The Wellness Scoop - Period Power
Episode Date: June 11, 2019Why are my periods irregular, why are they heavy, why do I get cramps, should I be on the pill and how will that impact my health, why do I feel low around the time of my period, why do I break out or... get bloated? These are just a few of the common question we have about our periods, a topic that we can shy away from and that can often have quite a lot of stigma and embarrassment surrounding it, yet there is so much we can learn about our bodies, our health and our mental wellbeing from understanding our cycle, the fluctuations of our hormones and how we feel across the month. The episode, with women’s health expert Maisie Hill, breaks down the most common questions, outlines what’s happening at each point of the month and allows us to get to know ourselves so much better. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Delicious Yellow podcast with me, Ella Mills. So for today's
episode, I have literally never ever
had more listener or reader questions. I mean, literally thousands and thousands and thousands
of them. So I think today's topic is something that we can all be a bit shy about, a bit awkward,
embarrassed about talking about it, something we're actually quite uneducated on. Yet it's
something that plays such a fundamental impact in our lives, in our well-being, both physically and emotionally for all kinds of different reasons.
So today we are talking periods.
We're talking female hormones, female sexual health.
And I guess just kind of again coming back to what we always like to come back to on the podcast is being empowered in ourselves, in our bodies, in our well-being.
So to talk us through this, we've got the brilliant Maisie Hill, who's written the best book that I've read in a while called Period Power. She's a women's health
expert and practitioner and we're going to get into what's happening inside our bodies. So the
questions that kept coming up were like why are my periods painful? Why are they short? Why are they
long? Why are they light? Why are they heavy? Why are they irregular? Why are they regular? Why have they stopped? How could I get them back? It impacts us so much and we don't understand it. And so
hopefully today we can. So thank you, Maisie. Thank you for coming.
Thanks for having me.
So can we actually start with why we're so awkward about periods? And there's this brilliant quote
at the start of your book from Gloria Steinman that says, If men had periods, menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy event.
Men would brag about how long and how much.
And that made me laugh so much last night.
Obviously, it's a generalization and I do appreciate that for any of our male listeners,
but it's also quite true, actually.
And so I guess I want to start with that.
Why are we shamed of it and
how do we start to change that conversation yeah I think she was bang on the money with
with that and it's a fabulous essay to read and I think it really would be entirely different
if it was something that happened to men's bodies and it can happen to men who are trans just to you know put that out there as well but
I think there's a part like Britishness to it but this conversation goes beyond our UK borders and
it's you know across the board there tends to be inherent shame and embarrassment and disgust and fear of it sometimes as well. I always come back to the
first story I ever heard that was significant about periods and it was about the guy who set
up the Samaritans and he talked about how someone from his community had started her period. No one
had told her what a period was. I think her mother had died and she'd
committed suicide because she thought she was dying and that there was something wrong with her.
And that has just always stayed with me. And obviously, that's a very extreme example of
things. But I think we do really need to examine all our feelings around menstruation. And often
it comes from things that are just
passed down through our families and often when you untangle that first story it ends up being a
pretty much exact replica of their mother's experience so it's always interesting to go
through like the maternal line and talk about how our menstruating bodies are viewed were they seen as problematic was it
a celebration there's so many things tangled up in it and I think we need to really look at that
and just how we are raising young people to be aware of menstruating bodies and what they mean
I mean I'm completely obsessed and any of our listeners probably picked up on this by now of like the importance of why in life, you know, understanding like what is happening, why that has an impact on us and why that's a good thing, a bad thing or just significant in any capacity.
And I feel like that's just missed out entirely when it comes to periods like our sex education is so minimal once for example we were actually talking about skin it was our skincare
episode and our brilliant expert on that episode was talking about how the hormones can fluctuate
obviously and why that can cause breakouts and that actually that's a really amazing thing in
lots of ways because it means your body is doing what it's kind of traditionally supposed to do so
those breakouts are a sign
often of actually like a healthy body and when you start seeing it like that you start looking
at these things with so much more of a kind of kind and respectful view of yourself and so could
you give us like a basic biology lesson what is a period what's going? So this is so important because firstly, like you said, just a general
education and understanding our bodies. But I'm such a big fan of understanding the cycle and of
tracking the cycle because ultimately it gifts you with a way of understanding yourself and speaking
to yourself with more kindness. And that can be revolutionary, is totally life
changing. That's the feedback I get again and again and again is, why didn't someone tell me
this when I was 13? My mental health would have been so much better had someone told me these
things. So yes, it's definitely about the physical aspect, but it's definitely about the mental,
emotional side of things too. So your period is menstruation and that's when your body has detected that
pregnancy hasn't occurred in a cycle and it's the process where you're shedding the lining of your
womb, your endometrium, ahead of a fresh cycle in which the lining of your womb will plump up
and develop all over again to prepare itself for
possible pregnancy. Okay, and a regular cycle people say is 28 days, because I think one of
the questions that kept coming up with our readers was, what is normal? You know, like, what's heavy?
What's light? How long should it be? You know, I think there's a lot of confusion just in I mean I'm sure it's really hard to define
normal anyway but what what are we kind of looking at yeah so there's variations of this even amongst
healthcare practitioners so most medical practitioners would tell you that a normal
length menstrual cycle so a menstrual cycle just to clarify is from day one of your period to the
first day of the next period okay so a period is when you're bleeding but your menstrual cycle
is the events of a full month or so of hormone fluctuations and you measure that from day one
of your period yes because I had this really embarrassing moment when I got pregnant and I
went to my doctor and he said okay well where are you in
your cycle and I said I'm so sorry I don't know like when do my when does my cycle start I didn't
know if it was the day after my period or the beginning of my period and it was a really eye
opening experience actually for me and he was like well when were you ovulating and I was like
I again I have no idea and it's the same if it's like the fear that you can get pregnant
every single day of your cycle but that's not same it's like the fear that you can get pregnant every single
day of your cycle but that's not true that happens all the time in my conversations with women they're
like oh I thought a cycle was my period because we often say oh I'm cycling you know so sometimes
the language around how we talk about periods can confuse things but it's this is basic information
that we should all be brought up knowing really because it gives us greater power over our own body just by understanding it.
So a healthy cycle or a normal Lent's menstrual cycle is considered to be 21 days in Lent to 35 days.
Okay, so a big variation actually.
That is a big variation and because of my work working one-on-one with
women as a practitioner and doing acupuncture and doing a lot of fertility work I've got a stricter
range of dates let's say so I like my clients to have a menstrual cycle that is between 26 days
and 32 days okay is to me a cycle that's 21 days is on the short side and there's quite
possibly a hormonal imbalance going on and likewise if it's quite long or if there's wide
variations months by months then that's an indicator that something needs to be looked at
and just to figure out what exactly is going on and if there's a problem. Okay so you can also
use your period as an interesting indicator for your kind of well-being. Totally yeah and this is actually something that
the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommend that the period be
considered a fifth vital sign because it gives us so much information about women and that's
especially true in Chinese medicine we can differentiate a lot by knowing the ins and outs of someone's cycle.
So across these let's just say 28 days just to kind of keep it but roughly 28 days. Yeah which
just to point out is that said to be the average. Yeah. But it's only I think 12.4 percent of people
who menstruate who have a 28 day cycle. So that's the thing we often see in media and read about in books is this 28
days and if you're not 28 days you start to feel like you're abnormal but you're actually part of
87.5 percent of people exactly god your maths is better than mine i try i try that's really
interesting okay but so within this kind of rough time period of a month or so i think we often see
our it as like the time that we're bleeding is the time
that we're kind of focused on but actually am I right in saying there's a huge amount happening
in our bodies that we could potentially be aware of to understand ourselves a bit better and our
well-being a bit better across every single day of that yeah totally so it's quite common for people
to focus on their period because that's such an outward expression of the cycle.
And it's very clear that you have your period and there's measures that we all need to take in order to manage our periods.
And sometimes people might pay attention to the premenstrual phase, you know, like before their periods do, they might feel a bit low and a bit teary or a bit agitated.
So there's probably maybe four or five days that
we might pay attention to, but there's the whole rest of the cycle and the hormone fluctuations
that happen across the menstrual cycle have a massive impact on energy and mood and behaviour.
And when you track your cycle, you can actually get to know your days and start to realise
actually how predictable we all are.
So although our experiences will all vary from person to person,
they tend to be quite predictable cycle after cycle.
Is it right that we have four phases?
Yeah.
So what are the four phases?
So menstruation, when you have your period, is your winter phase.
Okay.
And then as you come out of your period, you enter the spring phase of your
cycle. Then just before ovulation, you head into summer. And then at some point between ovulation
and your period starting again, you enter the autumn phase. So the seasons are distinct in
their qualities, but they can vary in length from person to person. Okay and what's
happening in each one will you give us a kind of rough breakdown? Sure so in winter your hormone
levels are very low and you don't have much going on so you enter winter just before or as your
period is starting. Hormone levels are low so so you can often feel quite fatigued, not very interested
in the world. Women often say they don't have much get up and go at that phase. And winter can
be quite hard. It's a time, I would say, to lay low, even if you don't have particular symptoms
like period pain or flooding. It's a good time to rest and recalibrate and just take some time for yourself and try and
build up your energy for later on in the cycle when things get more productive.
But from day three, so that's day three of your period, there's oestrogen starts to do its thing.
And some people are really sensitive to that. And they can really notice a change in positivity and
energy from day three.
So again, as you said, it helps you be so much kinder to yourself.
Because if you understand, do you know what, I feel a bit flat, a bit lackluster.
And you know that's because, you know, a very normal, actually brilliant hormonal thing is happening in your body.
We want that to be happening because that's a sign, as you said, of good health.
Then you kind of, you're so much more accepting and understanding of it yeah otherwise when you
don't understand why you're feeling a bit crap you just have this kind of slightly resentful
view of yourself almost where you think I'm a bit useless I'm this and that you're not useless
yeah you just may be feeling a bit raw and vulnerable because you haven't got much oestrogen on your side so then what happens as you come out of your period does the next cycle start
as you stop bleeding let's say your period finishes on day five then you might feel like
you're still in your winter but you're definitely heading towards spring and i would say the
qualities of spring that people notice is hopefully a real upsurge
in energy and being interested in the world again because this is when oestrogen really gets going.
If people are feeling quite fatigued in their spring, so this is like pre-ovulation but after
your period has ended, if there's fatigue and just not up for doing much then I really recommend looking at a
full blood test just to check your iron levels with your GP because often there can be iron
deficiency going on especially post-period and that can just make life a lot harder mentally
and physically but the spring season is ideally really playful and there's a nice curiosity there and it's a
great time for creativity whether you consider yourself to be a creative person or not it's a
time when people often come up with good ideas and solutions to things and want to explore them
to work as a team with other people so it's it can be a really fun
phase but it's a phase that you don't want to take yourself too seriously in so when you have ideas
I think it's our inclination as grown-ups to want to jump ahead to getting them sorted and all tied
up but if you have a few pathways available to you of doing things you just want to take a few
steps down each and like play around with things and see what sticks and what works okay and it's
a nice phase to be social in as well and to be it's for me I have a three-year-old son so it's
a great phase to be parenting in because I have a curiosity and a playfulness that matches his age
and stage amazing and then you go into the third stage which is when you're ovulating
is that yes at day 14 in a 28 day cycle okay and how many days are you ovulating for it's it's only
one day that you're ovulating for so is that only one day sorry to my complete ignorance here is
that only one day you can get pregnant it's not not. So ovulation itself is just one day, one 24-hour period.
But that doesn't mean that there's one day a month that you can conceive in.
Sperm can survive in the female reproductive system for up to five days in the presence of cervical fluid,
which we all produce in the build-up to ovulation.
So you could have sex on day nine or day 10. And if there's sperm left in you from having sex,
if you haven't used a condom, for example, then those sperm can just be lurking out in your fallopian tubes waiting for ovulation to happen. And when you ovulate, that is when you release
an egg? Correct.
Just to, yeah. Okay. Getting my basic biology down. That's so interesting. So you can get
pregnant for around like four or five days then of a cycle? Yeah. We tend to consider it like six
to seven days to be on the safe side. Or, you know, if that's when you, if you're actively
trying to conceive, then that's really helpful information to know. Okay. Most people don most people don't totally you know lots of women are potentially really not trying to get
pregnant at a certain point in their life and they're very nervous about kind of different
contraceptions and we'll come on to that in a minute but it's really i find that really
interesting as well because we feel like we could get pregnant anytime we have sex but actually it
is impossible isn't it at certain points in your cycle to get pregnant yeah and it will vary depending on how long your cycle is so people who have quite a
short cycle it's even possible for them to conceive in a cycle if they have sex towards the end of
their period because if ovulation is happening a lot earlier in their cycle then that's possible
so this is just why it's so important to know the
ins and outs of your particular cycle. And there are professionals who can really help with
identifying when you're fertile and when you're not so that you can use fertility awareness as
a method to either avoid pregnancy or to achieve it. And so during ovulation, that's when you feel
your best. Is that right? Within
the cycle often? Yes. I mean, which makes sense from a kind of like evolutionary perspective is
when you want to be like showing off, isn't it? Yeah, this is the thing. So regardless of whether
you want to have kids or not, Mother Nature has us primed to seek out connection in the build up
to ovulation because oestrogen's job is to make us horny,
interested in other people and to get us laid because ultimately that's what your body is
trying to achieve whether you want it or not. So oestrogen makes us quite chatty and social.
Some people around ovulation find it harder to get their work done because they just want to be out and about doing things.
So it's actually a good time to schedule in work stuff that's social, like meeting people for lunch or having big team meetings, but also for giving public speaking.
So when you transition into your summer, so let's say that's like roughly day 11, 12 in a 28 day cycle.
That's just as oestrogen is peaking and testosterone gets going as well.
So there's a lot going on in terms of our ambition and drive, sexual desire.
And like you said, ideally feeling really good in ourselves and feeling really comfortable.
But some people will struggle at ovulation.
And that can be because they might feel unsure about being visible in the world
and certainly if there are any fertility issues going on there can be a moment of tension in the
cycle where you might be feeling good but there might be so much pressure on that time of the
cycle that it's hard to really embrace it. yeah absolutely and then what happens as we go into
stage four that's PMS yeah we've got loads to talk about here I don't even know what PMS stands for
it used to be PMT which was pre-menstrual tension yeah and PMS is pre-menstrual syndrome. Okay. So summer can last beyond ovulation, maybe as far as day 20 in a 28
day cycle. But some people, particularly people who have PMS or the extreme form of it, which is
called premenstrual dysphoric disorder, PMDD, sometimes their mood and energy will plummet immediately after ovulation because
there's a real hormonal drop off. So around ovulation, just before it, you've got oestrogen
peaking, you've got testosterone, and then suddenly they all do a runner because they're
involved in ovulation. So oestrogen is involved in ovulation and with preparing the lining of the uterus, the endometrium, for the second phase of the cycle.
But the second phase of the cycle is dominated by another hormone, which is called progesterone, which is essential for conceiving and sustaining a pregnancy.
So oestrogen drops off. It does have a second rise after ovulation, but it takes a
while to get going. And also progesterone can take a while to get going because it's produced
as a result of ovulation. So whilst your body's getting those two hormones going again, there can
be a couple of days that might feel a bit rough immediately after ovulation. But some people, like people
who have premenstrual dysphoric disorder, might just have two whole weeks between ovulation and
their period starting where they feel absolutely horrific. So they might hit their autumn immediately
after ovulation. So I find that the timing of summer into autumn is the one that varies the most with the women I work with,
just because it's so dependent on our levels of self-care, what's going on in our relationships, work life.
You know, it's just so variable.
So the kind of key questions, OK, which I'm fascinated.
First of all, what are cramps?
Why do we get them? so we've got to start
there then other things like why bloating you know it's quite common to get really bloated before
your period but then also like often like as you go on to your period you can actually get quite
upset stomachs or maybe even kind of constipation but you just get kind of different digestive
system than normal so can we start with those Yeah, a lot of these are down to the
hormonal balance between oestrogen and progesterone or our sensitivity to those hormones. Okay. So
progesterone, as I said, is really involved in pregnancy. So in the second half of your cycle,
when progesterone is high, one of its actions is slowing down your digestive transit time so that your body has more opportunities to extract nutrients in case you are pregnant.
Right.
So it's very clever.
Genius, but that's why you might get a dodgy tummy, either constipation or diarrhea.
Well, usually it tends towards constipation because
it's slowing everything down you know it can also be because we're eating not so great in that phase
of the cycle and kind of tending towards beige sugary foods so that can have an impact too and
not staying hydrated as well but generally speaking progesterone slows things down and can make you feel constipated,
and it can also make you feel a bit bloated too.
You know, some women will jump up to dress sizes from pre-ovulation to post-ovulation,
but then things can loosen up as you start your period.
Right.
This is also involved, so I'll kind of answer two questions at once, with why
people get period pains and cramps. So when you are coming on your period, your body produces
a substance or substances that are similar to hormones. They're not hormones, but they're
called prostaglandins. And their job is to limit blood loss. So prostaglandins and their job is to limit blood loss so prostaglandins help our blood vessels
to constrict and so that we don't bleed heavily when we have our period but they can also cause
pain and the message can spread beyond your uterus and it can spread to your digestive tract so
if you think about how your blood vessels are tightening,
but also suddenly the lower end of your digestive tract is tightening as well,
and that can suddenly make you need to go for a poo
without the warning that you might have at other points in the cycle.
So it's what I lovingly refer to as period poos,
because suddenly you're having to run for a toilet.
Yeah, I would always get upset tummy at the beginning of my period that's absolutely fair so your cramps are basically
constrictions of blood vessels yeah and your um some people produce uh stronger uterine
contractions that they've measured and they actually are as strong or stronger than the contractions that women produce in the later phase of labour.
No way.
Yeah, it's full on.
So interesting. And so another question, which obviously I've got to ask,
is there anything that helps?
Yes.
Okay.
And this is important to know. So first of all, it's important to know that cramps are common,
but they are not normal.
And I think because lots of us experience them, we tend to downplay them and just not think of them as something that's wrong,
when actually I would interpret it as your body's trying to communicate that something's not right.
But the trouble is when we're socialised into just taking painkillers or to going to the doctor and having the pill which just shuts down the cycle or taking
stronger painkillers then we don't get to the bottom of what that message is or how to change it.
That's so interesting so I have a question on this and I had really heavy periods when I first
started my period about like 13 and kind of aged like 13, 14, 15. I mean I remember one of my I was
at boarding school one of my best girlfriends, she would be the same.
We'd have to go to bed for a couple of days.
Like it was just so heavy and we'd be so low
and low in energy and things as a result.
And it was horrible.
And the first thing that the doctor did,
said was go on the pill to regulate it.
And my sister, my girlfriends, you know,
like I feel that that happened to everyone basically. And, you know, like, I feel that that happened to everyone, basically.
And, you know, it did work in that capacity.
And then, you know, as I started getting into my more holistic journey and interest in health and well-being,
I said, I really don't think I want to be on the pill anymore.
The more I started to learn about it, it's such a personal choice and no disrespect to any listener
because you've got to do what's right for you.
But for me, it didn't feel right anymore.
And I knew I'd want to get pregnant within the next few years and so I just thought I'm gonna put it to one side and I had my diet it was so different now than it was when I
first started my period and obviously it was also I'm sure there's irregularities when you start
your period anyway but I don't have any period pains.
Not really. I mean, it's mildly uncomfortable for a day or so, but it's not painful at all.
And my period is much more, it's much lighter. It's very, very regular.
And it was none of those things before. And I always just assumed that was just me.
But I had so many messages from women asking the exact same question ahead of today's episode.
First of all, does diet, stress, kind of just lifestyle management, does that impact
on those PMS symptoms? Massively, absolutely massively. So a lot of these symptoms that we
get, so bloating, breast tenderness, digestive issues, conditions like fibroids, endometriosis.
They are massively related to our hormones and specifically estrogen. So we can develop a pattern
of excess estrogen in relation to progesterone. And progesterone like keeps oestrogen in check okay but when we produce too
much oestrogen it creates a lot of these symptoms that sounds like a lot of your listeners have
oestrogen is a great hormone it's wonderful i call it the beyonce hormone because it makes us quite
sassy positive confident you know we want to use it and then we want to lose it you don't want it
hanging around in the body't want it hanging around
in the body and when it hangs around in the body which can be for all sorts of reasons you start
to get these troublesome symptoms and it's interesting what you said about when you first
started getting your period that they were heavier and that you had a different experience to now
my diet was also horrendous like I lived off Nutella toast. Yeah I think I survived on
macaroni cheese I was a rubbish vegetarian in my teens. But what can be happening in our teen years
as well as when we're perimenopausal so before our period stop when we get symptoms of menopause
you can develop a hormonal balance of excess oestrogen because you're not necessarily ovulating in every cycle.
Right.
So you can have a cycle where you don't ovulate, but you still have a period if your hormones adjust enough to get one.
And that can happen in the teen years where having cycles, but not necessarily ovulating all the time so we're not producing enough progesterone to
balance out ovulation because progesterone is only made as a result of ovulation so it's quite normal
for younger listeners or people with teenage daughters it's quite normal for those first
few years of your period to be a little bit more troublesome, a little bit heavier, a little bit more symptomatic.
And that's not a sign of potentially anything other than the fact that your body is basically
just adjusting to a fundamentally new process. Yeah, exactly. And you've brought up my other
point, which is that your body is also just very sensitive to these hormones because the receptors
are getting used to them in the body so it's interesting I
quite often speak to women who are perimenopausal and who are getting really heavy periods because
they're not you know they're reaching the end of their reproductive years and they're not ovulating
all the time but they often have teenage daughters who are having the same experience and they're
just at the start of their reproductive years and it's just because there's too much oestrogen in relation to progesterone so there's lots of things that
can be done to improve how we detoxify oestrogen and get it out of the body safely which is really
important really really important because there are some routes that oestrogen can go down in the
body that are associated with an increased risk of gene mutations and cancer risk so it's really important that we all look at how we're supporting oestrogen
detoxification. So what in terms of lifestyle factors and our cycle what should we be thinking
about looking at what has an impact? So this will really vary and I go into a lot of detail
in my book about this but it will vary depending on what your symptoms are and what particular hormonal imbalance you might have. So for example, someone who has excess oestrogen, I will quite often recommend that they go and do something like hot yoga because sweating is a great way of excreting oestrogen but someone who has low
oestrogen so they might have problems with memory recall they might have vaginal dryness painful sex
is you know quite common especially after having a baby to have low oestrogen so I will say to them
don't go to hot yoga please don't do lots of exercise like limit your exercise to 20-30 minutes
at a time that's quite light or moderate in intensity because we're trying to build the body
up rather than get things moving and clearing which is what you want to do with excess oestrogen
so sweating but it's important I do like recommending saun, but steam rooms are a no-go for me because in steam rooms,
you're excreting chemical buildup in your body, but it's just getting recirculated in the water
that's in the steam room. So you're essentially getting everyone else's toxic load as well as
not getting rid of your own. So saunas are always preferable having lots of fiber in your diet
so we get rid of oestrogen by pooing so pooing every day is important you know when I see
women who are struggling with depression and things speak to them about their digestion and
it's often poor and they're often quite constipated and you know only pooing twice a week or something
like that and that is not ideal yeah and we did an episode on gut health and if anyone wants to listen in season one and it's you
know your serotonin your immune system you know your gut brain access your gut is such a hub for
what's going on in every part of the rest of your body so if that's not in a good spot yeah it has such repercussions yeah and it's um a
lot of the vegetables that are good sources of fiber are also cruciferous vegetables so things
like cauliflower broccoli kale pak choy brussels sprouts all those vegetables are really important
for liver health and they help us to get rid of oestrogen in a safe way and get it to go down the route that is favoured.
So there's a lot of things like, yes, you can go to an acupuncturist.
Yes, you can, you know, invest in all sorts of things.
But really, a lot of the changes that you want to be doing are really basic.
They're affordable things that you can just small changes that you can make do you know we come back to this time and every single episode
ends up in the same thing that of course you can do all these big fancy things but actually
first and foremost sleep stress management eat that five to ten a day you know drink your water
move your body gently you know it's it's amazing the impact
those things can have so I think we've got to talk about contraception because I think that's a really
really really confusing topic so the pill is obviously the kind of I guess the probably by
a long way the most used form of contraception but I read something very interesting in your book
which was I think it was 50% of women who are on the pill are actually using it first and foremost for cycle management yeah and
regulating periods which I thought was really really interesting there's a lot of confusing
press around the pill is it good is it bad is it okay what what is it yeah it's a controversial topic yeah and i'm not a fan of the pill like you i
fully support anyone who is taking it when it's been an informed choice and often it's not an
informed choice and other methods aren't explored and there are absolutely some people who could not
survive their menstrual cycle intact unless they revert to taking the pill which actually you don't
have a menstrual cycle on the pill you just have what's called withdrawal bleeds because you're
you're not ovulating so you're not having a period but it does have a huge impact and I was really pleased
to hear earlier on when you said that you knew you were going to be wanting to have a kid so you
came off it a few years before that because one of the things the pill does is it really depletes
a lot of our vitamin and mineral stores there's good research out there showing that so it's
important for anyone who does want to conceive that they come off it, I would say, two years before they start trying in order to top up those vitamins and minerals so that they can conceive with ease and have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.
But that also has an impact on what our menstrual cycle is like, what our mood is like.
You know, it just has such big ramifications.
There is large studies coming out of some countries showing that it's linked to depression and anxiety.
And I think so many women have been reporting that anecdotally for years.
And the thing that often women report to me as well is that
the pill doesn't differentiate between the highs and lows.
So, you know, often it's getting rid of the lows, but it's also getting rid of the highs as well.
So life becomes a bit of meh, you know, it's not, you don't get those peaks.
You also don't get those troughs that you do with the menstrual cycle.
But it does have a huge impact and it also can have an impact on sexual desire. Some women will say that because the fear of conceiving is taken away
by having a method of contraception that has quite a high rate of effectiveness, if it's taken
properly, and that can free up their sexual desire because that fear of conceiving goes but it can also reduce
sexual desire it can increase vaginal dryness and there's there are some small studies but they
could do with being replicated on a larger scale that show that your clitoris shrinks when you're
on the pill that the entrance to your vagina shrinks you know sex becomes more painful so I think we could do
with questioning is the pill so effective as a method of contraception partly because women are
being put off having sex in the first place that's so interesting so what would you use instead
there are options out there I wouldn't say they're all great. Yeah, it's a very difficult topic. It's really hard. You know, it's like the best of a bad bunch a lot of the time.
And some things work well for women at a particular time in their life, but then they don't work at another point.
It's a tough one. And it's about what works for you in your relationship.
Of course, exactly. That's the thing, because I'm sure if you're at a point where you're a bit more flexible in the outcome of your sex yeah then you can go down one
route whereas if you're kind of exploring different relationships and got lots of different partners
you're going to want to go down a different route you know i personally like to use the fertility
awareness method which is actually a very scientific way
of determining when you're fertile and when you're not in a cycle that's worked really well for me
how how does that work so you take your temperature orally first thing in the morning
yeah every morning and generally speaking there's a lower set of temperatures before ovulation and
a higher range of temperatures after ovulation. There's a lot of
rules to follow with it. I've been using it for 15 or so years and I've never conceived without
wanting to using it. So it's worked really well for me, but I do follow the rules and I know how
to use it. So it's important that when people are wanting to use that as contraception, that they do
seek out professional help and learn how to do it properly. Yeah, you've got to take it quite seriously. Yeah, exactly. And there's some
people it won't work for, you know, if you're working like, if you're up with a baby all night
long, then you know, you can't take a reliable temperature in the morning, or if you're drinking
a lot of alcohol, that that can muck things up too. And it's also paying attention to your
cervical fluid that you produce across your cycle. And through that and also monitoring cervical position, if you want to, you can identify and get to know when your fertile window is.
And that's when you would either abstain from penetrative sex or you'd use other methods.
Just so fascinating and I think it comes back to that same thing again of taking control of our
health and and celebrating you know periods for what they are and the fact that they're the root
of life in reality and actually we're so we've got so much to learn I feel like we've almost
even just scratched the surface today of how much more there is to learn
if you were going to give our readers and our listeners sort of we call it food for
thought you know five takeaways little nuggets of information that you think everyone should know
about their period in their cycle or things to look at or think about what would be your your five
definitely start with charting your cycle and you can do that in various ways you can get a
free pdf from my website it's just a really great way of getting started with things but really you
just need a pen and paper or use an app whatever you want to do but just get to know your experience
of your cycle first and foremost because that gives you power to go to medical professionals and say these are the
symptoms I'm getting on these days and this is how it's affecting me and you know women's pain
isn't listened to it's generally ignored and we're often fobbed off so being able to have
accurate conversations with your GP or whoever else might be involved is really helpful and it's
helping them as well.
And it also helps you in your understanding of yourself and in your relationships with others.
Yes, you understand why you're behaving in a certain way or why you feel a certain way
because you know it's because you're at that point in your cycle.
Yeah, absolutely. So I would always start with that.
Tracking, tracking, tracking is really where so much of it is at.
I would also say looking at what you're eating is going to be really key.
So sometimes when I look at my clients' food diaries, they're not really getting much protein in until their evening meal.
And that's really important for energy and also getting lots of healthy fats.
Most of us have probably been brought up thinking
that cholesterol is bad and that fat is bad, but healthy fats are really important for making
hormones. I often will speak to women who have gone on a particular weight loss program, but
find that suddenly they've got raging PMS. And when you look you're they're suddenly going fat free and really missing out
on fats that are beneficial so that's important as I said looking at cruciferous vegetables
and just getting enough fiber that can have a massive impact I'm a big fan of orgasms personally
and recommending them professionally you know they can be useful, particularly if you're prone to insomnia
premenstrually. That's another big one that affects women. So masturbating can be really
helpful with that. And it's also just a great way of getting in touch with your body and knowing
what your genitals are like. And, you know, it's important that we have that relationship with
our genitals and our reproductive system because we're the ones who are able to have the most contact with that part of our body.
And that's important for noting abnormalities, things that need to be looked at, especially when we want to reduce the incidence of reproductive cancers.
It's also, I have to make a point on that one as well
it's something that again we don't talk about that we you know you learn about male masturbation at
school no one talks about female masturbation it's a kind of again another quite taboo subject
a whole nother episode but in your book you say that it wasn't until 1998 that the clitoris was
mapped in full and that's literally my jaw hit the ground 1998 20 years ago
that is insane and even that it was 20 years ago but it's still not depicted accurately in medical
texts if it's included at all and that's the thing so your your clitoris you we see the external part
but there's actually most of it is unseen and it is like a wishbone that goes
around the entrance to the vagina and there's a bulb deeper internally it also has 8 000 nerve
endings and a penis has four it's like 4 000 so we're double as good as yeah so we've got tracking
your sleep eating properly so making sure you're getting protein and fats,
cruciferous vegetables and generally fiber.
Yeah.
Make sure you're having sex, masturbating, you're having orgasms.
Yeah.
And number five, read your book.
Read my book.
Period. It was meant to be, my publishers asked me for 70 to 80,000 words and it ended up being 126
because there's just so much to it and it doesn't account
for everyone's experience but there will be things in there that you can tease out and start bringing
in and it's it is life-changing you know I know it's like a buzzword that we chuck around but
it really is it's such it's so important that we get to know ourselves in this way and it's
instantly applicable and so easy to start and maintain it's literally writing down one or two words a day if
that's all you want to do yeah no I opened your book and I was like god I love this woman we need
more of this um so thank you for coming to talk to us today honestly it's so insightful and link
you back to other stuff if you are interested in the gut go back to season one listening on gut
health if you are interested in the fats, go back to season one, listen on gut health. If you are interested in the fats
and proteins and hormones,
listen to the two episodes
we've done with Rhiannon
on nutrition in season two
on debunking diet myths
and on nutrition 101
from this season as well.
And otherwise,
we will be back again next week.
Maisie, thank you so much.
Please read Period Power.
You will feel incredibly empowered
and have a brilliant Tuesday, everyone.
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