Cycle Awareness: The Missing Tool in a Menstruating Woman’s Life
If there’s one tool every menstruating woman should have in her life, it’s cycle awareness.
For years, I moved through the ups and downs of my cycle totally unaware of the powerful cyclical energy that was moving through my body.
I would notice that sometimes I felt intensely sad and anxious before bleeding and after my period I would feel a reliable rise in energy that made me feel more “normal”.
When I started studying the cycle and learning how it affects a woman’s body, emotions, and mind on a daily basis, everything made so much more sense.
I stopped trying to do the same things everyday and holding the same expectations of myself throughout my entire cycle.
Everything from the way I worked, ate, moved, and even related to my partner shifted more intentionally once I began practicing cyclical living.
For me, it’s less about rigidity and getting the exact right types of food or exercise during certain phases and more about learning my body’s unique needs during the various phases of my cycle.
Keep reading for a deeper look into my cyclical awareness practice:
What are the benefits of cycle awareness?
Practicing cyclical awareness sounds great in theory, maybe even makes sense to you, but what are the actual benefits you can expect from prioritizing this practice in your life?
For me personally, some of the benefits I’ve experienced have been:
Better understanding of how energy moves through my body
Increased energy and joy during ovulation
Few to no symptoms during menstruation
A stronger, wetter ovulatory/fertile phase
More connected relationship with my partner
Richer and more diverse sexual experiences
Easier to practice fertility awareness method as pregnancy prevention
Feeling more feminine and connected to nature
Deeper appreciation for being a woman
Feeling more balanced hormonally
Opportunities to understand my emotions and patterns
Deeper self-awareness
Stronger intuition
The light and deep editions for cycle awareness
As I know, some of us are mothers. Some of us live hectic lives with demanding jobs.
Regardless of your lifestyle, I wanted to present two options for cyclical awareness that could make this practice accessible to any woman.
Cyclical Awareness: Light Edition
This is the simplest starting point for building cyclical awareness in your life.
Start with becoming aware of what cycle day you are on. If you were to stop and ask a friend or random woman on the street, many women aren’t able to tell you their exact, current cycle day.
This is the foundation of cyclical awareness.
When your next menstrual period begins, start counting from day 1.
The next step is whenever you have a moment, tune into the cycle day and note what you feel.
Maybe on day 4 you notice a subtle but significant uptick in your energy levels. Maybe on day 24 you notice a strong, unsteadying emotion that calls you to slow down.
Practice this for at least three cycles in a row. At the end of the three cycles, take some time to go through your notes.
Where do you see patterns? Is it always day 25 where you feel your true transition into the premenstrual phase begin? Little bits of information like that are powerful and important to know.
With this new awareness, you can now respond to your cyclical needs with more wisdom and intention.
Knowing where you need to slow down, when you’re more sensitive, when you have extra energy to expel and more— these are all your cyclical cues.
Cyclical Awareness: Deep Edition
If you feel able to take things deeper, you will want to follow everything in the light edition of Cyclical Awareness with one key adjustment—
Set aside time everyday to journal on your current day cycle experience.
This journaling session can be as quick as 2 minutes or as long as an hour. It can look as simple as something like, “Cycle Day 28: Low energy. Feeling overly sensitive and like I want to crawl into a cave. No capacity for anyone or anything”.
After about three cycles, you’ll have a lot of incredible data to integrate into wisdom! This is when you can begin making deeper adjustments to your cyclical lifestyle.
What kind of movement does your body crave on cycle day 14 versus cycle day 27? What kind of food is your body asking for on cycle day 4 versus cycle day 21?
It can be helpful to view your cycle through the lens of four phases– Menstruation (Winter), Follicular (Spring), Ovulation (Summer), and Luteal (Autumn). Then within those phases, pinpoint your day(s) that mark significant transitions in your energy or cycle experience.
For example, day 25 is a cycle day that marks a significant shift in energy for me. I usually feel the start of my “true” premenstrual energy come on this day.
As your awareness grows of what days in your cycle are needing support, you can begin making lifestyle changes to answer your body’s needs.
I personally set a hard boundary of not starting any new projects or doing too much client-facing work during days 25 through my menstrual phase. I know this is the time in my cycle where my energy is trying to recollect and go inward.
On the other side, I love doing podcast interviews, speaking engagements, big project work, and other heavy energy tasks during my ovulation phase. This is when I feel almost an excess of energy in my body that is begging to be moved through me.
In the deep edition of Cyclical Awareness you can assess each area of your life and look at it through the lens of your unique cyclical needs.
Everything from your nutrition, exercise, relationships, work, and sex life can be shifted through cyclical awareness to more deeply serve you and your needs.
A look inside my cycle awareness practice
Menstruation/Winter (~Days 1-7)
During winter, I am very much in a full rest and in-the-cave mode.
I prefer to be home as social outings usually feel like a big push or even boundary-crossing for me during this time.
My priorities are to rest, stay warm, let go, pause, and vision.
This is usually the phase of my cycle where I receive the best clarity around questions I’ve been facing or ideas for the next phase of projects I’m working on.
Nutrition: Warm foods like soups and stews. Usually crave red meat pretty strongly and my partner will make me a delicious steak within the first few days of bleeding. Interestingly, I also tend to have a decrease in appetite once I start bleeding.
Movement: Super light, gentle and intuitive. Pushing my body to hard levels of sweating or stress while bleeding just does not feel good. This is when I’ll focus on taking lots of long walks throughout the day (great for inducing menstrual clarity!) and doing light stretches on my living room floor.
Relationships: I tend to feel more introverted and sensitive during this time. It usually feels better to spend more time alone, enjoy the quiet, and not have any “big” conversations during this time. My partner is aware of the tenderness of this time and we enjoy keeping life light and simple during my bleeding days.
Sex: A lot of the time, menstruation can be a phase where I deeply crave sex and feel very sensual in my body. Menstrual sex for me has a very particular energy of tender, slow, achey, and deeply intimate.
Work: I do my best to bring work to a full pause during the first few days of my bleed. If I’m not able to do that, I at least slow down by a good amount. My brain often feels quite slow and mushy while bleeding so work can be quite a struggle. Rather than fight against this, I try to rearrange projects and tasks for when I know I’ll have more mental sharpness and energy later in my cycle.
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Follicular/Spring (~Days 8-14)
My follicular phase is my current favorite phase of the cycle!
As someone who loves a new beginning, fresh start, Monday morning etc. this is the exact energy of cyclical spring.
As soon as my blood stops flowing, my body enters rebuild mode with a beautiful incremental boost of energy flowing through to ovulation. The follicular phase captures the rise of this energy.
I am usually a bit raring to go once my bleed ends. I feel excited and rejuvenated to get back into the world as well as a little “behind” on the tasks and conversations I put on pause while bleeding.
Nutrition: Lighter but nutrient-dense foods like fish, dark greens, and root vegetables. I’m usually feeling “over” the heavier stews and soups but still not ready to move into super light foods like raw fruits and vegetables.
Movement: Craving movement but not ready to go full athlete mode. This is when it feels good to get back into my steady lifting routine, go for a light jog, and/or do a sweaty yoga flow.
Relationships: I’m starting to feel more open and alive here. Depending on how intense my menstrual cave felt, I might feel really ready to reconnect with friends or might need a few more days to readjust to my surroundings. My partner and I start moving out of softer, “care mode” and more into our regular, independent routines.
Sex: Interestingly, the beginning of spring for me tends to be a time when I am less interested in sex compared to other times in my cycle. I think this is due to my mind being occupied with all the other responsibilities and projects I’m excited to get back to. This can sometimes be a fun time for oral sex and just lighter, more playful intimacy.
Work: My energy is coming back to me and I’m excited to get back into all the work I put on pause while bleeding. The key for me is to not move too quickly and overwhelm my senses too early in my early follicular phase. Slow and steady wins the race here.
Ovulation/Summer (~Days 14-21)
Ovulation can sometimes sneak up on me until I realize how horny and happy I am or I see some lovely fertile mucus show up in my panties!
This is my highest energy phase where I feel like I can truly do it all (often I can!) and am in love with life’s process of moving energy through my body.
The shadow side of ovulation for me can feel like I am trapped in my body, ready to explode, with no outlet for all the energy building up in me.
Nutrition: Light, nutritious foods to keep me moving but also energized. Lots of lean proteins with more veggies and less carbs. I also tend to really focus on hydrating with lots of minerals and electrolytes during this phase.
Movement: This is where I get my sweatiest, most challenging workouts in. Lifting classes, hard runs, hot yoga, and sometimes two workouts in a day.
Relationships: I’m craving socialization, flirting, and being seen. This is where I love showing up for friends and family as superwoman. My partner and I are also very energized by each other during this time— lots of teasing, playfulness, loud expressions, and spending time together.
Sex: This is where my libido is highest most consistently. I feel more open to sex, am more likely to be the one to initiate it, and am feeling more hot, polarized, and adventurous.
Work: The biggest projects, meetings, and creative outlets get their time during this phase. This is where anything I’ve been putting off has the opportunity to be tackled. It’s also easier to focus on deep work during this phase.
Luteal/Autumn (~ Days 22-29)
The mighty and confronting luteal phase.
I used to spend my whole cycle dreading when she would come.
My autumn phase and I have a much better relationship these days. I understand her, give her space and in return she respects my sensitivity a little more.
Autumn is where I can tend to experience anxiety, emotional sensitivity, low moods, fatigue, and feel challenged by every aspect of my life.
I’ve come to really respect the “cleaning out” energy that the luteal phase brings. And also how to work with her better— i.e. taking her ideas with a grain of salt rather than seeing all my premenstrual emotions as pure truth.
Nutrition: Comfort foods with warmth and fat. I tend to really crave comforting carbs like potatoes and desserts with dark chocolate during this time. The body is getting ready to go into hibernation for menstruation, so I try to feed myself like any mama bear would.
Movement: My body begins slowing down and it feels harder to get to the gym. At the same time, I know movement really makes a difference in balancing my mood during these days. I try to do moderately hard strength and cardio these days with some last few sweaty yoga classes leading up to menstruation.
Relationships: I need to be alone, otherwise I might destroy or find a problem with every relationship in my life! Kidding but also not! This is where I become most destructive but in a beautiful feminine way. I know my heart and mind need to be alone with our thoughts during this time to just take note of what is coming up until I’m in a clearer headspace.
Sex: Surprisingly, I have a strong pattern with wanting sex during this phase. It’s a different kind of flavor with a more detached and primal energy. Sex often feels more about energy movement than loving intimacy for me during this phase.
Work: I start feeling my brain slow down and inner criticisms with certain projects come up. This is when I know to reprioritize what’s on my plate and get done only what is necessary leading up to menstruation. If I do it well, it will feel like a gradual slow down leading to a full work pause for when bleeding begins.
Begin practicing cycle awareness slowly
If you want to experience the deep, life-changing benefits of cyclical awareness, it’s important to approach the practice slowly and with intention.
Getting to know your body and your energy patterns will takepatience and time.
To recap the foundations of the practice here:
1. Start with learning how to be aware of your current cycle day and then keeping that in your awareness each day.
2. Take note or journal on how you feel each cycle day. After about three cycles, sit and compare to see if there are any patterns in your cycle experience.
3. Begin implementing additions or subtractions to your cyclical experience with this new wisdom. You can focus on your nutrition, movement, relationships, work, and so much more.
Our cycles are absolute magic and life-giving when we learn how to work with them and advocate for them.
I can’t wait for you to experience the power and confidence that comes with knowing your cycle.
With love,
Jules
P.S. If you’d like to read an incredibly helpful book on cyclical awareness, you must read it from the women who invented it in the first place! Wild Power is my favorite cycle book of all time.
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