Decoding Your Cycle & Hormones: A Must Listen

Today's episode is all about understanding the Hormonal Cycle. This is a must listen for anybody and everybody who is interested in health and wellness.

This season is all about the evolution of you, exploring growth, change and what it means to step into the next version of yourself. 

Cassie Davenport is a experienced and degree qualified naturopath and nutritionist, Cassie is passionate about co-creating achievable and sustainable solutions with her clients. Her approach involves combining the latest evidence based research with traditional herbal medicine methods and believes small changes can create a big impact.

The information shared in this episode is general in nature and is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not a substitute for personalised medical, nutritional or therapeutic advice. Cassie is not responsible for any actions taken based on the content of this episode. Always consult a qualified health professional before making changes to your health, diet or lifestyle. If you loved this episode, follow Cassie on Instagram HERE for more, and HERE to learn more about working with Cassie one-to-one.

https://www.instagram.com/cassiedavenport_in?igsh=a214YTY0aXVpZjNx

https://www.cassiedavenport.com.au/

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Period pain, while it may be common, it is definitely not normal. If walking is all you have capacity for during this time, that is what you lean into, and that is not failure that is so intuitive and knowing your body. And it's not that those things don't irritate you at other times during the month. It's just that you have capacity at the other times during the month to actually cope with it. What is really bothering you? Welcome to Kathy. I'm Kathy Damn, your host, Naturopath and Clean Christian. And this season is about the evolution of you. If you're missing the village, you're in the right place. Come and join out. Let's jump in to today's episode. We're talking all about hormones and cycle thinking. I don't think it's ever going to get old when I am in a session one-on-one with a client and I walk them through their cycle and what's actually happening in each month. And when they should be training harder and when they need to be pulling back, or making big emotional decisions, or when they should be scheduling the big presentations at work, or having difficult conversations compared to when that should not be scheduled in the month, or if they've got something tricky coming up when they should try and avoid it if possible. And I love seeing women's faces when the penny drops and they're like, ah. So if there is something in this episode that really resonates with you, please share it with me. Like I love getting feedback on educating women about their cycle. It's such an important part of what I do. It's an integral part of my business. And I love it. As women, especially as mums, we're often trying to operate at the same speed with the same capacity every single day of the month. We're expecting consistency from a body that is designed for rhythm. And the truth is, your energy and your emotional resilience, your motivation, your metabolism, even your stress tolerance, or I should say especially your stress tolerance, changes across your menstrual cycle. So today I'm going to talk you through the four phases of your cycle, what's happening hormonally, how it impacts your brain, body, nervous system, what's happening physically. And my big one that I like to educate people with in clinic is around cervical mucus changes and vaginal discharge because it can tell you so much about what's going on and what's happening in your body. We're going to touch on when to push in exercise and when to really knuckle down. And you can jump in and do some of those hit exercises and when to really pull back and not be doing those hit exercises. And interestingly, as I mentioned earlier, when you're better equipped to tackle big emotional conversations or big life decisions, and when it might be wiser to wait, because sometimes you don't have the capacity. So phase one or season one, I don't know if any of you have heard of Maisie Hill. She's written a book called Period Power. And I love her, she actually correlates the season of your menstrual cycle to the seasons of the weather. So I am going to borrow hers and use it as well through here. So phase one is your menstrual phase. It's when you're bleeding. One through to potentially day seven for some women. If you're bleeding more than seven days, I wouldn't say that that is particularly normal and we'd be losing a lot of iron in that instance. That's definitely something to come and see somebody about. So bleeding one to five days, some seven. If you're bleeding less, around four is ideal. If you're bleeding less than that, if you're bleeding only two to three days, we probably need to look into that as well. So too much is not great. Not enough is also not great. So we definitely need to look into that and do some investigations as to why that might possibly be happening. Your body is shedding the uterine lighting, that endometrial lining. It's the lowest point hormonally for you in the month. So Maisie refers to this as your internal winter. Energy is going to be low, nervous system is going to be craving safety and restoration and nourishment. Inflammation markers during this time are going to be high. I want you to think you're shedding the lining of an internal organ. So all of your inflammation markers throughout your body, all of those cytokines are going to be elevated. This is why we don't want to push in terms of exercise during this phase because you're going to be far more inflamed and far more likely to injure yourself. This is when we're pulling back. Your pain tolerance may be lowered in some women. And cognitively, you might feel a bit slower or even foggy. There's also a little bit of nuance to this as well. And when I'm talking to women about their training, some women might feel like that low, groggy, slower, wanting to wrap themselves up and not do anything can hibernate and see anyone. And that might be the first couple of days of their bleed or the first day of their bleed. And then they actually feel quite good. Knowing this information and then also layering it with how you know your body to behave. So if you're feeling really crappy for the full five days and we're really pulling back and nourishing you, just doing body weights, walking, whatever you have capacity for. If you're feeling really crappy for the first two to three days and then you're actually starting to feel really good again, jumping back into your exercise. Like you don't have to just lower it down because oh, I'm in my menstruating phase, and Cassie or insert anyone told me that I could only do these types of exercises. When you're feeling good, that's when you can start to jump back into doing things a little bit heavier. So what I would generally like people to avoid during this phase is long endurance sessions, hit exercises, any of your high-intensity stuff, max strength days are out as well. Like I said, you're going to be inflamed. You're more likely to be to tear, break, injure yourself. What are going to be great options is walking, gentle stretching, your yogas and your Pilates, your mobility work, definitely breath work during this phase, and nervous system regulation is going to be huge as well. These are all of the things that you can do that you can lean into. I also want to be really clear that avoiding max strength days doesn't mean avoiding weight training altogether. You can still weights train. It's just going to be what you reduce, whether you reduce your weight or if you're going to reduce the reps. So just pulling back ever so slightly during this time and really tuning into your body and seeing, seeing how you feel. Emotionally during this time, you're actually really intuitive. It's a great time for reflection, for journaling, for asking what's not working and having that real reflection time. How did I do last month? What did I do really well? When did I feel most loved? What really worked well for me? What do I want to carry forward for for the next month? What didn't work so well that I actually want to change or pull back on? And so it's a really great time for processing, for closure, figuring out what you actually want to carry forward with. And I guess the best part for women is that for better or for worse, this happens every month. So it's a really good body timing check-in for being like, okay, how am I going to reflect and what am I going to be pulling and moving forward with? So what we don't necessarily want to be doing is making any big external decisions, and we definitely don't want to be initiating any really difficult or hard conversations. This is your capacity is just diminished during this time. So as best we can, avoiding some of those bigger things. So that's while you've got your period. So that's your menstruation phase, generally day one through five. Some people might pull up to day seven, some people are slightly less at a day four. Obviously, from a physical change perspective, you're bleeding during this time. Your second phase is known as your follicular phase. It's generally day six to day 13, 14. This can alter for some women. So actually tracking it and adding it in for you can be really helpful. What is happening? Estrogens is starting to come online and starting to rise during this time. In your bleed phase, as I mentioned before as well, everything's going to be bottomed out. It's going to be your lowest point, estrogen, testosterone, progesterone is all going to be quite low during that phase. And it's really about that luteinizing hormone and your follicle stimulating hormone that are starting to come online during that bleed. And then in our second phase, in that follicular phase, that's when your estrogen starts to rise. Your brain becomes more dopamine sensitive during this time, your mood lifts, energy starts to return. This can happen earlier for some women. So that's why knowing this as sort of like a textbook, this is what happens during this phase, and then pairing that with what you know to be true in your body. Maisie calls this you've entered eternal spring. It's about curiosity, creativity, openness increases. You may feel motivated, social, lightheaded, willing to try new things from a physical perspective. Once your period has stopped, some women can have dry days where you don't have any discharge. But we tend to see stickier, creamier, white, or cloudy discharge start to come from a cervical mucus perspective or vaginal discharge that you wouldn't normally see. During this phase, in terms of exercise, this is your build phase. This is where we're going in on our strength training, we're learning new movement patterns. Pilates is a great one, interval training is great, cardio is really good. As everything comes online and as your estrogen clicks in, it's going to be really nice to start to really build up in terms of exercise and movement as much as you possibly can. You will tolerate stress better during this phase. So now is a great time from an emotional perspective for those reframing some of those thoughts, having some of those more productive, bigger conversations, setting boundaries. You're going to have greater capacity during this season. So setting boundaries and being able to adhere to them, starting new projects, revisiting emotional insights from your bleed phase. You're less reactive and more solution focused during this time. So this is your spring. Everyone starts to feel good in spring. Everything's fresh, new, revitalized. You're starting off again. Then we hit ovulation phase. So this is mid-cycle. All of the hormones start to surge and peak during this time. So estrogen is definitely peaking during this time. Most women will get a surge of testosterone during this time as well. You are feeling good. In terms of physical changes, cervical mucus will be wet, clear, very stretchy, almost like egg white consistency. You are in eternal summer. You are confident, you are ready to communicate, your resilience is at its highest during this time. Your pain tolerance increases, your reaction times improve, you are biologically more facing outward. So, in terms of exercise, this is your push phase. This is when you're jumping in with your hits. This is your max effort. This is when, if you think you can go heavier on your weights, try it, do it. This is when you want to attempt your PBs, if you're running or doing any swimming, anything like that. Group classes, lifting heavier, sprint work, performance-based goals. This is your season. This is your time. Emotionally initiating any big conversations, pitching ideas, having relationship check-ins, asking for support, negotiating, problem solving, this is your time. You are neurologically primed for connection and communication during this season. So this is it. This is when we're pushing and we're feeling really good. As I said as well, if you're looking at this from a fertility perspective, really tracking the cervical mucus during this time is going to be really important. That wet, clear, very stretchy. It's there to protect the sperm and help it move closer up to the egg. It's that egg white consistency that's slingshotting sperm so they don't have to swim as far up. It definitely has a purpose. So noticing those changes as well during your mid-cycle. Your mid-cycle won't last very long for a lot of women. It can really vary. Um, and particularly that ovulatory phase where you're actually fertile. For some women, it can be as short as 12 hours, for some women, it can be as long as 48 hours. It varies. So in this ovulatory mid-cycle phase, really being able to track some of those physical changes for you is going to be really important and give us a lot of information about what is actually happening for your body and how we can better support it as well. Then we're going into your luteal phase. Possibly a little bit yellowish in colour. It's your body's way of letting you know that's infertile mucus. It becomes an acts as a barrier towards your sperm. We're usually looking at around anywhere between day 16 to day 28. I'm working this over textbook cycle. Obviously, if you've got a slightly longer cycle, we would shift those days ever so slightly. But generally speaking, we don't want your luteal phase to be any less than 10. So this is a really important moment to track as well. So from when you ovulate, we want to have a minimum of 10 days before you actually get a period. Some women can be 14, it can bump up. It's usually not any longer than 14. If we're seeing a longer luteal phase, I dare say you probably haven't ovulated that month. So 10 days is good, 14 days is ideal, but in order to carry a healthy pregnancy, we want at least 10 days from ovulation to when you're getting your period. And I usually like to split the luteal phase into two as well, because hormones do come back online for those first five to seven days of that luteal phase, and then they go start to titrate down and go offline for that back half as well. So what you're going to notice is for the for the top half, progesterone is going to be rising, your basal body temperature increases, your metabolic rate increases slightly. You want you to think about this as your autumn, your eternal autumn. What is happening? Energy might start to feel like it's declining towards the end. So this is the last seven to five days before five to seven days rather before you get your period. Nervous system becomes slightly more sensitive, more perceptive, less tolerant to stress. Some people lose sleep or have sleep loss or have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. Blood sugar levels tend to dip and we tend to crave a little bit more carbohydrate, a little bit more sugar. Sleep is going to be actually really important during this phase. You may notice irritability, overwhelm, fatigue, some women experience, fluid retention, food cravings during this month. This is all in the realm of normal, and it's your body's way of giving us feedback. So this is not at all weakness, it's neurobiology. So finding out exactly what feedback your body is giving us during this season can be really helpful in terms of how we best support your body moving forward as well. In terms of exercise, as I said, I split this into two phases. So early luteal phase, I'm happy for everyone generally to continue what they're doing, maybe reducing intensity slightly, but continue your strength, continue your cardio, pull back on some of the hit exercises. But your estrogen, progesterone, testosterone tend to still be online for those first five to seven days. Once you've hit that luteal peak, everything starts to go offline. So that last five to seven days before you get your period, this is when it's time to hold back. This is when we're really focusing on our body weights, on our yoga, on our lighter weights, on our stretching, on our nervous system care, on our walking. If walking is all you have capacity for during this time, that is what you lean into. And that is not failure. That is so intuitive and knowing your body, lean in to that. In that late lutile phase, this is when things can start to feel really big. It's a really important insight. And I'll often say to women be really focused and know what is irritating you during this time, because that's when our irritability, our capacity is less, everything is happening. And it's not that those things don't irritate you at other times during the month. It's just that you have capacity at the other times during the month to actually cope with it. So you may not, because your capacity is reduced, your fuse is shorted, you might not respond to them proportionately during this phase. But it's really an important insight, I think, for a lot of women to know what is actually grinding your gears, that you you just have capacity to carry at other times of the month. What is really bothering you. So noticing, journaling, naming what is coming up, we're not going to be initiating conflict and we're going to be avoiding big decisions during this season. But as well during during this time is when I see from a physical perspective, a lot of women, even if they're having great times at other times, in other seasons, in terms of their bleed is really good, ovulation feels good. This is when a lot of symptoms tend to crop up for women in terms of cyclic headaches and not having trouble staying asleep and feeling really irritable and their mood changing in the lead up. And we definitely have labels and conditions that we can we can give this during the season. But for me, I like to gather it all as information because it's your body way, it's your body's way of giving us feedback of what is going on and where we actually need support. So while we probably name a lot of these things as normal, for me it's unpacking what is common and what we see women go through and we'll go women struggle with compared to what is actually considered normal. You shouldn't be feeling really awful the week before your period, and there is a lot of things that we can do to help support you during that phase. Like, yes, you might feel slightly irritable or slightly overwhelmed, but all of my women that uh are struggling with, you know, your PMDD and things like that. But that week before they get their period can be just be considered absolute hell week. It's awful. So really getting support and creating your healthcare team so they can carry you through that season better is going to be imperative. Some other common myth busters that we I would be looking at is during that first phase as well, when you are getting a period, that menstrual phase. Period pain again is a really common phenomenon. I see a lot of women say, Oh, I've just got pain, I've just got this and that. Period pain, while it may be common, it is definitely not normal. And it's something that I like to burst everyone's bubble with quite often in clinical practice. So really investigating what is going on, what's happening with that inflammation mark, what is causing, do you have a lot of clots, what what is happening there, and how we can actually better support you? Because a lot of the times we can drastically move that needle um to bring to lower the pain and to and to give you back quality of life during that season as well. So working with your cycle instead of against it doesn't mean doing less. It means doing things at the right time. The evolution of you isn't always about you becoming someone new. It's about understanding the rhythm of who you are. Your cycle is biological feedback. It's telling you where you're more equipped to train, have harder conversations, and when to pull back and when to nourish and include more rest and ask for more support. The version of you that can run a household and hold. Emotional space for your kids and co-parent well and build a business and remember that it's library day on Wednesday and News Day on Monday, but feels like she's absolutely losing her mind the week before her period is not wrong. It might just be that we need to put in place some more support around that lutile phase for you. So for the busy mums and the busy women like myself, if you're juggling all of the things and the kids and the co-parenting and the life admin, learning to read the signals so you can do things at the right time and stop fighting your body and start working with your body. If there is a friend or someone that you know or who you think would benefit from this conversation, please forward this episode. It helps me immensely get the message out there. If you have a topic that you would like me to talk about, again, head on over to my Instagram, slide on into my DMs. It's Cassie Davenport underscore naturopath. If this lands for you and you feel like you're in a tricky season or you would like some extra support with your untangling your hormones and figuring out what your body is throwing up as feedback, you don't have to figure it all out on your own. I offer one-on-one consultations. You're welcome to email me for a free discovery call to make sure that I am the right fit for you. Thank you so much for being here and being a part of this little community. And in case nobody has told you today, your cycle is not holding you back, it's trying to show you how to move forward. And your body was never meant to perform the same way every day of the month.