I'm Hormonal | functional hormone insight + advice

[Mini] How to Handle Irregular Cycles| Ep. 53

• Episode 53

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This is the first mini episode of I'm Hormonal where you get a recap of what to do if you have irregular cycles. You'll hear Bridget's personal experience and response to cycle mayhem during a stressful summer.

What are these mini episodes about? They're short, sweet, and to the point. Minis will recap the week's earlier podcast as a bite-sized way for you to get all of the good info ahead of listening to the longer form episode, or if you want a quick refresher. Let me know what you think about these minis by DMing me on Instagram @bridgetwalton.

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Speaker 1:

Hello, my friend, and welcome to this mini episode of I'm Hormonal. This is new. Yes, you're right, this is the first time I'm doing just a short mini episode. It's going to be the highlights from my earlier episode this week. Why am I doing this? It's because we're adults and repetition is necessary, especially when we're listening to podcasts on the go as we're multitasking. So my intent for these mini episodes is to be either a quick reminder for you of the tips that I've shared in previous episodes or, if you just want to come to it really quick, get the highlights, get the recommendations and jump back to the larger episode for a deeper dive.

Speaker 1:

Without further ado, let's jump into the topic for today, which is what did I do earlier this year when my cycles became irregular? I had some cycle weirdness from 25 days to 33 to 30 to 40, back to 26. If you've been here before, you know that any variation of more than four days from one cycle to the next would be considered irregular. So ultimately I had to say okay, let me take a step back, let me think about what is this telling me about my cycle? The answer there is that I'm not ovulating. So is that because of stress? For me it was. It was just a little bit of a stressful period. That's all right. We all go through it. My hope for you is that this episode is helpful if, in the future, you have irregular cycles. Right, if you go through a period of stress or something else that causes your cycle to be different than normal, you'll have this tool here to say okay, I know that irregular cycles might mean I'm not ovulating, something is impacting my ovulation.

Speaker 1:

What can I do to support ovulation? Let's talk about some of the first things that I implemented or removed from my routine, so I'll run through them quick and then we'll come back to each of them. The first thing was I focused on just moderate exercise instead of doing high intensity workouts Not that I do that super often anyway, but I brought it down a little bit because I said if my body's stressed, I just want to support it. So I'm going to bring it down to just moderate exercise of lifting and walking, maybe yoga, but that's what worked for me. The second thing I'll go through the rest of the list was avoiding alcohol and caffeine. I also tracked my symptoms very carefully. The next thing I did was try to really avoid any unnecessary plans, anything that I thought would kind of add undue stress to my schedule, to my calendar, when it came to travel plans. And then the last thing I focused on right away was am I eating enough? Am I properly nourishing my body and am I also giving my body enough sleep? What is new? What has come up? Let me go back up to the top of the list to add a little bit more context. Alcohol and caffeine they can both cause inflammation and or increase our cortisol, which is our stress hormone. So generally I would love to have as low of inflammation levels as possible, also generally low cortisol levels. So I said, okay, alcohol, caffeine let me put you to the side Now.

Speaker 1:

Tracking symptoms is really important because it just helps you to understand the patterns. If you are somebody who tracks your basal body temperature, then that's a really good tool and I guess I'm including that in the symptom category to say am I actually ovulating in these cycles or what's going on? What is the change here? You can take a biker or closer look with a magnifying glass if you are tracking your symptoms. If this isn't something that you're doing, strongly recommend whether it's if you're a journal gal or maybe more likely, you are the type to go ahead, pick an app and just start logging your cycle start date, cycle end date, any other symptoms that accompany your menstrual cycle.

Speaker 1:

Now the next thing I mentioned, really focusing on what am I eating? I started to do a much better job of meal planning and preparing food at the beginning of the week because for me that is a game changer on am I going to be eating well this week? Once Monday starts, I don't know what happens in my brain, but I'm like girl dinner not good. I do not recommend that. I don't recommend that for myself and I don't recommend that for you. So, whatever works for you, make sure that you are properly nourishing your body, right. If you're under eating, well, if you're under eating, that itself can be a stress on the body and a signal to your cycle that, hey, girl, this is not a good time to ovulate and therefore potentially procreate because there's not enough food available. We don't want to go through that, so that can just put your reproductive system on the back burner. So nourish your body, get enough sleep. It's easier said than done, I know, but put those support systems in place. Put an alarm on your phone to tell you when to go to bed. Whatever it is that will help you get that sleep that you need.

Speaker 1:

Let's look at the next three things I added after a bit of time. So I started to incorporate an adaptogen into my diet. For me that looked like maca powder. There are certainly many other adaptogens like roots or herbs. I'm thinking ashwagandha, rhodiola are the other two that come to me top of mind. You can find them at your local health food store, find them on Amazon, find them at another trusted source, but that's one that worked for me that I decided to incorporate into my smoothies that I was having each day. I also, after a certain point, started to take melatonin. I was sleeping pretty well but I said you know, I think I could be sleeping better. Who couldn't? And melatonin is also a good antioxidant. So I said if I'm having more stress and inflammation in my body than normal, I'm going to take melatonin for a time to help tamp that down, bring it back down.

Speaker 1:

Third and finally, this is a little bit over the top, but I said it's something I've been having on my mind, so I said let's take it for a whirl. I started doing cryotherapy and red light therapy. So cryotherapy is cold exposure. It can be helpful when it comes to resilience, immune system support, sleep, lymphatic drainage, like there are a bunch of benefits of it. I think I'll do another episode on just cryotherapy and red light therapy and what I've learned. Red light therapy is literally just light therapy, like think of laying in a tanning bed, but not a tanning bed, just red light has a lot of similar benefits too. And I think of inflammation, like supporting healthy inflammation levels. That's the other main thing that comes to me when I think of red light and why I got into that.

Speaker 1:

So some of these things that I mentioned may be a good fit for you. Some of them may not be the best fit, right, we're all bio-individual, or something that works for my lifestyle might not fit into your lifestyle, but again, I hope that this is a good resource for you of okay, what are some places to start? What did an actual human do, as opposed to what a textbook or what does Google or chat GPT tell me I should start doing? And the last thing I want to leave you with is this thought that it will take some time to or it might take some time to see changes in your cycle, especially when it comes to irregular cycles, because our follicles take about a hundred days to develop. So in other words, if you start making a change for the better today, it might not be 100 days until that healthy follicle is ripe and ready to ovulate right to release that egg, and that's when you would actually see your cycles become more regular and see the benefit of progesterone. So it's kind of a long game. I plan for the long game, but that's what I've got for you today.

Speaker 1:

If this was interesting to you, check out the longer form episode that came out earlier this week. As always, send me whatever questions you have, either through the link in the show notes here or connect with me on Instagram at Bridget Walton. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you liked this mini and I will see you here for the next one.