Nobody Panic - How to Understand Your Cycle with India Rakusen

Episode Date: August 23, 2022

Journalist and creator of the 28ish Days Later podcast India Rakusen joins Stevie and Tessa to talk all about periods. Whether you menstruate or you don’t, this is a genuinely fascinating chat and will increase your respect for hormones and uteruses by roughly 400%. Listen to India's 28ish Days Later podcast on BBC Sounds. Subscribe to the Nobody Panic Patreon at patreon.com/nobodypanicWant to support Nobody Panic? You can make a one-off donation at https://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanicRecorded by Naomi Parnell and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive. Photos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The time is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace.com. Single ladies, it's coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true. Saturday the 13th of September. At King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. Welcome to Nobody Panic with me, Stevie and Tessa over there. Both of us on our periods.

Absolutely, we're not. I mean, I'm not, are you? No. No. We are on our cycles. That's right. And we're not alone because in the studio we have journalist and creator of 28-ish days later, the incredible podcast you have to find right now, India Rackasaw!

Hello! Hello! Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Please. I feel kind of like giddy with excitement. Same. Wonderful to have you.

It took me 12 times to introduce you because I was so excited. We've just had to discuss the title of the podcast a lot. Yeah. And then having discussed it for 20 minutes, Stevie immediately said it wrong. Yeah, immediately. And also just everything about it wrong.

But if you haven't heard the podcast, or you haven't heard of the podcast, A, what are you doing? B, it's essentially, am I right in saying, podcast looks at each day of your cycle and you can sort of listen along 28 days and sort of learn bits, and tips about like what you're doing, literally what your, like, body is doing that day

and all different types of kind of like things related to what your body is doing that day as a menstruating person. Yeah, exactly. How would you describe it if you were cornered in the kitchen at a party? What is 20, what is it? 20 daysish later? That's what I'd say. I'd be so terrified.

I'd run out of the room if you did that to meet a party. But basically, the whole idea was to make something that, like, so 28 is a sort of text. book cycle. People don't normally have, some people have 28 day long cycle, people don't, but basically the idea was to go, okay, what is actually happening in the body? Because I feel like, I don't know what you guys think, but I feel like when we talk about

periods, we get really hung up on blood. Everyone's like, blood, they're bleeding, pads, coils, not coils, pads, moon caps. I'm using a coil to stop somebody. Actually, you can, I suppose, no way. Yeah, you could, yeah. You could use the marina coil and it would stop it.

Good Lord. I basically started looking at my cycle. When we were trying to have a baby, it's not an exciting story. But I was like, oh, why the hell, my 33? And I have no idea. I just had suddenly had seven books on the cycle on my shelf, like a geek. I was like, why does it take me a lot of money spent on waterstones to find out what goes on in my body? It doesn't make any sense. And it's taken three decades. And I was kind of blown away because we just talk about the bleeding bit. We don't talk about what the hormones do in the body, what they're doing to us, because hormones are incredibly powerful things that I feel like as a society,

we've sort of been a bit like, oh, they've got nothing, that's fine. They're just something that happened to us. They're not like part of us, like our nervous system and our brain. But they have like a really important part to play in who we are and what happens. And also, it's fascinating. What is going on inside your womb and the impact that has on your brain, your skin, your relationships, your work, like everything is just kind of mind-blowing. So, like, surely it's a no-brainer.

And that, you know, over half the population, as in many, all women, and then loads of men. In fact, the whole part, everyone should know this because it does affect everybody. Yeah. Absolutely. It sounds amazing. So when you say it's 28-ish days later, it's 28 episodes. Yeah, and she hasn't listened to. No, she has not listened to her.

I'm explaining it to the people at home. I know, of course. I'm saying there's one for each day and you could listen along. Yeah, yeah. But obviously there's not like day 10 and day nine. There's not like something massively different going on. So also what we've done is what I really wanted to show was the reason we don't know all this stuff, right? It's really fascinating science.

But there is a reason why we don't know it. And that reason is like all the history of the patriarchy holding us back. Here we go. And so we kind of go into loads of detail about that. We go right back to ancient Greece. where people were sort of saying, if you don't use your womb, your uterus like you should as a woman,

like if you don't weigh it down with a baby, it will creep around your body and attack organs. And that's actually what they thought. So they thought lots of like most problems with women and their health were to do with their womb and like the fact that they hadn't like exercised their purpose as a woman. And then obviously, because that's laid down in text by.

glorious men, it just becomes, you know, rules for centuries. Yeah, actually not to defend the men so early on in the vodka. But I suppose, you know, thousands of years ago, if everybody was just bleeding out, you know, it's not an unreasonable thing to be like, well, something's gone terribly awry. Yeah, that's a really good point. You know, you're sort of covered in blood and then it stops and it comes again and like, it's like, ah, what's this? And you could understand that people were like quite terrified of it.

And also that if it's such a long time between conception and the baby arriving, that you know, you could understand that like it might have taken a little while for everyone to put the pieces together. I'm quite surprised that they linked it with babies or uteruses or anything. Well, I mean, just to butt in, I think they had found a uterus in the body. It's just that it wasn't very common to dissect female bodies. They mainly dissected male. Oh, my God, of course. So they had cut them open and looked at them.

So they could tie the two things together. Right. But it wasn't like, they. did much about it. Yeah, they weren't that arced in the sense. This is what it's for, do it. Yeah. Well, I've been talking at the Victorian times,

you thought a woman could turn a ham rancid by touching it if she was on her period, you know? I can. I can. I can't. But you're not. But mine comes out like that lovely Nigella Lawson one that's made of Coca-Cola.

Perfect. In a way, Rangela does it. She just touches those hands. The hormone thing, though, is, even if you don't know the kind of the history of it, of everything, the idea of like just, oh, she's hormonal, being such a dismissive thing, and I do it to myself, being like, oh, this is hormones. You're like, oh, what, the most powerful, influential things shooting around your body that

completely dictate everything. Yes, yes, it is on the hormones. But the way that we've talked about it even now, it's still, well, that's why your podcast is so useful, and it's sort of one of those ones that you're like, surely we should know. But then you think about it, like, I couldn't tell you anything about my period. Like, I couldn't tell you, I only found out. I mean, I found out quite late that when you're on your period, that's not like, oh, I'm, that's not the point where you're meant to have sex to have a baby.

I was like, that's ovulation and period is the same thing. Age like 24, I was like, I guess it's the same thing. Oh, God. Oh. You thought that your period, when you were bleeding, that was the time to try, that was can try the best time to conceive. Right. Obviously, there's no shame here. I mean, it seems like there is. But obviously not. Why am I laughing? I just made a podcast. We made a podcast about, nobody understands. No, but obviously not, because if you'd have sat, if you'd have sat me down and I'd have, like, written out what I'd then thought

and put it all together, I probably would have not come to that conclusion. But, like, I wasn't, I wasn't, when I was in my early 20s, I wasn't trying for a child, and nobody had told me anything. Yeah. I mean, would you guys be able to map out when you were most first out of the 22? No, I was even, my first question was literally going to be, and when you say day one of this podcast, which day is day one, you know? Oh, right.

Yeah. Listen, and also, my friend, until we left, left university took her tampon out to we, you know? Jesus, right. So I don't, there's no, listen, no shame, no shame. I try not to make any sort of scathing noise. I think the point you said about, like, I thought I could conceive on my period. Which, you can.

Yeah, it's not like beyond the round's possibility. I think that's all so fair enough, though, isn't it? Because we're just spent ages being like, do not get pregnant. Don't touch that boy. I did think I would get pregnant. Yeah, so we're just completely afraid of it. We also, like, as humans, like we are very rare. It's ours and rabbits that we are, we have no, like a baboon, for example, being like, look at my big butt.

Let's go, baby. It's ovulation time. You don't know when ours is. My butt stays the same. Your butt's the same. It's really disappointing. We have no external, but there are signs. There are like, the big signs that you can look out of.

Where do you want to start? Okay, let's start here. I want to start. I want to start. I'll start with this ovulation. Then my next question is about when's the day one. Okay. I'll take this one right now, because I'm so interested in what's our baboon signal?

Our baboon signal. Okay, so when you're ovulating, basically, estrogen, which is probably the coolest hormone that we've got in our body, in my opinion, she's pretty wonderful. So in the first half of your cycle, so day one is the first day of your bleed. Day one, first day of the bleed. Again, I would have absolutely, Gunton had first day after you bleed. So I'm already. It should be, right?

Midway through the cycle and just popped it there. I would have been like, yeah, like, I would say egg release. That would have been my day one. Oh, that's a nice one. This is the all good alternatives. Using good words was absolutely no. Day one, first day of the bleed. That is because day one is, first day of the bleed.

That is because male scientists and doctors needed to be able to know when a woman's cycle started. And the only way to physically see that beyond examining her, God forbid, would be the bleed. Right. Of course. I even find that confusing because sometimes I'm like, did I see? Start yesterday? Yeah. Or was it just a sneeze?

A bit. A cervical sneeze. There is a, yeah, it's not like it's like, and begin. Yeah. I think that's such a tricky thing that you're like, yeah, right? It's not like, and we've started. It's this very sort of like, oh, oh, could be, oh, no, I'm off. No, I've left again for a few days. So is it the first day that you see anything?

Yeah, yeah. First day you see anything, anything. Day one, day one, track it. Even a scrap of anything. A scrap of metal. Scrap of metal. And we're in, okay. Day one, great.

It's got to be blood. Not mucus. Sure. We'll get to mucus because that's one of my favorite things. So from there, when your bleed finishes, that's when the hormone estrogen starts to rise in your body. Okay. Okay. And what estrogen is doing is basically preparing your womb and you to have sex.

And this is going to sound like, people are going to listen and be like, this is so primitive and we've moved away from all of this. And women are not like, this is not our thing and our role. This is the role of the hormone, right? Like, that is literally what it is doing to your body. So as you reach ovulation, lots of things in your body change. So, let's stick with estrogen. There's so much to get out.

No, it's pretty difficult. Okay. Listen to the podcast, 28-ish days later if you want to hear more. It's seven and a half hours of content. Right. Trying to condense this down for you to is quite tricky. It's so tricky. Not because it's you too.

No, of course. Just because it's hard to condense it. Oh, yeah. And also because it's also. I don't know because it's U.S. because it's a really powerful hormone. And she's like, prepares your body to kind of feel sexy.

So there is research that shows that it makes your skin better. It makes you feel more positive. It makes you like more awake, more alert. It makes you more sociable. It makes you more sensitive to people around you. So like everything is more heightened. Yeah, yeah, extra boobs for everybody. Hand them out.

And also your, the sort of changes that you can look for in your body, and you're like like slightly plump of boobs, nice skin, nice hair, your mucus, your cervical mucus will change. So when you're ovulating, you'll get, do you have like, I, like, mucus really obsesses me because I spent most of my younger self obsessing about why I had discharge and just thinking it was something wrong with me. Yeah. That way you should probably like maybe need to wash more or use different pants or whatever. But it's like really important and really normal. And when you're ovulating, that's when it gets really thick and sticky. so like it's stickyer in your pants

and that's like the best sign that you are ovulating. Okay. It's when you can like go like that and it's stringy. You know, we all... Sorry, put your fingers apart. Yeah, absolutely.

India is just making a... Bird and a bird. Like a shadow bird. When you get a bird to go in your pants. No, it's just making it... Between a thumb and first finger and like pulling them together and a sort of sticky, like...

Like, gag. Yeah. A nice sticky gag. Also, and if I may, it's... The noise that you'd make would be like, oh, okay. Yeah, or like, on a train on a hot day, you're like, oh, that's a bit. I think I've wiped myself. Yeah, extra wet.

Yeah, sure. And also what Eastern's doing in your womb is it's building up the lining, right? So it's just making the endometrium inside the womb really nice and thick, ready, plump, ready to release an egg. So why is it releasing the discharge, this like thick discharge? I saw we need all of it inside. Why is it getting any coming out? Because there's so much of it. And also because it's for the whole,

so the whole of the vagina and it's been coming. And it's because, I'm going to get this wrong. Or get the egg stuck. Maybe. I'm going to get this wrong way, rat. Yeah. It doesn't come out with your vagina.

No, I'm saying, like, in the inside, it's all like sticky. It'd be like, oh, I'm stuck. It's not for sticking the egg to be working. I was making a joke. It was very difficult for me. I know, I don't know. Yeah, so basically the mucus is for the sperm.

So the sperm. can't actually live in the, your womb is too acidic and sperm can't survive in it. Basically, sperm cannot survive in the environment of the womb and the vagina. So it creates this mucus and if you looked at it under a microscope, it's got all these sort of like, like leafy veins. And it's sort of, they work their way through the mucus and through your vagina, up through your cervix, into your womb. And hopefully they find a little leg there. It's just the most, it's trying to just to make it the most welcoming possible environment for those sperm. guiding their way up, making smooth channels. Offering them a nice drink.

Oh, drink on the way, yeah. This way, lads, come on. Have a nice swim. Have a nice swim. Yeah. So is that why, like, outside of that time, you do always, I guess, produce mucus, but it's just not as hospitable. So is that why that's the time that you should, if you're conceiving? So it's the right time because your body's making this mucus, and it's making this mucus because an egg has been released.

Yes. And it's heading down your fallopian tubes from your oocybin. ovaries into the womb. This is interesting. Your fallopian tubes are not attached to your ovaries. Oh, I did not know. What? So you know that diagram that you see in the room and it's like flopian tubes with the ovaries on the end, that your ovaries are plumbed into the side of the pelvic wall. They're like the size of a walnut. And then the flopian tubes just sort of drift around. Not only that, they know when an egg is coming and they just sort of drift towards the ovaries and they sort of tickle the egg out with their fingers one side. It's one side each time.

They've also think they've got evidence that if one of your floping tubes is damaged, you don't have it. The floping tube on the other side will drift over to the other ovary and collect an egg. Stop. Isn't that incredible? It does the double double. It goes both, it does one side and then does the other. And they're like so thin. They're like, they're tiny like.

They look like the plat in Avatar when they have sex and then they put the end of their hair together. and they're like, ooh. I'm not, not wrong. I haven't seen Avatar. That's what that high is stuck in. I trust you, Tess. It looks like a sort of person who's watched Avatar a lot. They put their sex in Avatar is like them putting the ends of their hair together.

Oh yes. But it is like, oh, that's unbelievable. Isn't it crazy? And we don't even feel that. That's just happening. It's just like all that is just going on. They look completely attached in the pictures. But this is the thing.

It's just the most incredible. It's a really unique organ. And I just feel the way that we talk about it is like, here it is, does this thing, let's crack on. And we're very dismissive and rude and we think it's annoying. Like, we're very rude about it. We are very rude about it. We've said day one and then we've sort of skipped a bit. But then you've told us kind of broadly how we've got to the ovulation thing.

So what happens sort of after that? Like what's the second half? So I'm looking sexy. I've got completely just wet pants. your peak conception absolutely and what happens next so there's an egg in your womb what

and it's like at this point it's either being fertilised or not being fertilised we don't know there's maybe not sperm doesn't really matter the next hormone to come into play is progesterone and progesterone's role is like to maintain the lining of the womb

the endometrium so it like keeps everything going it's like it's going to look after that egg it's going to like make sure it happens and it's going to be well cared for. It's like a chicken sitting on an egg. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's quite like somebody in the podcast describes it as a bouncer. Oh yeah, sure. It's like the bouncer at the gate.

Bouncer, it's also a chicken. I've got to have it as a chicken for some reason. Yeah, bounce chicken. Yeah, but like protective and it's like it's going to, you know, make sure that this egg can grow if it gets fertilised. And if it doesn't, it will die off. So progesterone is a really powerful hormone, but it will start to plummet if there hasn't been conception and that's when the endometrium starts to break down because progesterone is what keeps it okay yeah in place yes and then basically your hormones start to drop off and then that's when

you have a period because there's nothing to maintain the endometrium so that yeah so that's why you bleed basically is because you need the endometrium to house an egg and if you don't have a baby to grow then you just let go of the egg and the endometrium falls away so it's like a healing repairing, wounding, breaking down cycle that the woman's going to be in the lead up to your period because your hormones have dropped off. Exactly. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask was like,

how long have we got between the hormone beginning to crash and the actual blood starting? It starts dropping off pretty soon after you, there's no conception. Okay. So progesterone, sort of, the levels of progesterone are not needed anymore. And so they start dipping.

Right. So you can, like, people have different feelings, right, in the lead up to their period. Many people have like long tails of PMS and many people have like really, really bad PMS, PMD, P MD, P M menstrual disorder. But basically that is all they think a lot to do with this drop off of hormones. And also how you relate to the hormones as well. So it's not even about the level of hormones in your body. But we're all, I think this is one of the really important things is that there's a danger about talking about the role of hormones in women's bodies that we just then become like,

women are like this. Estrogen does this. Progesterone does this. There's a danger of being too prescriptive and saying that the hormones make us X, Y, Z. But we are all individuals, and the way that we respond to hormones is really different. So some people respond to estrogen differently

to the way that people respond to progesterone and things like that. It's not like we go, this is how the hormones work. All women are doing this. So we're all really hormonal, and it's really difficult. And, you know, it's really important to sort of understand that how you react to the hormones.

hormones in your body is really, really important. And that's why it becomes very crucial to track yourself through your period and get to know your body. Wow. I, yeah, it's so mind-blowing, isn't it? Like, the amount, you've seen that tweet that's like, you ever start crying for no reason, and then the next day your period starts, and then you think, oh, yeah, I'm not no weak-ass bitch or something. And I, the amount of times I have sent that to a friend, like, while I was crying the day before and then being like, ah, here we go. And then about times we'd be like, yeah, look how many times in our WhatsApp thread chain this tweet is that you constantly forget and it's a constant surprise. You know, I was saying to my friend, I was like, well, sometimes

I think, gosh, I look lovely. And sometimes I think I look like the bride of Gollum. And I was like, I guess my self-esteem is just all over the shop. And she was like, no, your hormones are all over the shop. Like, that's what that is. I have the copper coil, which makes, oh, lovely. I found it very pleasant and I found it so much better than the pill and excellent but it has meant that because there's no clear bleeding I find it harder to like map myself but I wait you got

the copper coil sorry I've got the marina yeah I was going to say sorry I found copper unbearable I couldn't I couldn't I was going to say it's very rare that people can kind of like it's just the copper coils doesn't sit well no I found it the lady when I went back and had it taken out like three months later it was like

all I just rolled her eyes and it was like all I ever do is swap copper coils for hormonal because people say, I don't want the hormones, I don't want the hormones, the pill made me mad. And then she's like, all right, try the copper. I'll see you in three months when you think this is horrendous. But, like, so I'm so interested to, like, start a proper diary and, like, start a proper tracking cycle. And then to be like, oh, yeah, here we go once again. You feel nice on this day and you feel terrible on this day.

Yeah. What a surprise. And I think, like, so many people have responded really, in a really lovely way to the podcast, which is brilliant. I've had, like, one email from a man who was like, I really thought we'd move beyond this beyond saying that women are hormonal and da-da-da-da-da. And he actually was trying to make a nice point. He was like, I really like your series, but I'm worried about what this is going to do

for how people view the body of a menstruating person and like their minds. And I thought a lot about this. And the point of it is not to say that like we are weaker or stronger at different points. The point of knowing what your hormones do, how they interact with your brain and your body and how they make you run.

your life basically means that you can kind of control and understand your life and your brain and everything better. It's not like, you know, sometimes those changes are really, really dramatic. And I just think if we can know why we feel those things, I feel so awful in the lead up to my period, which is like five days away. And this is where I start feeling like more anxious. I've got psoriasis. My skin feels worse and soreer. I feel all the exciting things I did when I was in ovulation where I get over-excited. I think I'm like sort of a bit of a lightweight with my hormones. But like in that sort of day 14 kind of area, I get so over-exited. I'm freelance. So I overbook and overstretch myself. And all the time I'm like, don't just don't say that thing. Don't do that thing. Don't commit to that thing. Don't commit to that thing. Like I was on the work call the other week. And I was like, don't don't mention that thing at the end of the call because she'll just make a rod for your own back. Got all the way through the call. I was like, don't mention that thing.

Don't mention that thing. And she was like, the other person on the phone was like, okay, see you later by. And I literally went, oh. No, stay on the line. And mentioned the thing and made a rod for my own back that I'm now, like, last night I lay awake at 2 o'clock in the morning worrying about this thing that I had brought upon, like, rained upon myself. But just knowing how you're going to like feel at different times of the cycle means you can sort of prepare for that. Like I know that I shouldn't overshoot myself around ovulation because I will be really anxious and get really down towards my period.

And knowing things like you're going to feel, like if you have a sort of a natural cycle, I hate the word natural cycle, but if you're just like, if you're cycling without any added hormones into your body, there are times where you're going to feel different in different places. But you might well feel, for example, sexier around ovulation because everything is gearing towards that.

It's like, have sex. And then you're not going to feel that maybe later on. Some people feel really sexy on the period because there's like more blood down in that area. So you feel also like swollen and sensitive. Very exciting. But I was thinking about the other day and I was like that kind of comes into this idea of consensus strong word. But like not being hard on yourself. If you don't want to have sex all the way through the month, you are going to feel so different about your body, about your sex drive, everything.

And I do think actually as women, we just feel like we should just crack on the same all. the time, like live in this sort of linear time that the male body lives in, where things don't change on a cycle. And actually just kind of going, yeah, I mean, fuck it, it's going to feel different. It's like, forgiveness in it. It's forgiving yourself to be like, oh, I'm not mad. Yeah. Like, and I think that for years and years and years and years and years and decades, it's not even been like, it is now where I still go like, I'm mad, what's wrong with me? And it's always the same time of the month. And then I feel really like stupid for not knowing. And then I feel really like annoyed at myself for being so dictated by my hormones because for years I was told that it's, it's annoying.

Like hormones are stupid and it's annoying. But then also even before then, like, women were like locked up for being like mad and being like, and for like the slightest thing. And like we've just told women that they're crazy all the time. So I think it's, I think it's at the pendulum has to swing the other way where it's like, oh, of course, sometimes I can be crazy. That's like, yeah, I can. And sometimes it might not be to do with hormones. but it's nice to be able to go like, oh God, I know, like when you know yourself,

you're able to look back like you, you just didn't know there's a reason why you overbooked yourself. It's interesting you say like, oh, I'm crazy at this time. Like, yes, you probably feel really different, but is what's making that worse, the fact that you are trying to force yourself into the same situations, the same routines, the same diet, the same exercise, the same social calendar,

a time of the month that is not right for doing that for you. Absolutely. It heightens all of those feelings. Like, it heightens the anxiety or the stress. Yeah, I could do this last week. Why can't I do this? Like, especially with exercise, it's a really good one, because I sort of drop off sometimes.

And I'm like, what is, because I really like it? I'm like, what is wrong with me? But last week I did all this stuff. I'm just being lazy. I'm just being lazy. And it's like, no. You are. Yes, I am.

I'm a big lazy girl. No, but also like, it's so nice to go, like, yeah, well, maybe I do need to be a little bit lazy of this week. Actually, I can change the sort of exercise I'm doing. I can maybe do yoga in the second. And I could do like more serious business. Did you just know that instinctively or did you research this? Have I researched this?

No, but I just feel that that probably would be because there are periods of time where I can only do like Pilates or yoga and I can't do my like, go in and you're throwing a rope. That sounds like, I'm a cowboy, rope throwing. Is that what Stevie does? I'm lassoing cows. She's been working on the planes of the old west. Rope and cattle. Exercise is such a good one.

When she tries that on her period, it's a nightmare. Bleeding all over the last. robe. A bet the cattle hate it. They do, yes, they run from her. Because, of course, it's making them rotten. There's a rancid cow. I'll be just throwing a small rope around.

No, exercise is a really good one, exercise and diet. This comes down to, like, I think one of the most shocking things for me through the whole series is just how little the female body is used in research. So, loads of medication that's out there on the market from, like, paracetamol to antidepressants that I've taken, have never. been tested on a menstruating woman, right? So they've not been tested against the basic hormones of the cycle. I think it's 80% of all drugs that are withdrawn from the shelves in America

because of adverse side effects are because of adverse side effects in women. Oh my God. 80%. Okay. So it's really, and then... Terrify? And that translates pretty much directly, if not worse, to the exercise and diet industry. So lots of like the biggest diets are out there, keto, intermittent fasting.

have not been designed with women in mind. They work for men and then they don't work as well for women. And they work against women's bodies if they are menstruating. So if they have those hormone cycles. And with exercise, like estrogen in the first half of the cycle where estrogen is really high, great to go do your high intensity stuff. Your body can take a lot of stress. You can feel like much more on it.

You can have a good time and enjoy your exercise and go fast. When progesterone's there, so estrogen builds muscle and breaks down fat. Progesterone does the opposite. It breaks down muscle and it stores fat. If you think about it, it's the second half where it thinks you're going to be pregnant. So it's just preparing you to hold a baby. So if you are working really, really hard to break down fat and build muscle in the second half of your cycle, you are working against what your body is trying to do.

And that's why you feels so exhausting, really difficult. you can't get it like it's harder to get a although interestingly i think it's paula raccliffe said that she gets her pbs on a period but that aside that's superhuman aside but she at least knows her own that's the thing exactly what you're saying about this like personal journey yeah it's you and your womb and whatever it does and for some people maybe it is like wow you won't believe this but against the grain i actually am best at this point which is not what everybody else seems to be doing and it's like there is no necessarily right or right this is knowing where you personally are sitting.

Yeah, exactly. But, oh God, it's just, it's so unspeakably frustrating, isn't it, when we sort of unlock the door about just how much damage the patriarchy has done? Of course this stuff happens if you've only looked at one type of body

and you've never bothered to consider anything else. And not only that, but like, that this type of body that doesn't change and has very similar, you know, has no cycle and is doing its own thing, is not what the sort of the rest of the natural world is doing. It's like there's tides

and the water comes in and out and there's seasons and there's times when it's winter and times when it's summer and so a body with a cycle is actually more in line with the rest of the natural world I'm so removed

don't men have cycles like daily don't men have hormonal I think I've listened to it yeah and so then we're trying to do the same but like our cycles are like monthly and it's like but how are you ever going to the amount of times that yeah it's like

but why are I angry or like Why, why, I, because I have like weeks, so I'm like, oh, right, this week is, whereas my partner will have maybe like an hour in the day, whereas like, oh, it's his nap time. But this is such, that's a really good point, though. One of the great things about, so if we're talking about women being described as hormonal, the female body and its hormonal cycle works on a, like, a more broadly monthly cycle. Men's cycle, which is mainly testosterone, is far more unpredictable than female, a female. male hormonal cycle. So within that month, within your cycle, your hormones will roughly do the same thing every single time. Male levels of testosterone react to things like, did your favorite candidate win in the elections? Do I have a gun in my hand? Am I going to the football? Sorry, I feel

like I'm being really stereotypical, but these are the things that they've researched on. When, if a man has a baby, like if his partner has a baby, his testosterone levels will drop for a long time. Or when he gets married, they'll drop. And they become sort of like, softer, their testosterone levels are lower. So they are far more unpredictable. And then it's, then you think back to that why women have been, why female bodies have been left out of research when testosterone levels are so unpredictable and you cannot know whether or not a guy's football team won last night before he walks into test parasitimal. Like, yeah. So can you, so this testosterone spike come on like instantaneously. Yeah, in a male body.

Pretty fast. Wow. That's why you get like all that sort of like rage and excitement. Yeah. I mean, I'm dying to do a program. on testosterone and no one, I can set it, I've said it out loud no, so no one can steal it. Yeah, it feels like that would like companion piece. What would you call it? One-ish day. 28 hours-ish. That is why tracking,

it doesn't have to be an app. You know, there are loads of problems with those, they're sort of complicated, I use an app, I have no problem with it. It's all very personal. What app do you use out of interest? There's obviously many of the other available. I use clues. I quite like it. I use the, I put in the information I want to put in a lot of their research. They work hand in hand,

I think, with Stanford University. Oh, so it goes to help further research. But there are loads of huge questions around data, and especially with the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Like, that's a huge. So I talk about tracking apps with much caution, and it's a very personal decision. You just look into what you want to do.

Pen and paper, absolutely great. If you can remember where you put your last bit of paper. I'm going to say, otherwise. Stick it on the wall. No point. Knowing your body, basically, tracking your body, knowing what's going on, is sort of a form of political resistance as well.

I'm not a menstrual activist at all. I'm a journalist. I like making fun audio. I like talking to people about wombs. I wouldn't consider myself an activist. But knowing yourself is power. It really is. And especially when you can go like, yeah, no, I don't believe in your diet.

Or like, don't sell me this thing. Like, don't try and make money off me with X, Y, Z. Because I know what's good for me when. Because somebody's told me or, you know, it's out there. We all talk about it. You've listened to your podcast. Someone who's made this great podcast for me. No, but that's why it's great, because it's free.

People can listen to it and it's like, it's given the information back to the people. Yeah, yeah, information is power. A hundred percent. We're so, you know, that thing about like, you can't sell something, you can't sell a happy person something. You know, you can't sell somebody something if you haven't told them they're lacking or they're crazy or they're this

or like, or this will fix you or whatever. If you're like, no, thank you, I know what I'm capable of and I know my times of the month that I'm at my best. And I know when I'm, you know, when I mustn't push myself and all of this, Like it's just, yeah, how have we come so far constantly being like, oh, that's not an important thing, where it's maybe the most important. Yeah. It's the most important thing.

And going back to that thing of the obsession of the bleed, rightly so, we talk about pain and blood amount a lot. And then there isn't much sort of talking about how we feel the rest of the time, the lead up to, you know, like PMDD, I think was only recognised in the 1980s as an actual problem. So that's when you have extreme depression and anxiety and it can be really difficult. And if you feel, like, that is something that has been belittled and pushed aside, if you feel that in the lead up to your period, you should go and talk to somebody.

And if your GP says, well, you know, if they don't sound like they know or understand what pre-mental dysphoric disorder might be, get a referral instantly. And it's so crucial that people kind of feel that they can ask for the correct help. I think lots of the times, and this is not GP bashing, but lots of the times GPs are the gatekeeper to how we feel.

So that's why we need to go with the knowledge in our hands to say, no, it's not normal that I feel this. I can see this every month. This happens. This pain happens here. These emotions happen here. And just being able to kind of make people listen to us when we talk about our bodies. Yeah.

And also, if you're tracking stuff, then you know when there's been changes that are like, I guess, you know, might signify, yeah, physical problems that, you know, like, we get smear tests, we get coposcopies and we get all this sort of stuff. But like, and whenever anyone asks me, like, and how's your cycle, like, how your period's been? And I was like, yeah, it's fine. I don't know. There might have been massive changes. I don't know.

So it's also, that can also be, I guess, an early signifier for lots of things. Yeah. But if we don't know, we don't know. Like, yeah. There is even a move to call the cycle. sort of fifth vital sign so that you can read like you would read oxygen levels or like heart rate things like that in your body you can read the cycle of a female body as a sign of their health and you can determine things from that the fifth vital sign being the hormone thing it sounds

it's not even just for people who are menstruating it should like it sounds like what you're saying about men's like testosterone thing could be at any time like it feels like that's also something we should check in everybody like if everybody's hormones could be you know it feels like an important thing to be like, oh, you're obviously your stress levels are off the chart or your, this is happening an enormous amount or, you know, it feels like it's such an important thing for everybody to know. Listen to the podcast 28-ish days later. So, I mean, go now and listen to it. Can it be found on all podcast platforms? Can it be found wherever you find your podcasts? Every single one. Every single one. I actually can say that fact. I bet they are. But the important ones, the big ones.

It's so wonderful. Yeah. It's really, really nice. I'm so excited to listen, probably, I'm so excited to get my little pen and paper out and work out where I am. A gun to my head, I've no idea. Yeah. I don't know where I am. Awful, isn't it? Awful. I think I might be awful. I just like, again, don't be hard on yourself. I think basically the whole series is to stop people being hard on themselves, like, stop being so hard on yourself that you don't know. There's a reason you don't know. Like, history, society dictates that you shouldn't know what's going on in your body. And there's a reason why you feel different things at different times. And then there's a reason why you don't know that. Like it's all been made

this way for us. So don't be hard. Stop everyone. Can everybody just give themselves a break? Go to the podcast. 28-ish days later. And thank you so much. And also we're at Nobody PanicPot. If you have any episode suggestions, Nobodyepanock Podcasts at gmail.com.

And goodbye, everybody. Goodbye. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.