Tracking our cycles!

Hi there,

I want to start with a very important topic: how are your periods? It's crucial to understand and track our menstrual cycles to know where we stand. When I began my journey, I had to relearn everything about the menstrual cycle and what it entails. I realized I didn’t even know what a healthy period looked like—something I was never taught. I didn’t know there could be healthy and unhealthy periods.

This realization was a relief because I had been told that what I was experiencing was normal, that it is normal to suffer during periods. However, I learned that I had other solutions than taking ibuprofen to go through my pain each and every month. There are solutions to improve my experience of my period.

What an empowering discovery! I didn’t need to wait for doctors to catch up or find one who specialized in menstrual health (still quite difficult to find in 2024)—I could begin the journey myself.

To help you do the same, I’ve compiled advice from some amazing books for you: Seeing Red by Kirsten Karchmer, Fix Your Period by Nicole Jardim, and You Can Have a Better Period by Le'Nise Brothers (which even inspired the title of this message!). These resources will help you understand your cycle and use it as an indicator of your overall health.

Your period is a vital sign, just as important as heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and body temperature. Sadly, it’s often overlooked by medical practitioners.

Let's take a look at what a healthy period actually looks like.

First, it’s important to distinguish between the menstrual cycle and your period. The menstrual cycle refers to the entire 25–35 cycle, during which you go through four phases (simplified below):

Menstruation: Your cycle begins with your period during the menstruation phase. This lasts 3 to 7 days and involves the shedding of your uterine lining.

Follicular Phase: During this phase, an egg matures in preparation for ovulation. You may feel an energy boost during this phase as hormones are secreted, similar to the way nature reawakens in spring.

Ovulatory Phase: The dominant egg moves from the ovaries to the uterus via the fallopian tubes. The endometrium thickens in preparation for a possible pregnancy.

Luteal Phase (11–17 days): After ovulation, hormone levels decline. If the egg is not fertilized, it is absorbed by the endometrium, which will shed again during the next menstruation.

As cyclic humans, we can harness our menstrual cycle to ease our lives, take care of ourselves or use the right energy at the right time to create or build. We will dive into this exciting topic in another post.

Now, back to the original question: what is a healthy period? What does this unicorn look like? 🦄

Mental health and mood: During a healthy period, your mental state remains stable. You shouldn’t feel depressed or drastically different before, during, or after your period.

Cycle length: A normal cycle lasts between 25 to 35 days, with 28 days being average but not mandatory. Track your cycle to understand your normal range.

Blood color: Healthy period blood ranges from bright red to deep crimson. If you notice orange or gray blood, it may indicate an infection, and you should consult your doctor.

Blood thickness: Healthy blood should be fluid with minimal clotting, though small clots are normal.

Flow: On average, a period lasts 3 to 4 days, with a total blood loss of 30–80 ml. You can estimate this using the capacity of your menstrual products.

Some ballparks to help you evaluate your blood:

-              A regular pad or tampon holds around 5ml of blood

-              A menstrual cup is 15ml

-              A menstrual panty can hold between 30 to 50ml depending on the brand

Pain: You should experience little to no pain. You might feel light cramps or mild fatigue, but nothing should be life-disruptive.

A truly healthy period is one you barely notice. Isn’t that amazing? And even better, it’s achievable for many of us.

It's not because you always suffered from your period that the only option for you is to copy/paste the past into your future. I always suffered and I thought it was what life had in stock for me. But this is not true, we can be in the driver’s seat even with our own health.

Tracking our cycles:

What does that mean exactly?

Basically, write everything about what your lifestyle inside and outside the menstruation phase. When you are feeling tired, depressed for no reason when you experience pain such as headache, cramps, being clumsy, the color of your blood, the thickness, how much you bleed, cycle length, period length, how much of blood do you lose. Get into the details.

In parallel, you can also start tracking what you eat, quantities of what you drink (water, sugary drinks, alcohol), the refined sugar and wheat intake, how you poop (I know! Who wants to think about that! 😝), how do you sleep (do you wake up at night? Do you sleep through the night?), stress level…etc.

This knowledge gives you power when you talk with your doctor about the issues you are having and can help you being diagnosed faster.

We are holistic beings, and everything in our lives can impact our menstrual health. If you experience significant pain or disruptive periods, it’s a sign that your body is telling you something and you need to listen.

This is what I did, and it’s a journey I started a few years ago. I am still on this journey with you!

But today, I feel a deeper connection with my body.

While I am paying more and more attention to my body’s needs. While I am learning how to nurture it, I start to stop being in conflict with my body all the time and be grateful for this wonderful vehicle.

Understanding our periods is also about honoring our bodies and gathering the tools to take better care of them.

I got to the PMS and pain-free period, folks! After 25 years of debilitating pain every month!

I had unnoticeable periods for 6-8 months! Then I had a major change in my life that disturbed a bit my body and mind balance as I moved back to my home country with my whole family! But now, I understand what influences my PMS, migraines, and cramps, and I can act on it.

If you’d like to know more about how to improve your period experience, feel free to DM me or email me to sign up for the workshop I’m organizing in a month.

Happy tracking! 💖