Why Crafting your life is more important for women

and why men should read this too

Have you every heard about Cycle Syncing? I hadn’t, until a friend told me about it this week and I started to read into it. Cycle Syncing is helping women to live according to their menstrual cycle. As some of my readers know I have been living with the phases of my period since I got to understand the nature of a female cycle. This 28-day period that every woman goes through, but nobody tells you about when you are a teenager and find yourself lost in the adventures of having your first periods. I didn’t even know about the different phases of my cycle until I was 35.

The subject on having a cycle reappeared in my life last month. I didn’t have a period for over a year. Because of my endometriosis (and the pain that comes with it) I was using birth control pills. I had always been against them, but last year I just couldn’t stand the pain anymore and I decided to try it out. Not having a period, not being in pain, not feeling a patient was a blast, but in the end I was done taking hormones every day.

That’s why I decided to get back to my natural female cycle a couple of weeks ago. I had had such an easy life with the hormones that living without them caught me off track. But it also made me realise again that this is the nature of our female cycle. Women are different than men in lots of ways, especially because of their hormone patterns.

Men's hormone patterns follow a 24-hour circadian clock and women’s follow a 28-day infradian clock. This little known biological rhythm, unique to women in their reproductive years, affects your brain, metabolism, stress, immune system, fertility, libido and more. However, most research is done on men, and women are left trying things that do not support our system.

Source: https://www.cycle-syncing.com/

Let’s talk about our cycle (or maybe not?)

In our society it isn’t really accepted to talk about your female cycles. Or allow yourself to take some days off when you are menstruating. Even women don’t really talk about it. We talk about menstruating, but we tend to forget the rest of our cycle. But there is so much more to this subject than we think.

You can compare your cycle with the seasons. Every month you start with your winter period (when you are menstruating), followed of course by spring, summer and autumn. When you start to work with this, you start to feel in what part of your cycle you are. You feel in summer mood when you are ovulating and are happy to go out with friends, give work presentations and feel strong and joyful. In autumn you can feel the need to end projects, wrap up loose ends and you can feel more tired.

Because of this, it isn’t normal for women to follow the same schedules as men. When you feel different every week, you can’t do the same things every week. You need to create a different schedule according to what your body is asking from you. There are weeks when you are ready to roll and do a lot of work in one week and there are other weeks when you just feel tired and can’t get yourself moving. This is natural, but we don’t see it as normal anymore.

We are in this together

So women need to understand what women need. And men need to know this as well. I know a lot of women who have been on birth control pills for long parts of their lives. Just because it is convenient. But it is unhealthy and we need to go back to our own nature. To see that a female cycle is part of nature and that we should live according to this.

I love it when I see articles about workplaces where women are allowed to stay at home when they are menstruating. This period is an important time to rest and move into a deeper conversation with yourself. In tribes and ancient communities women were celebrated when they menstruated. They were cared for and fed. They had a separate place to stay for a couple of days to rest and relax. Nowadays women need to do the same things as they do all the other days of the month.

And that is okay when you don’t feel the side effects of your period. But when you do feel those effects, it is vital to take the time to step out of society and do what you need to fill yourself up.

I would love to hear your stories on this subject. When you’re a woman working with this, or never have had a thought about it, or when you are a man and are able to work with the cycles of your partner or co-workers.

With love, Irene