A Neuroendocrine Map of the Menstrual Cycle

You know that old stereotype about women being fickle? The idea that we change our minds too often, or that we’re unpredictable? Well – there’s some truth to it. It’s not that we’re shallow or indecisive; it’s that our hormones change so dramatically through each cycle that our energy, mood, and even values seem to shift from day-to-day, sometimes hour-to-hour. What matters deeply to you in your follicular phase (finishing a project, perhaps) may feel irrelevant in the late luteal (when maybe you’re more focused on relationships). It’s not that your values themselves are flimsy – it’s that the volume knob adjusts depending on hormonal and neuronal activity in your body.

That’s why “sleep on it” doesn’t really cut it for women. Instead, my advice would be “cycle on it.” Let your mind move through all the hormonal tides before deciding, because your priorities (and thus your perspective) will shift in rhythm with your hormones – including neurotransmitters.

If you’ve never tracked your cycle before, here’s the crash course:

Day one is the first day of menstrual bleeding. That’s the start of the follicular phase, when your body is busy maturing an egg and estrogen begins to rise, often boosting your energy and sociability.
Ovulation usually happens around day fourteen (mine lands consistently around day ten or eleven). The time just before you ovulate is your fertile window, marked by an estrogen peak for a few days (and often extra libido and energy!) and a surge of luteinizing hormone that pops the egg free (which is the moment of ovulation).
After that comes the luteal phase, where progesterone dominates – via a gland our female bodies make all over again each month! The luteal phase is complex, which is why I’ll actually break it into four parts later in this article.
If pregnancy has not occurred, progesterone and estrogen both drop as the luteal phase winds down (roughly days fourteen through twenty-eight of your cycle) and when those hormones bottom out it triggers menstruation – and the whole cycle begins again.

This pattern – follicular, ovulatory, luteal – forms an infradian rhythm: a biological cycle longer than a day (circadian) but shorter than a year. It’s one of only a handful of infradian rhythms in the human body, and it uniquely defines the female experience of time, energy, and selfhood.

In this article I’m going to talk about how your hormonal cycle isn’t just about estrogen and progesterone, but all the surrounding steroidal hormones and more. One molecule in particular – histamine – deserves special attention. Most of us know about histamine via seasonal allergies but histamine isn’t just that pesky molecule behind your springtime allergies – it’s also a critical signaling compound that helps your body in numerous ways.

⭕ Histamine

Histamine helps your body repair tissue, regulate stomach acid, orchestrate immune defense, and even focus. Under normal circumstances, histamine is like a first responder rushing to the scene of an injury or infection. But when genetics (say, a sluggish diamine-oxidase enzyme which breaks down histamine) or microbiome imbalances (like histamine-producing gut bacteria) push histamine too high, people often resort to antihistamine medications. The problem is, those prescriptions can come with serious side effects – drowsiness, brain fog, or even suppressing the stomach acid you actually need for digestion. And when you chronically block histamine, you risk muting the very signals your body relies on for healing. Natural interventions, like quercetin-rich foods (elderberries, apples, onions), vitamin C (a mast cell stabilizer), or even bitters to support digestion, can sometimes shift the equation without bulldozing it.

Personally, I’ve found that supporting my liver and kidneys in their histamine breakdown with daily support from elderberries, nettle, and grass-fed freeze-dried kidney supplements (the richest natural source of diamine-oxidase enzyme) is essential for preventing inflammation, skin breakouts, fatigue, and more. Because I inherited some pesky genetics that alter my liver’s ability to methylate, this extra dietary and herbal support is crucial to my health.

So what does histamine have to do with women’s cycles? Surprisingly, a lot.

📈 Estrogen and Histamine: The Connection

One of the sneakier ways estrogen shapes your experience is through histamine. Estrogen actually upregulates histamine release. Mast cells (the little immune pouches that store histamine) have estrogen receptors, and when estrogen rises – like pre-ovulation, and sometimes again in the late luteal – those mast cells get “excited” and spill histamine.

Histamine, in turn, stimulates your ovaries to make more estrogen. It’s a feedback loop: estrogen goes up which leads to more histamine which triggers even more estrogen and so on.

Progesterone balances this out during the parts of your cycle where progesterone is active. It soothes mast cells and helps slow histamine release. But in cycles where you don’t ovulate (as becomes more often over the course of perimenopause) or otherwise produce little progesterone, estrogen-driven histamine can get louder and more disruptive.

So far I’ve had one cycle where I didn’t ovulate (known as an anovulatory cycle), and it was miserable. I didn’t feel like myself – which goes back to the “feminine fickleness” I alluded to at the beginning of this article. Our egos – our sense of self – reside within our lived experience moment-to-moment. Our perception of ourselves, what matters, and how we make decisions are centered in the way we feel. We don’t choose the same things when we are exhausted, aching, or inflamed as we do when we’re energetic and feeling robust. But it’s deeper and more subtle than that – as I’ll get into later with a map of neurotransmitter shifts over the course of our cycle.

Okay, so for those of you with mast cell issues, food sensitivities, or migraine patterns – have you ever noticed them flaring right around ovulation or right before your menstruation? That’s histamine rising with estrogen! Some women notice, for example, their breasts swelling right before their menstruation or when they ovulate, which can relate to poor estrogen clearance.

Side note: My own breasts were chronically, painfully swollen until a practitioner finally realized I had liver issues and that I needed daily support from milk-thistle. Finally, for the first time in the twenty years I’d had boobs, they stopped aching all the time!

Now, in perimenopause, I definitely notice all of the symptoms I’ve mentioned (and more) rising and falling with swells of hormones. Where hormones used to be a wave so gentle that it was eclipsed by the whiplash of day-to-day events, now my own hormones can feel like a tsunami that drives day-to-day events.

Histamine is fascinating and I’ll tell you more about it as we go along. One of the mind-blowing things is how histamine behaves as a neurotransmitter – affecting your memory and focus.

🌌 Don’t Call Me Fickle: Call Me Fractal

In a song I wrote, Trillion Codes, I put in the bridge, “Don’t call me fickle, call me fractal.” In truth, women aren’t being fickle so to speak – we’re experiencing a broader range of our own human experience in an infradian twenty-thirty-ish day cycle. Hence, we (in theory) experience life in a more fractal nature than our circadian male counterparts.

Side note: Men have (non-menstrual) cycles too, but it’s more related to the daily day-night cycle. And, of course, everyone goes through the life stage cycles of childhood, puberty, etc, as well as cycles related to maintaining our own psychological equilibrium. Almost every client I’ve ever had has alluded to the phases they go through, whether it be a cycle where they feel an urgent need to move every seven years, or whether it be relational cycles of serial monogamy, or dietary cycles of expansion and constriction. But this article is focusing specifically on humans with a menstrual cycle and how that impacts us.

We’re going to explore all the nuances of these fluctuations through an infradian map I’ve made of what’s happening hormonally – at least, in my own body. Your brain-body machine undoubtedly varies. Not all women, for example, experience what I’ve labeled “part six” and many women experience a longer or shorter cycle. It is common, furthermore, for your cycle to change over the decades of your life. When I was in my teens my cycle was commonly thirty days. I’ve been tracking my cycle since 2011 (when I was 22), and it has approximately shortened by one day per five years (and when averaging the fourteen-ish cycles in a year, you can actually see it creeping down by a fractional day fairly consistently most years).

Once again, this is just a map of what my cycle is like, and where I am in my life right now – at thirty-six. I’m in my first year of perimenopausal changes. Not all women experience these hormonal changes abruptly a cycle before their thirty-sixth birthday, but all menstruating people do have gradual hormonal changes over the decades of their cycles – and it is common for more abrupt changes to begin in the second half of your thirties.

Without further ado, here is my neuroendocrine atlas of my body’s cycle – fleshed out with dozens of tidbits about how various molecules cause things to happen in your body.

🌒🌕🌖🌗🌑🌜🌛

🗓 Raederle’s Hormone–Neuro Feminine Fickleness Cycle Map

🌒 Days 1–4, Part 1: Menstruation (Follicular 1)

🔥 This phase is like a stove burner set to “low.”

Status: 🚫📈 Estrogen very low but starting its climb; 🚫 Progesterone gone; 🔺 Prostaglandins high which can mean cramps, fatigue, vascular headaches, and inflammation. My complaints at this time are less about inflammation and more about POTS symptoms: dizziness, limbs going numb easily, light-headedness upon standing, difficulty standing in place, or even difficulty standing at all.

Estrogen: 🚫📈 Very low, yet climbing. The sudden reduction in estrogen just before bleeding can constrict and then rebound-dilate blood vessels, triggering migraine cascades. In perimenopause, these peaks and valleys become sharper, which makes migraines (among other symptoms) more common. This combines with my genetically inherited vascular tone issues (from my mother) and my naturally low serotonin levels (also genetic) to mean cramps and migraines now arrive together unless I very carefully regulate hormones through diet, herbs, and lifestyle. 📈 By day three, I often already feel estrogen tugging me toward the next part of the cycle, sometimes even with a manic-like* burst of energy that quickly burns out.

*Note on Mania: I use the term mania in this article to describe a state of high energy which, externally, may appear hyperactive, excited, ecstatic, joyful, intense, chaotic, abrupt, or frenzied. We’re not talking about a clinical or pathological mania here – particularly as I’m not one to pathologize anything. We’re humans go through complex experiences and we have this sumptuous language teeming with wondrous words to describe these sometimes ephemeral states of consciousness. Hence, in my writing you’ll find terms like “mania” with the most positive and experience-affirming intentions behind them.

Progesterone: 🚫 Gone. Nothing left from the luteal wave of the prior cycle. The absence of progesterone means lacking its mast-cell-stabilizing, GABA-enhancing, and overall calming influence. You might be more vulnerable to anxiety, histamine surges, and poor sleep.

Histamine: ⚪ Both low and high. Low because there’s less estrogen to provoke mast cells, but high in effect because one’s liver may be overloaded processing prostaglandins and hormone metabolites, leaving less bandwidth for histamine clearance. Furthermore, diamine oxidase (DAO), the main histamine-clearing enzyme, activity tends to be lower during menstruation. To complicate this further, progesterone normally stabilizes mast cells so in its absence, histamine gets more free-floating action. This is why foods that are “fine” other weeks – like cacao, alcohol, or sausages – become migraine, nausea, or skin breakout triggers here.

Prostaglandins: 🔺 High. These lipid compounds drive your uterine contractions (necessary to shed your lining) but also can cause cramps, inflammation, diarrhea, and contribute to vascular headaches. They’re part of why this phase can feel so rough even in women without chronic conditions.

That said, prostaglandins are much bigger players than just “menstrual cramps.” They’re part of a family of lipid signaling molecules (derived from arachidonic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid) that act more like local messengers than systemic hormones. They don’t circulate in large quantities through the bloodstream the way estrogen or progesterone do; instead, they’re made on the spot in tissues and act locally, sometimes for just minutes.

Prostaglandins (especially PGE₂) are the molecules that generate a fever: when your immune system detects something “off,” your immune cells release cytokines which tell your hypothalamus to produce more PGE₂, which in turn acts locally in the hypothalamus to reset your thermostat upward. That’s what creates the chills, shivers, and subsequent fever.

Even without a virus or bacteria, if your immune system is dysregulated, prostaglandins can still get triggered into fever mode. For someone like me with excitable mast cells, it isn’t surprising that mysterious fevers painted my childhood, teens, and some of my twenties besides. I’m not the only one: many women experience low-grade fevers as menstruation comes on.

NSAIDs are effective against menstrual cramps – and fevers – largely due to blocking prostaglandins. Personally, I find raspberries more effective against my cramps (with less troubling side-effects too).

Testosterone: 🚫 Low. Energy and libido are often in quite a slump here. This is often when I feel least magnetic or motivated. Although part five – the late luteal phase area before the brief “surge” of part six – can be even less shiny. By day three I sometimes already feel like my libido is more awake than it has been in a week or longer.

Cortisol: ⚠ Sensitivity is heightened. With both estrogen and progesterone low, cortisol’s spikes land harder. Stress feels sharper, and my body overreacts to even small upsets – and this continues to be true even as I can feel libido and energy rising again.

GABA: 🚫 Low. Progesterone normally boosts GABA activity, but with no progesterone, the calming “brakes” are absent. This explains the anxiety, racing thoughts, and sleep disturbances common at this time.

Allopregnanolone: 🚫 Gone. This progesterone-derived neurosteroid enhances GABA receptor sensitivity. Without it, there’s less cushion for mood and stress. Irritability, restlessness, or tearfulness feel closer to the surface.

Serotonin: 📉 Dipping. Estrogen drives serotonin production and receptor sensitivity, so when estrogen is very low, serotonin tone falters. One way this shows up is through insecurity; I often feel a need for social reassurance around this time. Furthermore, though I always tend toward insomnia, right on the cusp of menstruation I often feel a sense of “timelessness” – evening and night feels the same as day. My entire sense of the clock feels almost entirely absent.

Dopamine: 🚫 Low. Estrogen normally enhances dopamine, so with low estrogen, motivation and reward sensitivity drop. This is probably why starting anything feels like I’m climbing a mountain – even starting a new novel for fun can feel terrifically difficult at this time of the month. (Although, this is partly accounted for by being dyslexic and taking time to adjust to new styles of writing and new characters.)

Oxytocin: 🟢🟡🔴 This can still rise with intentional comfort, cuddles, intimacy, or even self-nurture. This can act as a powerful counterweight to the low dopamine/serotonin state, but it takes effort to access.

Vasopressin: ⚪ Subdued. Estrogen normally enhances vasopressin signaling; with estrogen low, fluid balance can be unstable. This is likely one factor in my POTS symptoms – light-headedness, dizziness, and difficulty standing. Water retention and electrolyte shifts can be rough here.

Leptin: 📉 Sensitivity reduced. Satiety cues can feel weaker, and you may crave calorie-dense foods to buffer low serotonin. Interestingly though, I crave virtually nothing on the first day of my cycle, perhaps because dopamine is so low that there isn’t a sense of pleasure or anticipation around food. And to accompany that, many foods make menstrual cramps worse, so I often go on a “raspberry fast” my first day of menstruation, as raspberries (yes, oddly, the berries) are the one thing that really helps my abate my cramps once they’ve already started.

Ghrelin: 📈 Higher. Hunger hormone rises, although I don’t start noticing my appetite really back to full-blast sometimes until day four.

Galanin: 🔺 Elevated. Galanin is a neuromodulator (a peptide neurotransmitter, first identified in the 1980s) that plays specialized roles in feeding behavior, gut motility, pain perception, mood regulation, and even reproductive signaling.

Cravings especially for fat-rich foods (cream, macadamias, avocados, fried foods) are common during and before menstruation, as galanin causes you to release more dopamine in response to fatty foods. It also slows peristalsis, so constipation can persist despite prostaglandins trying to accelerate motility. This tug-of-war can explain why stools may be unpredictable – sometimes loose, sometimes stuck. In my case, they’re almost always stuck and this is a critical time to consume double to triple my usual magnesium dose.

Introspection deepens: galanin is strongly linked to reflective states. Galanin also modulates pain, which may interact with menstrual cramps and migraines.

🌕 Days 5–11, Part 2: Pre-Ov Energy (Follicular 2)

🔥 This phase is like someone suddenly started ramping up the heat – transitioning all the way from a low-burner to maximum flames.

Status: 📈 Estrogen climbing steadily until it peaks at ovulation; ⚪ Progesterone subtle; 📉 Prostaglandins tapering off which contributes to energy rising; inflammation may be calming. Follicular stimulating hormone rises and stimulates follicles.

Estrogen: 📈 Rising. Skin glows, confidence increases. With more estrogen, your blood vessels dilate, serotonin increases, and mood often improves. Creativity and motivation return. Sometimes this is when I re-engage socially and feel more “alive” – although often I throw this energy entirely into projects. In photographs you can see my eyes twinkle more here.

In the early part of this phase, and sometimes as soon as day four, I often have what I mentally call a “manic estrogen surge.” Estrogen has a diurnal rhythm which interacts with cortisol and dopamine – both of which are highest in the morning and early afternoon. When estrogen, cortisol, and dopamine align – usually in my mid-late morning – I can feel absolutely on fire with a need to do something. We might call it a “pita flare” in Ayurveda. But pre-ov energy is deceptive and mania* can rapidly fade into depression as the afternoon fades into dusk. Cortisol drops later in the day which causes excitatory neurotransmitters to lose their scaffolding. Without progesterone yet on board, serotonin dips and my mood can crash hard into dark territory. I wouldn’t be surprised if many women get diagnosed (perhaps wrongly) with bi-polar spectrum because of this particular part of the cycle!

Progesterone: ⚪ Lull. Between menstruation and ovulation there is a lull in progesterone’s role. The absence of progesterone’s balancing influence means estrogen’s stimulation runs unchecked. This is exhilarating but also destabilizing — all speed and no brakes. When we get up to ovulation however, prostaglandins in the ovary help support follicle rupture. The follicle wall must weaken and tear for the egg to release, and prostaglandins contribute to that inflammatory cascade.

Histamine: 📈 Rising along with estrogen. This can mean more sneezing, itchiness, or food reactions. For me this often means more inflammation – joint pain, “inflammatory bumps” on my finger joints are more likely, and the combination of increased energy with increased histamines make me far more likely to “over do it” when it comes to exercise, productivity, and general activity.

Also, histamine acts as a neurotransmitter! In the brain, histamine neurons live mainly in the tuberomammillary nucleus of the hypothalamus. Their job is to keep you alert. When histamine levels are optimal you experience clear focus and fast memory encoding. Too much histamine? This can translate into brain food, reactive attention, and poor recall.

In practical terms, this means sometimes toward the end of my menstruation I forget I’m still spotting and put on clothes that aren’t black. In fact, on day five of this cycle I actually washed my face and did my skin-care routine only to forget I’d done it. I didn’t realize my mistake until I began to apply my face serum for the second time!

If you don’t have histamine over-activation issues, then this part of your cycle might be a golden time of focus. For me, it often is. But some cycles, like this one, I have to be on guard against straining my hands, knees, lower back, or emotional capacity to hold space. I seem energetic and resilient, but due to overly high histamine levels, I can be regrettably brittle.

Prostaglandins: 📉 Declining or gone. Cramps and other menstrual stuff is gone and energy returns. While I used to experience this transition as more gradual in my late twenties and early thirties, now, at thirty-six, it often feels like a door-slam between the part where I’m sleep-walking through my days and the part where I’m wide-awake with manic energy and impatient drive.

Testosterone: 📈 Rising. This provides a drive, assertiveness, and libido boost. Testosterone plus estrogen creates a cocktail for boldness — you may want to reach out, initiate, and conquer the world.

Cortisol: 🟢 Stress feels more manageable. Estrogen enhances cortisol binding and metabolism, which means stress hormones don’t feel as sharp. But because progesterone hasn’t arrived yet, there’s no buffer if cortisol drops steeply later in the day — hence why you might experience the dramatic afternoon crash.

GABA: ⚪ Low. With progesterone absent, GABAergic tone is weak. The nervous system doesn’t have its calming brakes, which is why this part feels buzzy and restless. I’ve found that lemon-balm can be a helpful treatment for how skittish and scattered I can feel in this pre-ovulatory part of my cycle.

Allopregnanolone: ⚪ None yet. Since it’s a metabolite of progesterone, it won’t appear until after ovulation. Without it, GABA receptor sensitivity remains low. Again: it’s the full-speed-ahead, caution-to-the-wind, buzzy-yet-fragile state.

Serotonin: 📈 Rising. Estrogen boosts tryptophan hydroxylase (the enzyme that makes serotonin), so levels climb. Mood lifts, optimism grows, and even digestion often improves. But without progesterone’s stabilizing balance, serotonin can fluctuate rapidly, adding to the cycle’s manic-depressive swings.

Dopamine: 📈 High. Estrogen increases dopamine synthesis and receptor sensitivity, fueling creativity, motivation, and reward drive. This peaks around ovulation, which tends to happen on day ten or eleven for me.

About Ovulation Timing: 📅1️⃣4️⃣ Day fourteen is the average which is taught – but you know what scientists and designers have collectively learned about putting together all the averages of any given thing? That nobody is actually the average! In fact, across many different studies I looked at for this article, I discovered that at most, only 20% of women ovulate on day fourteen – and that’s women with a textbook twenty-eight day cycle. In other studies, as few as 10% of women ovulated on day fourteen.

Recorded stats show that 87% of cycles fall between 23 and 35 days – which means that more than one in ten falls outside that range! The ovulation varies widely – with some as soon as day seven, and others as late as day twenty-one. While the length of the cycle does correlate with how soon ovulation occurs, remember that even women with regular twenty-eight day cycles have ovulations ranging from day ten to twenty – and for some women it isn’t very consistent from month to month.

Okay, returning to that pre-ovulation part of the map:

Oxytocin: 📈 Rising. Social drive and connection-seeking behaviors increase. Estrogen enhances oxytocin receptor sensitivity, so bonding may feel more rewarding.

Vasopressin: 📈 Increasing. Estrogen boosts vasopressin, which sharpens focus, motivation, and sometimes competitiveness. It can also subtly shift social behavior toward protectiveness or territoriality.

Leptin: 📈 Improving sensitivity. Estrogen makes leptin signals stronger, which helps satiety. This is part of why appetite may feel more controlled. Another aspect is that cravings for stimulation (social, sexual, or creative) can replace food cravings. Sometimes I feel “too busy” to be hungry during my pre-ovulation energy.

Ghrelin: 📉 Dipping. Hunger hormone decreases as estrogen rises, so actual food hunger may be lower even if other forms of hunger are increasing.

Galanin: ⚪ Balanced. Appetite steadier, fewer fat cravings. Motility may feel easier here as galanin calms down compared to menstruation. Introspection may come less naturally here. Depending on life circumstances, I might be very outward-focused at this point in my cycle, although, as a generally introspective person, occasionally my pre-ovulation energy gets pulled into very inward-journey tasks such as working on writing my memoirs.

🌖 Days 12–16, Part 3: Post-Ov Energy (Luteal 1)

🔥 This phase is still pretty hot. Where Pre-Ov Energy feels like “full blast” maximum high, the Post-Ov energy is more like medium-high.

Status: 🔺 Estrogen peaks at ovulation (mine is day ten or eleven) and then 📉 drops slightly after ovulation but remains moderate. (Luteinizing hormone has already spiked and released the egg.) 📈 Corpus luteum now forms and begins pumping out progesterone. ⚪ Prostaglandins low – calmer, steadier, more grounded.

Estrogen: 📉 Dips after its ovulation peak, then steadies at a moderate level for a few days. I can often tell when I’ve just ovulated because the morning after often feels duller and I often have a mini-depression for one day. Energy softens in this phase but doesn’t vanish. Many women experience this time as “skin still radiant” and “verbal fluency still boosted.”

Progesterone: 📈 Newly rising, produced by the corpus luteum – assuming ovulation happened. Progesterone stimulates thermogenesis, so basal body temperature rises; this is why fertility charts use temperature tracking to confirm ovulation.

Progesterone provides a calming, grounding influence; it stabilizes your mast cells, reducing histamine flares. This can translate into a lot less anxiety or insomnia – the latter of which I can be very prone to, particularly when progesterone is low. Hence, this can be when I finally get more solid sleep, both starting a little earlier and extending a bit longer. What may have been a restless seven-hour night on day four of my cycle may feel like a luxurious, solid nine-hour night of sleep on day fourteen.

Histamine: 📉 Lower, as progesterone’s mast-cell calming effect takes hold. This means fewer reactions for many women – including me. This phase often feels the most “balanced” for me. Estrogen is still high, but now with progesterone higher too, histamine and cortisol are more buffered. This means I get a higher-energy version of myself without feeling as manic or prone to inflammation.

Prostaglandins: ⚪ Minimal. Prostaglandins still circulate in small amounts, contributing to vascular tone, immune signaling, and subtle shifts in smooth muscle (including gut motility), but their over-drive influence is gone now. This can translate to better digestion and less headaches.

Testosterone: 📈 Still somewhat elevated. Libido strong, energy solid. The estrogen-testosterone synergy here means sexual energy and assertiveness can still be high.

Cortisol: 🟢 Stress-buffering improves as progesterone rises; resilience is up. Daily stressors feel less jagged.

GABA: 📈 Increasing, thanks to progesterone. You may notice this neurotransmitter enhancing your serenity or sleep quality. I notice this is often when my insomnia finally gives way to more restorative nights.

Allopregnanolone: 📈 Rising alongside progesterone. This neurosteroid boosts GABA receptor sensitivity, cushioning the brain against stress. It’s undoubtedly part of why I feel calmer and less reactive here – as some scientists call allopregnanolone “natural Valium.”

Serotonin: 🟢 Stable and high. Estrogen is still supporting serotonin production, and progesterone is buffering mood swings, so your overall mood likely feels balanced.

Dopamine: 🟢 Motivation continues, but less erratically than during follicular highs.

Oxytocin: 🟢 This can be strong, high, and stable in this part if you have constructive intimacy occurring in your life at this time. This is a great part of your cycle for bonding, repairing trust ruptures, and having fun with someone special.

Vasopressin: 🟢 Balanced. Estrogen is still moderate, so vasopressin signaling keeps focus and motivation steady. Socially, it feels less competitive than pre-ovulation, more cooperative.

Leptin: 🟢 Satiety signals function well here. Progesterone may slightly blunt leptin sensitivity, but my appetite feels relatively normal here. My own normal skews towards “I could eat more food” pretty much always; I’ve often suspected that my leptin is a little bit on the chronically low side.

Ghrelin: ⚪ Moderate. For some women this means feeling more in tune with actual nourishment needs rather than wild swings in appetite.

Galanin: 📈 Rising. Appetite begins to skew back toward fats, digestion starts slowing again. Introspection grows but still paired with energy and libido, so it doesn’t feel heavy. The gut-brain-galanin connection can play out as subtle bloating or slower bowels, even while energy feels high.

🌗 Days 17–21, Part 4: Mini Dip & Medium (Luteal 2)

🔥 This phase begins for me a mini dip – my fire is adjusted from medium-high down to low for a mini-depression or fog which lasts eight to sixteen hours. From there, the fire is adjusted to a more comfortable medium.

Status: 📉 Estrogen slips lower but remains mid-range; 🔺 Progesterone peaks, giving a steadying influence; ⚪ Prostaglandins still subtle: mood grounded, digestion calmer.

Estrogen: 📉 Dropping further. The “glow” softens. I find that this is when I shift from adventures and sparkles into more a “follow-through” mode. That which I began feels natural to sustain, but things are a little harder for me to initiate here in the “medium flame” zone.

Around day seventeen I experience a mood dip or “mini dip” – a sort of “one day depression.” It feels like waking up to a grey-scale day without obvious reason. I can rationalize it – because there is always something one could fret over – but it often feels like an inexplicable heavy blanket was thrown over my perceptions.

My interpretation of what happens here hormonally:

This is still before (I think) progesterone peaks. Estrogen has gone through a significant drop. Progesterone isn’t there to powerfully buffer estrogen’s dip. But then, by day eighteen (usually), it feels better – likely when progesterone has now risen enough to compensate for estrogen’s flagging. It is also possible that estrogen itself rebounds some, as the research on women’s cycles supports a slight rise again after a post-ovulatory estrogen drop. But if it does rise again around day eighteen, this would imply a total of four different estrogen rises in my cycle:

Leading up to ovulation.
After the post-ovulation estrogen dip.
After the mini-dip around day seventeen.
The pre-menstrual mania day.

There certainly isn’t any science that claims that is happening – but perhaps that’s because no studies measure hormones frequently enough with enough detail to see all of that happening. A couple other possibilities are: it’s not estrogen causing all of these perceived differences or my own body is doing an atypical rhythm.

Progesterone: 🔺 At its peak – again, assuming ovulation was successful. Given my current twenty-six day cycle with ovulation at day ten, and based on my experiences, I believe my progesterone is peaking around day eighteen or nineteen of my cycle. Progesterone stabilizes mast cells (less histamine), so many women feel calmer, less inflamed, more settled. This is the hormone that makes many women feel more nurturing, reflective, or cozy. This can be my most digestion-friendly part of my cycle.

Ideas that I have during this phase can be more balanced, and I find myself more patient. While I’m often in a “mad rush” to accomplish something in the pre-ov part of my cycle (estrogen without progesterone), now I am more thoughtful, more cautious, and more zen about my activities (high progesterone with moderate estrogen).

While high progesterone is mostly good news, it also ramps up aldosterone, which increases fluid retention. Furthermore, some women and some research find that progesterone can sometimes manifest more like depression than relaxation.

Histamine: ⚪ Suppressed by progesterone. Many women have fewer allergies, migraines, or food reactions here. This is a part of my cycle that feels “right” in many ways, and less histamine reactivity is a big part of that.

Prostaglandins: ⚪ Low.

Testosterone: 📉 Declining. Libido softens, but doesn’t vanish if intimacy and oxytocin are strong. I find that parts one (menstruation) and two (pre-ov) “set the tone” for my sex drive for the rest of the cycle. High sexual activity and satisfaction during my pre-ov energy days seems to offer “carry over” testosterone and estrogen for this part of my cycle. In other words, I feel more energetic, sexy, and sexual in this part (part four) if I found sexuality rewarding in parts two and three.

Cortisol: 🟢 Balanced. Stress feels manageable, though dips in estrogen may make stress spikes sharper if they occur suddenly. This is also moving into the territory where it becomes essential to keep stress levels low. The more cortisol produced, the more your body will be “robbed” of the precursor, pregnenolone – as pregnenolone is required for making any of the steroidal hormones, including cortisol, estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone.

Serotonin: 🟢 Stable, supportive. Progesterone helps keep serotonin transporters in check here, preventing rapid reuptake and prolonging serotonin’s effects. At the same time, estrogen is still present in moderate amounts, keeping serotonin synthesis supported. This combination is why mood tends to feel steady, unless outside stress or nutrient deficiencies (like low B vitamins or tryptophan) undercut the balance.

Dopamine: 🟢 Consistent but less “sparkly.” Estrogen normally boosts dopamine release and receptor sensitivity, so with estrogen stepping down from its peak, dopamine no longer delivers the same highs of “follicular creativity.” Progesterone steadies the system instead, shifting dopamine’s influence toward follow-through, organization, and reward from completion rather than novelty.

Oxytocin: 🟢 Often elevated, especially in the presence of intimacy, safety, or nurturing relationships. Progesterone synergizes with oxytocin to create a more grounded, bonded state. This is why cuddles, touch, or even self-nurturing rituals (massage, baths) can feel especially sweet here. Oxytocin also interfaces with the vagus nerve, so vagal-toning activities like singing may feel particularly rewarding during this time. This part is when I start to transition toward cozy evenings crafting with a few friends, not big workshops or festivals.

Galanin: 🔺 Higher. Appetite for fats increases – rich meals feel especially comforting . . . Can anybody say yes to a grass-fed steak beside a pile of organic fries made at home with ample avocado oil? 🤚🏻. However, galanin dampens acetylcholine release in the gut, reducing peristalsis. When paired with progesterone’s muscle-relaxing effects, constipation risk is high. Magnesium, bitters, herbal motility aids, and exercise are even more essential to keep my guts moving.

🌑 Days 22–25, Part 5: Introspection (Luteal 3)

🔥 The fire moves from the medium burn all the way down to extremely low – and some cycles, when stress is in the mix – it snuffs out entirely by day twenty-five. That is why I chose the new moon emoji for this part of my cycle rather than menstruation. If my hormones have been kept high through the prior parts of my cycle through creativity, sensuality, connection, and sexuality, then this part of my cycle can be more of a low burn – my life, thoughts, and feelings “simmer” without going cold. Either way, my energy draws inward, the sparkle is gone, and my homebody tendencies are at their maximum.

Status: Transitioning into a hormonal desert paired with liver stress. Progesterone is now falling, estrogen has practically run out, prostaglandins are beginning to rise again, and galanin is peaking. The combination tilts everything inward: digestion slows, cravings intensify, and my emotional world can be quieter and/or heavier, depending on external and prior events.

Estrogen: 📉 Declining – often too quickly for comfort. Unlike the beginning of part four which is marked by a “mini dip” which I can quite noticeably feel for at least half a day, this part feels more like the tail end of an era – like the ides of winter. Nothing marks its beginning, but things feel notably different than they have at every other part of the cycle. As estrogen approaches a flatline, serotonin and dopamine tone decrease with it, which can amplify fatigue and low mood. My own mood becomes incredibly fragile, and depending on how stressed I’ve been in the week prior, I can shatter at the smallest criticism during this part.

Estrogen’s withdrawal also reduces acetylcholine, which subtly impairs things like word-recall and short-term memory. If feeling less enthusiastic about life wasn’t enough – poor focus is piled on.

Furthermore, estrogen supports nitric oxide signaling and vascular elasticity, but its decline destabilizes blood flow. This means that my POTS symptoms (dizziness, swollen feet, itchy legs, inability to stand in place) tend to be the worst in the three to seven days preceding menstruation (with the exception of the momentary relief of part six mania, when that happens).

Progesterone: 📉 Dropping fast. The calming, GABA-enhancing influence fades, which is why sleep gets more fragile, anxiety sharper, and irritability more pronounced. When progesterone collapses, mast cells lose their buffer, so inflammation flares more easily too. In my experience this leads to flares of mood that walk hand-in-hand with bodily flares. A burst of anger can lead to my hands feeling like they’re on fire within seconds. Minutes later little bumps have sometimes formed on my fingers – yikes!

Histamine: 📈 Rising again as estrogen and progesterone both reach their “end.” Migraines, food sensitivities, and skin flare-ups are all more likely here. This also paves the way for increased stomachaches, cankersores, and general oral-to-stomach dysfunction.

Prostaglandins: 📈 Rising. As progesterone declines and the uterine lining prepares to shed (menstruation), prostaglandin synthesis ramps up in the endometrium. This is when pre-menstrual complaints often show up: the gut shares prostaglandin receptors with the uterus, which causes loose stools in some women.

Prostaglandins also affect blood vessels in the brain — migraines that strike right before or with menstruation are often prostaglandin-linked. This is also the part of my cycle when I’m the most likely to have dizzy spells multiple times a day – sometimes to the point of struggling to do any standing activities at all. While I’ve found ginger, beets, and other medicines to help with this, there were periods of my life where these “weeks of being dizzy all the time” were just a debilitating mystery. Now that I know prostaglandins are so involved in vascular tone, this experience makes more sense in retrospect.

Fun aside: semen itself is loaded with prostaglandins, which helps trigger uterine contractions to pull sperm upward.

Testosterone: 📉 At its lowest. Libido is minimal, and assertiveness dwindles. This is when I don’t feel sexy or socially magnetic; I feel withdrawn and often quite insecure. While many women seem to post to social media daily, this is almost always a blank spot in my posts. Even though my skin is often better here than it was during my pre-ovulation energy (when histamine spikes), I often feel “less pretty,” “less presentable,” and less sure that my messages are worthwhile.

Cortisol: ⚠ Sensitivity heightened – and easily dysregulated. With estrogen and progesterone both low, cortisol’s impact feels sharper. Stressors that wouldn’t bother us mid-cycle can suddenly feel overwhelming. This is the part of women’s cycles that we’re often most familiar with – the fragility of pre-menstrual moods.

GABA: 📉 Dropping with progesterone. Calmness is harder to access. You might find anxiety or insomnia happen specifically here in your cycle. Insomnia is a theme in my life, but it can be worse here and is often attributed to “feelings” that need processing. This isn’t to say that there aren’t feelings that need processing – but they can feel more urgent than they did just a few days ago, even though it may be about something that happened last week.

Allopregnanolone: 📉 Falling in tandem with progesterone. Without allopregnanolone neurosteroid boosting GABA receptors, your brain might feel less “cushioned.” This ties into “pre-menstrual syndrome" (PMS) – where irritability and tearfulness erupt often and suddenly.

Serotonin: 📉 Declining with estrogen. Mood fragility is real here. In particularly bad cycles, small disappointments sting to the point of feeling beyond frustrated into despair and apathy.

Dopamine: 📉 Lowered drive and reward sensitivity. This is the “slumpiest time” for motivation. I’m unable to start new projects or even new books. If I have the misfortune of just finishing a project or book around day twenty-three, I can be terribly at loose ends for a couple days, feeling anxious, lost, and lonely. This is usually the only part of my cycle where I’m likely to spend a few hours whiling away the hours watching videos.

Oxytocin: 📉 Harder to access. Cuddles and connection help tremendously here, but my sense of insecurity often means that I am less assertive and far less initiatory in general. This can be a time of quiet, lonely yearning. Feeling isolated here often spirals into stress, dark thoughts, and bad menstrual symptoms as a result. In contrast, when a sense of connection is strong here and I’m offered massages, an engaged sounding board, cups of hot tea in the winter or a walk to just admire the flowers in the summer, then this time can feel like a peaceful place of introspection and rest followed by a relatively easy menstruation.

Vasopressin: 📉 Dampened. Less fluid balance stability, which for many women means bloating and/or water retention. While I sometimes notice bloating in myself, it still usually feels more connected to what I’m eating than my cycle. Socially, vasopressin is deeply tied to reading faces and other social cues – which may contribute to my seeming more fractious, oblivious, and generally self-centered at this part of my cycle.

Leptin: 📉 Sensitivity wanes, so satiety signals weaken. This is why portion control may feel harder, even when you’ve supposedly “eaten enough.” I often experience myself as having “cravings” at this part of my cycle – which is frustrating because I already knew by the time I was nineteen that what I ate in the days leading up to my menstrual flow had a huge impact on the severity of my menstrual cramps and the heaviness of my bleeding. (It isn’t surprising I would know this by then, though, given that I’d had approximately 108 menstrual cycles by the time I was nineteen.)

Ghrelin: 📈 Rising, fueling hunger and snack urges. Paired with galanin, this is a dangerous combo for cravings.

Galanin: 🔺 Peaking. This neuropeptide intensifies fat cravings (cream, cheese, fried foods). Introspection deepens profoundly here — galanin is strongly linked to reflective states. It also slows peristalsis, worsening constipation at the exact moment prostaglandins are ramping up to do the opposite (for women who lean toward loose stools anyhow).

For me, peaking galanin means a strongly climbing predisposition toward constipation if I don’t double or triple my usual motility aids – dashmula herbs, magnesium in three different forms, ginger, elderberry, bitters, caffeine . . . Caffeine, however, can be dangerous here, as it can interact with prostaglandins to make menstrual cramps and pre-menstrual symptoms (such as dizziness or migraines) much worse. Caffeine will deplete magnesium – which you need more of here, not less, and furthermore, with estrogen being absent, caffeine clearance by your liver will be slower. The vasoconstrictor activity of caffeine can sometimes offer temporary relief, but with the higher prostaglandins here signaling vasodilation, a flux between the two can actually cause headaches. Starting with the onset of perimenopause, this part has been often brutal; I’ve learned to be extra protective of my time, energy, and space – and overall needs – to ensure this part of my cycle doesn’t become a migraine-marathon.

Galanin’s role in pain modulation may also lower thresholds, so everything may feel physically sharper. This amplifies everything we’ve seen above – where the result can be peaceful, introspective, and sweet. Or it can be a nightmare of constipation, inflammation, burn-out, and lonely isolation paired with a timidity that prevents seeking companionship. The good news is that understanding and tracking our cycles more carefully can empower us to stack the deck in our favor!

🌜🌛 Day 26, Part 6: Pre-Menstrual Mania (Luteal 4)

🔥 Just when the flame had sputtered practically out, it’s pushed back to full throttle – sometimes for just half a day before it dies back to embers.

Status: 📈 Temporary estrogen rebound (maybe), 📉 progesterone crashing, 📈 prostaglandins climbing. Short-lived energy burst before the final descent of the cycle. Not all women experience this, and when I sought studies on it – nothing turned up. While there appears to be no large-scale studies or documentation on this, many outliers do experience it. I found an archived decade-old Reddit thread as follows:

Original Post excerpts (from pallo1234): “I have *so much* energy 1–2 days before period: Why? (And how do you make it last?) Really great workouts, extra fluid, focused movements, strong concentration. I’m just ~100,000,000x more effective at everything than at any other time of the month. (Until I’m crippled by monster cramps, but that’s another story. Or maybe it’s not, idk, I’m not an endocrinologist.)”

Response excerpts (from No-Capital-1798): “I use the energy surge to meal prep and do extra chores so that I can rest as much as possible when I’m bleeding.” And (from eyf), “The rest of my month is pretty shitty and my period particularly is. I’d love to feel this high energy all the time.”

And (from AmadeusAmadeus), “I feel AMAZING the night before my period. High energy, clarity, strength, and a lot of good hyperactivity that wants to funnel into cleaning and art and cool things.” And (from Regular-Track-6894): “Same. I get a crazy rush of energy/clarity (and sometimes irritability) 1–2 days before my period starts…?” Another said, “Omg! I actually started googling today as to why I am always so energetic before my periods? I even workout better, start cleaning my room, my toilet bowl, everything. It’s like somehow, psychologically, I think if I am going to be bloody for 2 and a half days, I am going to at least get other things clean and in my control.”

And, “Everybody knows I’m about to start sharkweek because I’m a bundle of energy and cleaning/organizing everything.” And, “Something I’ve noticed that may or may not be related; my resting heart rate goes up by about 10bpm just before my period. It’s actually a pretty good way of keeping track of my cycle! I assume this is to do with metabolic variation or something.”

Several other women related to the original post, several commented that they wished they had a pre-menstrual energy surge, and interestingly, several commented that they happened to get an energy surge with the arrival of their menstruation, as this poster observed, “I have this when I finally start bleeding. It’s like floodgates have been released! But before that I’m a nightmare.”

So what’s happening here? Let’s finally get into it.

Estrogen: 📈 Brief rebound (hypothetically). This rebound is presumed although not confirmed with testing or clinical trials as of yet. Libido, mood elevation, and that “glow” effect are all back, and it seems like estrogen must be involved. The subjective experience of the pre-menstrual mania* makes it feel like, hormonally, we’re back to that pre-ovulating energy – even if it’s just for five hours. It seems unlikely that estrogen soars all the way back to the peak it had before only to crash all the way down to nothing and trigger menstruation. Furthermore, data on estrogen rising like that has not been collected. That could be due to how ephemeral this wave is, but another explanation is found in the literature: some individuals experience shifts in hormones much more dramatically. Thus, a very small estrogen uptick could be partly responsible for the giant sense of energy that arrives on this day in sensitive individuals.

*See my note on “mania” toward the beginning of Part One: Menstruation.

Progesterone: 📉 Rapid decline – and likely gone. What was once a stabilizing, calming force is now retreating, leaving the system vulnerable to oscillations and emotional volatility. Progesterone being gone or nearly so here is likely a huge part of the intense spike of energy here that causes me (and other women who experience pre-menstrual mania) to go on a cleaning-and-activity rampage.

Histamine: 📈 Spiking again. The estrogen rebound can provoke mast cell release, so migraines, nasal symptoms, hives, or food sensitivities are more likely to resurface. In stressful cycles it has sadly become common for migraines to follow the mania like a shadow, causing my flow to look like wild energy from six o’clock in the morning to four o’clock in the afternoon when a migraine sends me to a dark, quiet room for the remainder of the evening, with menstrual cramps and bleeding arriving late that night or the next morning.

Prostaglandins: 🔺 Likely peaking right as I’m moving toward menstruation. These may feed into my surge of energy due to my high degree of vascular sensitivity (POTS). The transient change in sympathetic / parasympathetic balance prostaglandins might provoke could hypothetically lead to a temporary updraft in alertness or energy.

Prostaglandins (especially PGE2) can transiently raise metabolic rate and resting heart rate as well – which ties back into what one of the Reddit women mentioned about her resting heart rate being higher right before her menstruation began.

Another theory is that rising prostaglandins and local inflammatory signals may interact with brain circuits. In very sensitive systems, that “inflammatory signal” might transiently activate stress pathways, adrenaline, or alertness circuits before turning into cramping, fatigue, or pain.

Given the connection between prostaglandins, body temperature, sleep rhythms, and alertness levels, I’m of the opinion that these are likely highly connected. And while it is a very small sample size, I noticed that many of the women on the Reddit thread who reported this brief manic-energy window also reported “monster cramps” – which would most likely indicate high prostaglandin activity.

Testosterone: ⚪ No clear data exists, but relative testosterone dominance is one plausible explanation for what’s happening here. It’s unclear whether this energy spike might include a significant uptick in testosterone – or whether it is just a relative effect. With progesterone and estrogen both moving toward their lowest point of the cycle (which then triggers menstruation to begin), it is possible that the relative amount of hormones at this time leaves testosterone dominant. With testosterone dominant we can predict more dopamine stimulation – which would map well onto the “cleaning and workout frenzy” many women report happening the day before menstruation begins.

Cortisol: If I experience a cortisol spike just as this part would otherwise be beginning, it gets skipped in favor of moving to part one of my next cycle. This is speculative, but I believe it because of how many times it has happened. At the time of writing this, I’ve recorded 194 cycles of mine, and at least once per year (more than fourteen times), I’ve had an unusually short cycle because of stress. In one particular case the stress was both physical and emotional and I had an all-time shortest cycle of twenty-two days.

Cortisol, as you may recall, can steal the precursor, pregnenolone, away from creating other hormones like estrogen. And when estrogen and progesterone fully crash, menstruation begins. Thus, this (and the part prior) is a key time to avoid a cortisol spike. I might seem resilient as I merrily flit about my house accomplishing things, but actually, a triggering discussion could spiral into a dysregulated argument followed by menstrual cramps.

GABA: 📉 Weak. With progesterone dropping, the GABAergic “brakes” are off—so you feel more reactive, less able to self-regulate.

Allopregnanolone: 📉 Falling. As the downstream product of progesterone, this neurosteroid’s decline pulls away GABA receptor support. This, in theory, could manifest as part of the cocktail that creates this temporary surge in excitability and energy.

Serotonin: 🟢 / 📈 Brief lift. The estrogen rebound (if that’s what is happening) can temporarily boost serotonin, which would partly explain the generally happy vibe this pre-menstrual mania is characterized by.

Dopamine: 🔺 Surging. Ideas are everywhere, inspiration tends to flow, and there is tremendous internal pressure to “do something.”

Oxytocin: This is a critical time for cuddles, connection, and relational stability. I will not get this window of happiness and energy if an argument with a loved one crops up. Once I’ve reached day twenty-five of my cycle I can start menstruating at the drop of a hat – where the hat represents a bucket of stress.

Vasopressin: ⚪ Theoretically, it may edge up subtly. Because vasopressin supports arousal, focus, and social bonding, it could be part of the cocktail burst of what’s happening here.

Leptin: 📉 Sensitivity may weaken. That means even if you feel full, your satiety signals are muted, which can fuel overeating.

Ghrelin: 📈 Hunger hormone climbs. Appetite for quick energy – anything convenient and rich in calories may look appealing.

Galanin: 🔺 Peaks. Appetite for fats is at its maximum – creamy indulgences often seem to speak my name and I have to struggle to resist. As I mentioned in the prior part, often motility is quite stalled out at this time. By my thirties I had mostly mastered remembering to double my magnesium intake prior to even getting to this part. Prior to the magnesium cure I was often found on the toilet, unable to go, yet feeling like I really had to, while also suffering very painful nearly full-body menstrual cramps. These days I mostly notice galanin tempting me toward dairy products which I know only make things worse. But they look. So. Darn. Good.

Part 6 Note: This jittery, happy, manic-like part of the cycle doesn’t happen for all women. It’s unclear if this part is a result of a “healthy” cycle (less cortisol overall creating room for this to happen), or whether it is part of an “abnormal” cycle (excess prostaglandins interacting with undesirable gene variants), or whether it is just a neutral variant (increased sensitivity to tiny hormone fluctuations, perhaps).

🌒🌕🌖🌗🌑🌜🌛

The Cycle Repeats . . . Or Ripples

And the cycle begins again . . . Except that menstruation being counted as “day one” or a “new beginning” always felt wrong to me. I use that standard of measurement and labeling because it’s a long-held convention which keeps me consistent with all other women who track their cycle, but menstruation has always felt more deeply like a conclusion than a beginning. While it may be a hormonal low, the emotional and sensational texture of “part one” – or perhaps “part seven” – feels like a review of parts two through five.

Was I very stressed? Then my menstrual bleeding tends to be heavier, faster, darker in color, and accompanied by more painful cramps.

Was I busy and accomplished? If so, then my menstruation tends to feel more replete, more restful, more like a deep hibernation.

Was I aroused, flirty, horny, excitable, and sexually satisfied? If so, my menstruation tends to be lighter in color and volume, my menstrual cramps are often less or somehow just less painful even if very present, my energy levels tend to be higher, and my creativity feels more active – often right alongside a highly introspective state.

Was I emotionally wrought with grief, anguish, or despair? If so, my menstruation can feel like crawling into a dark cave – my thoughts heavy and dark along with my bleeding, menstrual cramps almost feeling like an afterthought among a general sense of fatigue too deep to move. Even getting into and out of a hot epsom salt bath can be so challenging that I need assistance as my blood feels sluggish and reluctant to flow all the way to my extremities and back.

Was I happy, excited, energetic, and active? If so, sometimes my menstruation arrives and I almost forget it is there. My body stays in motion, moving through gardening, cleaning, cooking, and dancing as if I wasn’t bleeding at all. What’s a menstrual cramp anyway? The subtle sense of a vortex swirling in my stomach is still there, but it’s just tingly – not painful.

Did I nourish my body well? Did I make informed decisions between my cravings, intuitions, and knowledge to consume the foods, herbs, and supplements which would provide me with appropriate medicinal effects when I needed them? If so, sometimes I’m surprised at how little fatigue, pain, or bleeding there is. With minerals, organ meats, and microbiome-aligned food choices, sometimes the cramps last only a couple hours (instead of up to three days), and the bleeding is sometimes nearly gone on the third morning (instead of trailing out into day six).

And so, you end where you began, but not exactly. The echoes of the past parts are compressed into a (relatively) short burst. I personally feel like my menstruation is my report card. Not as a punishment, or anything to feel even remotely ashamed about – but just as an honest reflection from my body about how the cycle’s events affected it. It may be painful or easy, and I have a preference between those two (of course!) but no response is “wrong.”

The menstruation feels like a conclusion, a final act – but like winter, it carries the seeds of the next season. Many trees will not fruit, and many seeds will not sprout without the cold days of winter. Where in my teens and twenties menstruation felt almost entirely like an ending, in my thirties I have grown an awareness of these metaphorical seeds and trees inside myself – I can feel how it isn’t just a report card I’m experiencing, it’s also the set up for the next act. The day of menstruation might feel like “day twenty-seven” (if I had a twenty-six day cycle), but I can now feel how it actually is also “day one” of something new. Perhaps this reflects a hormonal change in me, but it could also be a form of emotional maturity or heightened awareness – or perhaps it is all three.

When I feel most in-tune with myself, my body, my life, and my reality overall, I feel thankful that I’m so sensitive. It means that I get to read a report card that many people don’t have the patience, attunement, or genetic bias to receive. I get the sacred opportunity to see myself more deeply and to adjust my actions accordingly. It may be excruciating to “read” the report card my body gives me at times, but that pain is ultimately my empowerment. When I listen and respond accordingly – with compassion – I am given results I enjoy more. And thus, it isn’t a magical disposition for discipline that drives me to all this tracking and methodical application of self-trials and medicines. It’s pain.

Blessed, beautiful, wonderful pain. It feels awful – but it’s less awful when I remind myself that it is the key to every biological discovery I’ve made. It’s honed me and my personality. If I study the pain carefully, without condemning it or myself, I am powerfully equipped with knowledge as a result. I could – and have – drowned myself in self-pity thousands of times. I could – and have – complained endlessly until the sympathy and patience of friends and family is worn thin. Thus, what looks like “blaming the victim” (myself), or unkindly holding myself in rigid boxes of rules, is actually me showing myself a gorgeous chalice of self-love: empowerment.

Where the medical industry, culture, educational system, and more may have utterly failed me, I hold myself carefully in my own arms and declare myself strong, capable, and empowered to make decisions which will work in my life. If nobody has the answer, then I’ll forge it myself.

Whew. Well, I wasn’t intending on going “here” with this article, but I guess it felt important to say. The cycle – my own cycle – is a very personal thing. It’s my “monthly” journey – my own personal clock. It’s my up and down, my evolution. You see me most often in videos when I’m rising the crest toward ovulation. You read some of my best writing that was written in days of pre-menstrual mania. You almost never see me or hear from me in the “dark moon” introspection – but when I do come from there, it is often with difficult or dark feelings that intoned a calling for the light of conscious attention.

The rise and fall of hormones is a biological backdrop for the biographical narrative of our cycles. Each cluster of hormones gives us a different version of ourselves. One version is wired for initiation, and another for reflection. Each version of you is the real you, and collectively, all the versions of you together could be a form of your “higher self” – or at the least, your integral self. And this is why I began this article by suggesting that we might, as humans with cycles, benefit from doing more than “sleeping on” an issue overnight. For the big decisions, we might benefit most from taking the whole cycle to consider.

Selfhood

If your ego is the story you tell yourself about who you are, then hormones are the background soundtrack shaping which episodes feel most alive at any given moment. For women, that soundtrack evolves dramatically across the cycle – sometimes swelling with estrogen’s bold crescendos, sometimes softening into progesterone’s quieter undertones. And because your sense of self is built not just on memory, but on what you do and feel in the moment, it can be disorienting to recognize how much your identity seems to wax and wane with your hormones. It’s not that your core essence changes, but rather that different versions of you come into sharper focus depending on the hormonal lens you’re looking through.

In other words, sometimes it isn’t just other people who feel like women are fickle. Sometimes we feel fickle even to ourselves. Hence why my lyric about being fractal rather than fickle is an important mantra in my personal self-soothing practices.

When I’m honest with myself, the “on estrogen” version of myself feels like the truest one (even if I intellectually object to the notion of a “truest” self). When estrogen rises, I don’t just feel better – I do more, I express more. I write prolifically – and I hold authorship as a key part of my identity. Even now, as I write these words, I’m aware of how much my rising estrogen levels are impacting me. (I began writing this on day three of my cycle and finished on day eight.)

As estrogen rises I also reach outward more – connecting, creating new bonds, strengthening existing bonds. Relationships are, as Teal Swan puts it, “the stuff of life.” I think it’s natural that I feel more fully alive, human, and embodied when estrogen puts me in a more relationally-extroverted state of being.

By contrast, the low-estrogen phases of my cycle can feel muted, almost like grayscale versions of myself. I’m not actually a wholly different person, nor am I actually less authentically me. Nevertheless, low-estrogen (and low testosterone) make me more continuation-based: carrying forward the projects I initiated when estrogen was high. I read books I was already reading, play games I was already playing, and work on articles, garden activities, and home-improvement projects which were already in motion. Seeing my existing clients or my safest friends feels soothing and straight-forward in parts four and five (late luteal) of my cycle – but seeing new people or places can easily become far too overwhelming.

High-hormone me is an initiator, an adventurer, an explorer; she speaks loudly, gathers diverse crowds, and flirts unabashedly. Low-hormone me is more like a priestess of solitude, reflection, and bedrock wisdom; she carries the torches that high-hormone already set ablaze, but she steps out of the sun into her private temple to restore her energies.

As I’ve already alluded to, it’s not that any part is “wrong” or “less me” in truth. But it is easy to fall into the trap of feeling like my own body, moods, needs, or desires are fickle. It’s easy to accuse myself of a sort of betrayal. A snarky thing I have, sadly, thought to myself many times goes something like this: You thought you wanted this last week. What’s your problem? You made this bed, so just lay in it already!

I believe that educating ourselves about these cycles – especially as we come into perimenopause and experience these shifts more harshly – is important for giving ourselves grace. We need space to be as many versions of ourselves as arise, and to offer each aspect of ourselves its dignity and its unique voice.

As someone who has done parts work for well over a decade (and arguably since childhood), I’m very familiar with my own variability – but this hormonal lens is one that is harder to argue with. We can wave away what felt ephemeral (because it happened in a dream, or during a parts work session), but generally it is hard to argue with biological science. If you have the money, you can even verify your hormonal shifts with testing!

Nonetheless, whether you’re a human with a menstrual cycle or not, you do have parts of self which you self-hypnotize into and out of on a daily basis. For more on that, watch my video Everything Is Hypnosis: You Already Do It! (Expanding Your Identity on Purpose | The Claudia Video).

Your Biological & Biographical Map

Are you ready to make an infradian map of what’s happening in your body – or in your mind? Start today. Even if you only write down a sentence per day about what’s going on for you, that adds up. You’ll be able to look back in a decade on over five hundred data points. A spreadsheet (or physical notebook) just tracking your best guess at your ovulation date each month as well as the beginning of your menstrual cycle may seem paltry right now, but after a year you’ll have collected twenty to thirty data points about the body you live in.

No matter how much we may wish otherwise, everything in our life leaves us – our friends, family, and favorite places. New buildings replace old ones, people move away or die, and new bonds form in the ashes of cherished experiences now gone. But one thing we will continue to have until we die is our body. It will change in many ways over our lives, but it’ll still be there. The more we understand our body, the more empowered we are to take affirming, self-loving actions through each cycle, each year, each season of our life.

While you can track, monitor, and study yourself on your own and reap incredible rewards, if you desire guidance, I offer one-on-one sessions to aid your exploration. With twenty years of experience as a dietary coach, ten years of trauma-informed facilitation, and a decade of neurotypological analysis, I offer a uniquely deep mirror in my sessions. We need not touch your trauma – or your diet – or anywhere else you may not wish to go, but you can rest your heart in my sessions knowing that we can go to these places, and that you will receive full acceptance for the deep truth of your biological and biographical realities – no matter what they are.

My clients frequently report feeling more seen and deeply held by my facilitation – in some cases, more so than they’ve ever felt in their lives. I offer a deeply holistic insight into the self, covering bases of neurodivergence, attachment styles, microbiome impact, and relational strategies – to name a few. Ultimately, I help you uncover your neurotype, and how that ripples into every aspect of your life. If this resonates with you – or if you simply desire my help at painting your own hormonal atlas of your cycle – book a session with me.

I can teach you how to track your body (or heart!) in ways that work with your daily (or moonly!) rhythms. I can also guide you into deeper self-acceptance and understanding of how your neurotype is gifted in ways you may have never seen before, and how to leverage these gifts in your daily life.

Namaste,

Raederle

Neurotypologist & Consciousness Alchemist

References

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