How to take control of your cycle and why it will change your life.
POV: You’re a person who menstruates, you’ve downloaded the latest menstrual tracking app (Flo/Glow/Clue) and you’ve logged your period start date. Maybe you track your period end date, maybe you don’t. The app auto-populates your ovulation date at day 14 but you’re not confident that this is entirely accurate. You’re well aware that there are other features to this app that you can use, but you’re not sure how to do so or what to do with the information you get in return, so you ignore it. All is well but you feel like an outsider in your own body most days out of the month. You wish your cycle would let you in on what symptoms to expect and when. Instead, you’re left in the dark trying to play catch-up, dealing with the PMS blows once you’ve been hit. You spend the bad days wishing you had more control over your body, your well-being, your menstrual health but instead, it is your cycle exerting control.
Does this sound familiar to you?
You’re an educated, resourceful, badass menstruator who has the potential to achieve anything you set your mind to. Unfortunately, you’re just ill-informed about the ins and outs of the menstrual cycle because the healthcare and education system didn’t adequately prepare you for it. If you’ve been cycling for a while, you probably treat menstruation like an insignificant chore you just have to deal with every month. But that’s the piece that often gets looked over, the fact that you’re dealing with it EVERY MONTH. Every month between the average years of 13-50. Thats about 444 periods in a lifetime, and if each period lasts about a week, that’s 8.5 years of bleeding. If you experience PMS a week or so before your flow, that’s 17 years dealing with unhappy symptoms. Let that sink in, and ask yourself if we’re so ill-informed about the menstrual cycle, why aren’t we doing something about it?
Welcome to cycle tracking 101
A class for the badass menstruators who want to take control of their cycle and feel their best every single day of the month.
The most valuable lesson: tracking your period and tracking your cycle are not mutually exclusive.
Tracking your period start and end dates are essential components of tracking your cycle. Kudos to you if you’re doing this already, you’re most definitely on the right path but you’re only scratching the surface of your cycle controlling potential. Try tracking the following cycle characteristics using your trusted app to help you unlock a deeper understanding of your cycle.
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Tracking cyclical changes in discharge texture, colour and quality can help clarify which phase of the cycle you're in. for instance This is especially helpful for identifying that ovulatory cervical mucous, aka the stretchy egg white discharge that is fertility magic. You can learn harness this information and use it to aid family planning decisions (conception or contraception). Note that healthy cervical mucous can also range from thin clear and watery to white thick and cloudy with little odour. Discharge of concern may be grey or cheese-curd like in appearance and present with accompanying itching, burning or foul smell.
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Keeping tabs on the colour of flow and amount of blood each cycle is important. It is healthy to have a variation of crimson red flow on your heaviest days and light pink or dark brown at the start and/or end of flow with some small clots. It is important to understand that losing more than 80mL of blood per period (6-8 fully saturated super tampons, 6-8 fully saturated heavy flow pads, three full 30mL Diva cups) can put you at risk for iron deficiency.
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Keep tabs on monthly cramping and clotting. It is important to track when cramping and clotting starts/stops in a cycle, how large the clots are and if the cramping is unusual for you. Mild and brief episodes of cramping at the onset of flow that can be relieved by over the counter pain medication is not of concern. If cramping is severe, unrelieved by pain medication, extends to days outside of flow, and/or accompanied by large clots, it would be beneficial to visit a healthcare professional (MD/ND). If you've been experiencing severe cramps since your flow started, this is your body's way of telling you inflammation is present.
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Spotting outside of the bleeding cycle may be physiological if it happens around ovulation. When an egg is released from the body, it is accompanied by a little bit of blood which can show up while wiping mid-cycle. Spotting becomes irregular when it’s the result of low progesterone, infection or even thyroid complications or if you’ve been in menopause for over one year. Make note of any spotting in your cycle and notify your healthcare team.
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PMS symptoms are physical and mood changes that surface about 5 days before flow and resolve around day 3. This can include things like breast tenderness, bloating, low energy, water retention, stool changes, mood swings, irritability, and more. These symptoms are important clinically because when they are persistent/severe they can significantly affect your quality of life. When these symptoms are entirely absent this may indicate that you aren’t ovulating.
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It's important to track your positive symptoms too! This looks like happy mood, high energy levels, regular bowel movements, being sharp/focused and more. It's important to know that you're having good days in your cycle and when they reliably show up from a PMS/PMDD treatment perspective.
Got it, but why do I care again?
I’m glad you asked. Tracking your cycle can help you become an expert at understanding how each stage of your cycle will affect you. With this new skill, you’ll be able to predict how, why and when you may be feeling some type of way in your cycle. Most importantly, you can be two steps ahead of your physical/mental cycle-related symptoms and plan your month accordingly. For example, you can build on predicted high-energy days and increase productivity in this window of time, you can account for periods of low mood and shift your focus for the week towards self care, you can predict when fatigue will set in and plan a kick-ass low impact exercise routine to avoid burning out, you’ll be able to tell when something is off and book a doctors appointment to investigate why. Most importantly, you will be IN CONTROL of your cycle, not the other way around.
How to get started.
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Here are a few apps I would recommend: Flo, Clue, and Glow. They are quite comprehensive. Some features of an app that you want to have access to in order to make sure you are able to cycle track with ease are: a notes section for specific calendar days to track positive/negative symptoms, PMS tracking daily click buttons, cervical mucous tracking capability, and push notifications to remind you of important cycle events.
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If you have been using a different app or tracking your period using pen and paper on a calendar, you’re going to want to input some applicable past cycle tracking information. If you have tracked your period in the past, it would be a good idea to add at least three (ideally six) months of past cycle start dates data to the app. These smart apps learn more about you and your cycle from the information you share. Therefore, the more data you can input, the more the service will be tailored to you and your unique cycle.
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Any new habit can be difficult to adopt, especially at the beginning of the journey. Set a daily alarm or reminder on your phone to track your symptoms for the day. It would be best to set this reminder at the end of the day when you have some time to reflect and make note of any significant symptoms for that day.
