brothers: But if you are vegan or vegetarian, just try to be more planned about the types of iron that you include in your meals, especially around.

Period adding in vitamin C because that makes that plant-based form of iron easy to absorb in the body. And then also just making sure that you're doing things like eating foods with magnesium because they're thinking about. [00:17:00] Being a founder, female founder, and all the kind of stress, this kind of low line stress that we operate under when we're stressed, we just use so much magnesium.

Magnesium is like a, if you think about a car, it's like a spark plug in the body really, and it's. So important. 75% of us are deficient in magnesium and so, and then you add the stress. It's just you are just some similar, and I'm guilty of this, operate on like stress and adrenaline and it's a kind of driving factor.

But when you're feeling like that you're using, you're kind of have increased that levels of cortisol, which is our primary stress hormone. You're using a lot of magnesium, you're losing a lot of. Sodium, potassium, all of these minerals that are so important for lots of different processes in the body. So that's one of the reasons why during your period or before, you might crave chocolate [00:18:00] because dark chocolate specifically is a really good source of magnesium.

Juliet Fallowfield: Oh, I think you've just answered the question of my entire life. Okay. Amazing. I had no idea. So it's actually quite a good thing to have. 

LeNise Brothers: I mean, you know, in, not like huge amounts, but every craving that you have, there's a reason behind it. You know, we don't, the body is very smart, very clever, and it's those cravings are a sign for the body.

Like for example, if you have a lot of salt cravings, that could be a sign that. You need more sodium, you need more potassium because we use a lot of them when those minerals, when we're stressed. So eating something like a banana could be really interesting because that's a really good source of potassium.

Or drinking some coconut water, 'cause that's also a really good source of potassium. So yeah, just, but this is really kind of again, tuning into what's going on. Into your [00:19:00] body, because when you're running a business, you can be very externally focused. But this is just asking you to just take a moment and say, well, how am I feeling today?

What do I need? What's going on in my body? Because you know your health, it's such a cliche, but health is wealth, and if you're sick, you can't run your business properly. So really invest in yourself. That's 

Juliet Fallowfield: so funny 'cause we were talking about this season being all around health and wellness and for some reason I kept calling it wealth, health and wellness Wealth.

Yeah. It could have rolled into one and I was like, no, it's health and wellness. It had nothing to do with revenue. But actually you're right. If you don't look after yourself, the revenue's not gonna be coming. And we've talked about supporting yourself during when you are sort of planning and tracking your periods, but if you have external stress.

Put upon you, can that impact your hormones and your menstrual cycle as well? Can it do some damage? 

LeNise Brothers: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We have these different vital signs in our [00:20:00] body, so heart rate, breathing rate, temperature, our period and our menstrual cycle are another vital sign. They call it the fifth vital sign, and when you're under a lot of stress, the body then says, okay, well actually.

There's, it's not safe to have a period or ovulate in the way that it had been previously when everything was kind of, everything was copacetic, everything was fine. So stress can have a massive impact. And like the, there's different types of stress. There's having a lot of work and feeling the pressure, but there's also not eating enough.

And then that leading to nutritional deficiencies, exercising excessively. So just feeling like when you exercise, you have time to exercise. You just need to go flat out and do doing cardio all the time. That is another stressor on the body. And all of those different [00:21:00] stressors can have an impact on the period because the body just doesn't feel safe.

And that can change a period in it being shorter, longer, heavier, going missing. Lighter. So you know, knowing what your baseline is and then really being honest about the stress you're under and seeing if that's affecting your period in any way is really important. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Goodness, that's really, really interesting.

I mean, gender is such a big question right now, and we know from the Alison Rose review that there's, I think it's 250 billion missing from the UK economy because women are not encouraged to start businesses at the same rate as men. That's a lot of pressure as well. But should we highlight that female founders are indeed managing different stresses than say, male founders?

Is it something that we should be more sympathetic to, do you think in this startup world? 

LeNise Brothers: I think, you know, there's, there's two ways of looking at, there's an inherent disadvantage that [00:22:00] we do have where we might not be encouraged to start our own business, or we feel unable to start our own businesses because we feel like we're coming.

From the back foot. But then once you layer in what you know about your menstrual cycle, that can give you a real advantage because you know, you know that you need to work differently. You can't work in a 24 hour cycle. Like for example, with men, they have a 24 hour testosterone cycle. So the peaks in the morning, and then it starts to decline throughout the day.

So like if you're. Looking for investment and you're going to pitch to male, male VCs, schedule that meeting in the afternoon, not the morning. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Interesting. And given that most investors at VCs are still male, that is a very useful thing to find out. 

LeNise Brothers: Yeah. You definitely can play, play the game with this and not think of it as something that.

That is a [00:23:00] handicap. Think of it as something that can actually bring you a lot of power. Understanding yourself better, understanding how you can work better is really, is really powerful. And then. Applying those general insights into your work specifically, and then how you move your body, how you eat, how you rest is so powerful.

Juliet Fallowfield: So our previous podcast guest had a question for you, and it is. How do you narrow down the possibilities given in your line of work? There's so many things that you could do. How did you as a founder decide what to focus in on? 

LeNise Brothers: That's such a great question because you are right. There are so many things that you can do and don't feel like you have to do everything at once.

I'd say, yeah, with your business, you have your core capabilities, the reason you started your business, the thing that you want to do, or the product that you want to sell. Get that right and then [00:24:00] build because it is nice to have. Lots of different options and as a service based business, it's nice to know that there, I'm not relying on one income stream.

Juliet Fallowfield: You've diversified revenue portfolio, which lots of people tell me about. 

LeNise Brothers: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Yeah. Amazing. Thank you. And what question would you like to ask the next guest? 

LeNise Brothers: What is the biggest mistake that you've made and how has that mistake. Helped your business. What have you learned from that mistake?

Juliet Fallowfield: And is there anything else you'd like to add? 'cause I think, I mean, I've learned so much in half an hour, but I'm sure we could cover so much more, but is there anything else you'd particularly like to share? 

LeNise Brothers: Yeah, I would just say that understanding your body, understanding your menstrual cycle can give you a lot of power.

It can feel complicated, but it doesn't have to be, you know, just those basics of. When does your period start? When does it end? [00:25:00] And when you ovulate can is a, they're a really good starting point. And if you wanna learn more about all of this, you can pick up my book. You can have a better period, which goes through all of this in so much detail.

How to eat, how to move your body, how to reduce your stress, and yeah. It's a great resource. 

Juliet Fallowfield: Amazing. Well, thank you for doing all the research and writing it 'cause I'm sure it'll be a very useful tool to many and we'll link to it in the show notes, of course. But thank you so much to your time today.

It's been wonderful chatting to you. Thanks for having me. ​