Can You Picture Your Cycle?

There has been a surge in online learning while we are all staying at home during this pandemic of 2020. While important for us to stay home to stay safe, it’s also healthy to have other things to focus on. We at WLB thought there might be some of you interested in using this time to “learn more to feel better”, so we created this series.

Our goal for this series is to help those between 35 and 50 and on the path to menopause feel better in the years preceding the final menstrual period, by knowing more about what’s happening in our bodies.

In our experience, a better understanding made us better able to cope with changes, manage symptoms, and generally feel better.

Learn More, Feel Better (A three-part series)

Learn More, Feel Better.
Part I: Can You Picture Your Cycle?

Can I picture my cycle? What do you mean by that? 

Put it this way, if you are on day 7 of your menstrual cycle, do you know whether estrogen is rising or falling? What about progesterone? How about on day 19? What if you haven’t ovulated? How might that change things? 

Note: If you are on the pill or another form of hormonal birth control, this will not apply. Hormonal birth control prevents your body’s own hormones from orchestrating your cycle in an effort to prevent conception.   

I’ll admit, just four years ago, my answer to “Can You Picture Your Cycle?”,  would have been a very quick, “No”! But stay with me a minute, let’s see if I can pique your interest here and tempt you to be able to say “yes” to this question. 

Four years ago, I would have thought it was ridiculous that someone would expect me at 45 to know this. At that same point, my body had cycled approximately 343 times. (Here is the math for those interested: I got my first period at 12 and before my cycles started shortening — the first sign that midlife hormonal changes are afoot — my cycle was about 35 days long. So that is 10.42 cycles a year for 33 years or 343 cycles.)

All those years and all those cycles, I never stopped to think about what was happening in my body to produce a cycle or a period. I mean, I knew ovulation happened and for most of that time I didn’t want to conceive and my period was a sign that I hadn’t. But I never stopped to think about what made it all happen —  hormones — namely estrogen and progesterone under the direction of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH). It wasn’t until I wanted to get pregnant that I even kept track of my cycle length. For all those years, I did know from some combination of a headache, cramps, sore breasts and a day of extreme fatigue that my period was coming. 

So why do I want you to learn to picture your cycle? 

I believe that being able to picture my cycle has improved my experience of the menopause transition. When I wake up at 2 or 3 am, my first thought used to be, “Why is this happening? What is wrong with me? I have so much to do tomorrow, I need to sleep.” Then the anxiety, panic and negative thinking would spiral from there. 

Now, my first thought when I pop awake and see 2:18 AM is, “Wait, what day am I on?” I check my cycle tracking app and think, “Oh day 25, progesterone is dropping, that often disrupts my sleep.” I am more accepting. This prevents the cascade of negative thinking. I pull out a meditation app, put in some headphones and I’m back to sleep much sooner than I was before.

Menstrual cycle knowledge helps us understand why we feel so out of sorts when our cycles start to change, usually in our late 30s/early 40s. This is when reproductive “aging” begins and our egg/follicle count drops off considerably. (More on that in part 2.)

I hope I’ve tempted you into trying to “picture your cycle”. We try to make it easy-to-learn with this basic illustration of a menstrual cycle.

For those that prefer a simple text-based overview, read on.

There are three phases in a cycle:  

1. The Follicular Phase. During each cycle, 15-20 follicles (eggs) start to develop. Each of the developing follicles produces estrogen as they develop. They cause the first estrogen peak which you can see in the illustration.

2. Ovulation. One of the follicles becomes “dominant”. The dominant follicle is released from the ovary around mid-cycle.

3. The Luteal Phase. The place on the ovary where the dominant egg develops and emerges is called the corpus luteum. In Latin, “Corpus” means body, Luteum means “Yellow”. For those that aren’t squeamish, I find this picture very cool and you will never forget yellow body = corpus luteum after seeing it! During this phase, the corpus luteum produces progesterone that prepares the endometrium for a fertilized egg should conception occur. The corpus luteum also produces estrogen (a second peak) — you can see both the progesterone and estrogen luteal phase peak in the illustration. 

Give this some time to sink in. Think about which days in your cycle you feel best, which days you feel the worst. What is happening hormonally at that time? Are hormone levels low as in the beginning and end of a cycle? Is estrogen rising or falling? What about progesterone? 

If you don’t already, we highly recommend tracking both your cycle length and your symptoms. 

Here is part 2: What Changes, When, and Why? (i.e. how our cycles change as we enter the many-year menopause transition)