The basics of your cycle and hormone fluctuations | Ep. 31

#31. This episode is for you if you're new to learning about your cycle, your hormones, and how it all works. Bridget walks through the basics of:
- Normal cycle lengths, bleed lengths, and cycle length variations
- The four phases of the menstrual cycle
- Estrogen and progesterone: what they do and how they shift
- Why ovulation is the most important event in the cycle

If you've been here before and are more savvy on how your hormones fluctuate, this episode can still be a great refresher for you.

Referenced episodes for a deeper dive:
2. Getting Familiar with Cycle Syncing
7. Estrogen & Why It's Critical for Your Cyclical Health
8. Progesterone: the hormone you don't want to miss
9. GnRH, FSH, LH - Hormones that Help Us Ovulate
10. Testosterone: A hormone essential for your cycle too
11. Part 1: Common Symptoms of Hormone Imbalance
12. Part 2: Common Symptoms of Hormone Imbalance
27. Cervical mucus: why, when, how much, and who cares

Referenced freebie:
Cycle Syncing Guidelines (Downloadable)

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Chapters

• 0:05 Understanding Women's Hormone Health Phases
• 15:56 Support the Podcast and Community

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to I'm Hormonal, your source of information about women's hormone health and how to support your body. Naturally, I'm your host, bridget Walton, and I'm a certified functional hormone specialist and menstrual cycle coach. I am on a mission to hold these hormone conversations with as many menstruators as possible, because you deserve easier access to accurate information about what's up with your unruly menstrual cycle and with your fertility mysteries. Don't you think it's time that we figure this out once and for all? On today's show, we are going to be going back to the basics, baby. We're going to be talking about what is our menstrual cycle as far as what hormones are involved. How do they change throughout the cycle. We will talk about what are the four distinct phases that we journey through during the month. We'll talk about why ovulation is the key and central event for our cycle, and we'll take it from there. So if you're somebody who's just getting into this topic of learning how to understand what's going on in your body, then this will be perfect for you. Also, if you're somebody who maybe has listened to the podcast before and you've heard me talk about this before, it could be a good refresher, a good reminder. This will be a relatively short episode today. So a little appetizer, if you will. Real quick, though. I just want to say hello again. Welcome to you if you are listening for the first time today. I'm Bridget. I started this podcast last year because I think it's really important to share information about how our bodies work, how we can understand why they're feeling weird, when they're feeling weird, and what we can do to feel better and support our health for the long term. If you've been here before, then, thank you so much for coming back. It has really been amazing seeing the numbers grow and the podcast community grow over the last couple of weeks here, so I'm endlessly grateful for you coming back and for those of you who have shared the show. Let me just remind you that the information I share with you today is for educational purposes only, and it shouldn't be used as a replacement for any sort of one-on-one support from a certified practitioner. With that being said, though, you are in luck because you can check out the link in the show notes. If you have any interest in working together one-on-one with me, we can work together, understand what's the root cause of your hormone imbalance and put together a sustainable, practical way to get you where you want to go. So check out the link in the show notes for more information and to set up a connection there.

Speaker 1: 2:48

With that out of the way, now let's go ahead and dive in. So the menstrual cycle, as you are surely aware, is a cycle that we go through in order to first prepare a follicle and an egg for ovulation so that then in the second half of our cycle, we can bring a potentially fertilized egg through to a successful pregnancy. If we're not pregnant, then we are going to start the process over again and again, and hopefully that's a good baseline for us all to start at. You're probably aware that the average menstrual cycle length is about 28 days, but a good, you know left and right lateral limit you want to look at would be between 21 and 35 days. I think it's even better to be a little bit closer, like something more in the range of 25 to 32 days. But just keep in mind that if you are regularly outside of those limits, then it may be worth considering a little bit more about what's going on and kind of investigating that piece of data. Generally, month to month menstrual cycle lengths are not going to vary by more than two or three days. So that's something again you may want to investigate further. If your cycle one month is 27 days, the following month is 32 days, the following month is 25 days right, those are variations of greater than two or three, so it doesn't have to be the same every month, but just a key of what to look for and kind of the basics of the menstrual cycle.

Speaker 1: 4:22

As I mentioned at the top of the episode, there are four distinct phases that we move through throughout our cycle. So let's get into that now. Let me tell you as from a high level what they are, and then I'll go into the details of each. So the first phase is the menstrual phase, followed by the follicular phase, third is the ovulatory phase and fourth is the luteal phase. One cycle, day one, on the left and cycle day 28 on the right. Then during the first half of the cycle, estrogen is growing. It's the highest in the middle of your cycle around the time of ovulation It'll go down, and in the second part of your cycle that's when progesterone grows and then tapers off. So kind of painting that as the big picture.

Speaker 1: 5:22

Now let's get into some more of the details. For the menstrual phase, that's just when you are on your period, not just when you're in your period. But you know what I mean. Menstrual phase correlates with your bleed, generally from three to seven days, so let's call this cycle days one, through cycle days five. During this part of your cycle, your hormone levels are really quite low, and when I say hormone levels, I'm specifically thinking of estrogen and progesterone. Moving into the follicular phase, your estrogen levels are rising, so the follicular phase could be approximately cycle days six to 13. So what is that? Seven days there? And during this time estrogen is rising, rising, rising. So you'll notice that your energy levels are growing. You'll notice that, you know, maybe you're feeling more outgoing into trying new things. And that brings us to the middle of our cycle. So the ovulatory phase can be three days, four days, right around the time that you ovulate, that's from cycle days 14 to 16 approximately.

Speaker 1: 6:35

If it isn't clear enough already by the name of the phase, the ovulatory phase is when you are ovulating, which is when the egg is being released from the follicle on your ovary to travel down the fallopian tube into your uterus, and so that's the time, of course, when, if there's opportunity for fertilization, that that would occur Now the release of this egg from your ovary and from the follicle triggers progesterone to start being produced and that's why in this fourth phase, the luteal phase, progesterone is, or hopefully is, the dominant hormone throughout that cycle. So the luteal phase, going from approximately cycle day 17 through the end of your cycle so let's call it cycle day 28, this will be characterized by growing progesterone levels, which you know. Then, around cycle day 22 or so, will start to drop and taper off. Your cycle concludes when your hormone levels drop down quite low again. That triggers your bleed to begin and we start this party over one more time.

Speaker 1: 7:46

Now that I've gone through all of that, let me just recap it one more time for you. Now that I've gone through all of that, let me just recap it one more time for you. Bear with me. The menstrual phase is approximately cycle days 1 through 5, or however many days you're bleeding for. The follicular phase would be cycle days 6 through 13 or so, followed by the ovulatory phase, which are those couple of days surrounding the day that you ovulate. Then, oh so that would be cycle days 14 to 16 potentially. Then luteal phase will be maybe days 17 through 28.

Speaker 1: 8:21

I want to come back to ovulation because I think it's important to understand why ovulation is well, the most important factor in the cycle I guess factor isn't really the right word but because ovulation is what facilitates progesterone from being produced, or the majority of the progesterone. That's why it's so important, and a lot of imbalances or a lot of unfavorable symptoms can be derived from this one thing, this one event that you don't even know is happening in your body when it doesn't happen. Some things that can indicate to you that you may not be ovulating would be irregular cycles, missing periods if it's going from two weeks to four weeks to six weeks, or anything other than that range that I had suggested at the beginning of the episode. Anyway, that can be a sign that you are not ovulating, as well as really heavy bleeding or your period lasting longer than seven days. I'm not going to get super in-depth on signs of hormone imbalance in this episode, but if you're interested, you can go back and check out episodes 11 and 12, and I get much more into depth on those.

Speaker 1: 9:36

There's one more thing that I want to mention about the phases of the cycle before I move on to talking about. What does estrogen and progesterone and testosterone do for your cycle and for your body. And it's just that these date ranges are flexible. For example, you may not ovulate around the 14th day of your cycle, and that can be normal, right, for me, I don't ovulate on the 14th day of my cycle. I normally ovulate on the 18th day of my cycle. So for me, I have a much longer follicular phase and a shorter luteal phase in comparison to the textbooks, if you're someone who is interested in learning more about the different phases of your cycle and how you can kind of align parts of your life, like your work, your exercise, your nutrition, with your cycle phases, then go back and check out episode number two of the podcast where I talk more about cycle syncing. I have a free downloadable if you want to check that out. That can help you get more familiar with what things are like on a not on a quantifiable level, of course not measuring your hormones, but just based on how you feel, connecting with yourself, reflecting on what you like or don't like. So check that out if that's interesting for you.

Speaker 1: 10:58

Now let's unpack what these different hormones do for us, starting with estrogen. So, when it comes to our cycle into ovulation, you're aware by now that estrogen is really key to make that happen. Estrogen grows. It helps to grow the follicles that our eggs are in, which is essential. It also helps to stimulate growth in our endometrial lining so that if the egg is fertilized and it has a nice cozy endometrial lining.

Speaker 1: 11:22

To come back to, another thing that estrogen does is promote cervical mucus production. Estrogen does is promote cervical mucus production. So you've probably noticed that during the five to six days before you ovulate you have a lot more cervical mucus than you do at other times in the cycle. It might be like stretchy and just more fluid, and that is because of higher levels of estrogen which are creating that cervical mucus in order to help keep sperm safe and get them to your eggs. And again, if you have more interest there, check out episode number 27 called Cervical Mucus why, when, how Much and who Cares where. You'll learn a little bit more about how you can detect if you're going to be ovulating. There's no way to really predict it. You can look at some signs and then afterwards you can know based on what's happening with your body temperature. But anyway, more on that in the other episode.

Speaker 1: 12:27

One honorable mention for the way that estrogen helps us is by supporting our mood. So estrogen production and serotonin production are correlated, and when estrogen levels are higher, then that can naturally help support our mood and help us feel better. Estrogen is also good for skin health, bone health, heart health, and so it's like every cycle that you have. Every time you ovulate, you're like putting another quarter into your piggy bank of long-term longevity and health when it comes to those things I just mentioned. Specifically, I'm thinking of bone health and heart health that really pay the dividends when you're cycling for as long as you can before you get to perimenopause. Next up on the list is testosterone. I didn't mention it earlier because it's pretty quick and easy. Testosterone is going to be at its highest levels also around the time of ovulation, just like estrogen, and testosterone's role in our cycle is helping to support energy levels, helps us to feel more confident and motivated, and it also has benefits when it comes to skin, bone and heart health.

Speaker 1: 13:43

Third and final, progesterone. So we mentioned that it helps to keep your endometrial lining intact. If anything, it'll lighten your endometrial lining. Estrogen will help things grow. Progesterone will do the opposite, so they balance each other out. It is also really good for your mood, with the exception of those gals out there who have a sensitivity to progesterone's metabolites and that can result in just quite the opposite of really really sensitive moods in the luteal phase.

Speaker 1: 14:20

Last but not least, when it comes to pregnancy, of course, progesterone is the hormone that is going to be sustaining and supporting that pregnancy for, I think, the first trimester. Actually, your corpus luteum, which is what your follicle turns into, and once the egg comes out, that's what creates the progesterone and it will provide the progesterone for your new wee baby through your first trimester. So really important to focus on overall in the cycle. So really important to focus on overall in the cycle. What can I do to an environment promoting a health or healthy lifestyle that enables you to have this good, strong corpus luteum that will sustain your pregnancy? So I'm going to wrap it up there for the day, guys. I know this was pretty fast paced, which is what it was meant to be. It's a refresher or, if you're new, then hopefully this gives you a couple ideas of where to go next.

Speaker 1: 15:33

Last but not least, I want to mention that you can check out episodes 7, 8, 9, and 10, which go in-depth. One episode each for estrogen, testosterone. Next one is on the hormones that help you ovulate. We didn't touch on those today. And then, fourth and finally, progesterone.

Speaker 1: 15:56

If you found this episode to be helpful, I would really appreciate it if you would just consider sending it to a friend or a sister who might be on the same path that you are of trying to learn more about her body. I would be really grateful for you to help support the podcast and grow the community as well. Final notes here if you want to help support the podcast, you can buy me a coffee through the link in the show notes. You can also rate or review the podcast, which helps me to reach more listeners like you. So thank you again. I'm so grateful for you listening and especially for those of you who have made it all the way to the end here. So thank you so much and I will see you here next week. So it keeps the lining intact for your your endometrius, endometrius geez, it's not a real word, but it sounds like something or move a gymnast would do.