Understanding the different phases of a female hormone cycle and how it affects productivity and mental state.

Cycle Syncing: Synchronizing lifestyle activities and expectations with the four phases of the monthly cycle: menstrual, follicular, ovulatory, and luteal.

• Follicular Phase: Post-menstrual, estrogen dominant. Often a time of increased creativity and energy.
• Ovulatory Phase: Short, lasts 24-36 hours. The body releases an egg.
• Luteal Phase: Production of progesterone, basal body temperature rises. Often a period of sluggishness or irritability.

Benefits of Cycle Awareness: Avoiding negative messaging about cycles and leveraging biology for productivity and mental well-being.

Rest during the menstrual phase, high-intensity workouts during follicular, and gentler exercises like yoga during luteal.

Follicular phase is best for big picture thinking, while luteal phase is better for execution..

Impact: Increased productivity and better mental health through understanding and syncing with the cycle.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Hi everyone.

Welcome to a special bonus episode of Orange Hatter.

We're shaking things up a bit today.

Instead of talking about Bitcoin, I'm venturing into a topic that is fascinating

and probably a little bit unexpected.

In the last episode, Lindsay mentioned a topic that was new to me, something

about the female hormone sinking with lunar cycles and how working with it

rather than against it has advantages.

I was very curious about it, so I asked her to do a special segment to explain.

I hope you find it interesting and helpful.

Enjoy.

So the question is how you were able to improve your productivity

and , your mental state by understanding the different

phases of a female hormone cycle.

Yeah.

So the concept that we're talking about is called cycle syncing, like

S Y N C, like synchronizing our lifestyle activities, expectations

for ourselves with each phase of our monthly cycle, which is four phases.

So we're all like most familiar with our menstrual phase.

It's very obvious when we're in that phase.

And you know, there's a lot of just cultural messaging around how that phase

usually impacts women and the people that are in relationship with them.

But most people don't really understand the other three phases and even sub

phases of the rest of our cycle.

But right after our menstrual phase is our follicular phase which really from day

one until ovulation is all, including the menstrual phase, is considered follicular,

but that is when our ovaries are preparing for ovulation by maturing you know,

these little sacks that hold our eggs.

So, you know, we have our follicular phase, which is estrogen dominant.

And a lot of women experience increased creativity or energy to kind of

execute on projects, myself included, just feel more creative and more sort

of like goal oriented, able to like strategize, you know, life planning stuff

or, you know, just various projects.

It, I can really just really be more efficient with my, my time thinking

when I'm in my follicular phase.

And then, between the second or first and second half of the cycle is a very

short phase called the ovulatory phase.

And you know, it is what it sounds like that's when our bodies release

an egg to either be fertilized or not.

But that's a very short phase.

It's really like, you know, 24 to 36 hours and then after

that phase is the luteal phase.

So that is when the sac that the egg was maturing inside when that little

sac actually transforms into a temporary endocrine gland, which is pretty cool.

And produces progesterone for the second half of our cycle,

which is progesterone dominant.

So one difference that is really easily measurable is basal body temperature.

So during the first half of the cycle, the basal body temperature is lower, and

then between follicular and luteal basal body temperature rises and then stays

high until the next menstrual phase.

So that hormone, progesterone is progesterone.

So promoting gestation or incubating.

So that's kind of like, you can remember, like that's, that's when your temperature

is higher 'cause you're, you know, theoretically cooking a new human.

So yeah, the luteal phase is often one where women find themselves

feeling a little more sluggish, maybe a little more irritable.

Although when those symptoms get really severe, it's definitely a

sign that something's out of whack.

Because really our, even though we do have these different phases I think

a lot of women, myself included, have experienced really extreme

like gnarly luteal phases and PMS.

You know, even to the point of, you know, PMDD which is premenstrual dysphoric

disorder, where you just, it's like, just severe PMS to the point of, you

know, just completely not feeling like yourself feeling really down or irritable.

So anyway, that's not normal.

Some amount of just variation and kind of how our, our brains just what

perspectives on things we lean into is normal, but when it's extreme and

really disruptive, that's not normal.

So anyway, you know, the, the luteal phase gives way to the menstrual phase again.

And then you do it all over again.

So I think a lot of women, myself included, grew up with this messaging

around our cycles that they are negative, that they're a pain in the

butt, that they you know, it's better to just not have to deal with them.

Whether you can do that with a pharmaceutical or surgically, you know.

But you know, I, I had this shift a few years back where I

realized like I didn't need to be at war with my body in that way.

And it was really pointless to try to fight biology, but I could

actually like leverage biology if I did it in the right way.

So I still, I, it, it's, I'm a work in progress because I used to I used to get

so frustrated with myself and I had no idea why it was happening, but I would

like, you know, find myself just really excited about life and set up, you

know, friend dates with everybody that I hadn't seen in a while and like, just

really think to myself like, oh, I'm, I'm really getting myself on a workout

routine and I'm gonna stick with this.

Like, I would think that, oh, I'm, I'm just, I'm finally there.

I've finally arrived and I'm no longer feeling held down by, you

know, whatever I felt last week.

And I thought it would be like a permanent thing.

And then when I would inevitably like, find myself back, you know, at a place

of feeling unmotivated or like, oh, I actually don't really like, have the

bandwidth to like, go and have this social event that I signed up for.

Like, I would feel really discouraged that, oh man, I,

I really don't know myself.

Or like, I really, why did I do this to myself?

But now, obviously some things in life, you know, can't be rescheduled.

But as much as I can, I try to schedule things just to where whatever, like

the intensity of that activity, mental or physical matches the, the energy

level and the clarity of thought that I am likely to have at whatever phase.

Okay.

So can you give us some examples, like, let's use exercise as an example.

So you said there, there are just these different phases.

How do you take advantage of each phase when you're trying to exercise regularly?

Yeah, definitely.

So a lot of the other women who are teaching about these topics kind

of recommend that the menstrual phase be one of just rest and not

really like overexerting ourselves.

I forget the exact like, physiology, but basically if we work out too hard

during our menstrual phase, we, we end up secreting, you know, tons of cortisol

and just kind of like, it backfires.

And then our bodies end up having this greater, like burden of

just hormone removal and it just is kind of counterproductive.

So really, like the most productive thing you can do in that phase is rest.

And then kind of entering the, the bulk of the follicular phase, just more

intense, like higher intensity workouts.

That's when I like to do like more like just get my heart rate up more.

I feel like my body is like more responsive and like wants

to have my heart rate up.

It feels good.

It doesn't feel like a chore.

It feels like, like, I feel happy to be alive and to be pushing myself.

And then sort of transitioning into luteal phase that is kind of when more just

like stretching and non-high intensity like walking or yoga just activities

that can keep us active but that are not you know, super intense, so...

That's really useful because I never consider my

cycle when I'm going to the gym.

It was just, you know, I tell myself I'm going to, I'm going to work out

three to five days a week, and then if I fall off, then I feel awful.

You know, what's wrong with me?

What have, why don't I have any willpower?

You know, that kind of thing.

So this is really helpful.

Can you use another example, like let's say you're trying to

be creative, like how should you use your cycle to your advantage?

Yeah, so I'm still, I'm still working on this, but I have generally

found that in my follicular phase I'm better at just kind of big picture things.

So right now my creative outlets are my work to some extent, but really my house.

So I'm a homeowner.

I bought a fixer upper in 2020, and I've been slowly but surely just kind

of renovating it and updating it.

And I find that during my follicular phase, I, I'm really good at being like,

oh, I need to schedule pest control.

I need to, you know, plan this project or call this person to

get an estimate for this thing.

And I try to kind of batch all of those types of tasks when I know that

it's not gonna feel like drudgery.

And then, you know, maybe just plan them for a time when it's like, okay,

my luteal phase, like I'm not gonna be, you know, setting up all of these

contractor meetings or whatever.

But I'm just gonna like, execute on them.

I'm gonna open the door and have the chat.

I'm not gonna, but I'm not having to do the heavy lifting of figuring

out like, okay, what's my budget, what's, what's my timeline?

Like I am, I just set myself up in my follicular phase to be able to to execute

during my luteal and you know, obviously sometimes it's gonna have to flex a little

bit, but I find that when I keep most of the tasks like appropriate to how I

know I'm gonna feel in those phases, like just everything goes more smoothly and I

don't end up feeling as discouraged within myself that I like can't get stuff done.

Yeah, that is so helpful.

Do you have any recommendations of authors, books, podcasts,

or articles we can look up?

Yeah, so I've learned a lot from Misty Myler on Instagram.

I'll have to get back to you about her Instagram handle 'cause

I think she might've changed it.

But she talks a lot about cycle syncing.

Nicole Jardim has a podcast called The Period Party, and she has her website

where she has courses and things that you can dive a little deeper.

What else?

I personally use the Natural Cycles app to keep track of my my cycle.

I also use the Oura Ring to measure my basal body temperature.

So that I don't have to take my temperature with a

thermometer every morning.

I did that for a while and it just got really old.

And I wake up at different times depending on whether I'm going to work at the

hospital that day or have a day off.

So it was just a little more inconsistent.

So I have a little piece of technology that keeps track of my basal body

temperature and really just like starting to pay attention to like,

when do I feel like the most like am I always feeling this way?

I don't know.

Just, just starting to pay attention to the choices that you

make and how they pan out and like whether there's a pattern there.

So you said that you've been doing this for a few years.

Have you noticed an increase in your productivity or just

general better mental health.

Yeah, I would say both.

I give myself a lot more grace when I just need a recovery day.

And on the days when I am feeling really motivated, I just lean

into that and I celebrate that.

And I just, I try to capitalize on it as much as I can because I know

that it's, it's kind of fleeting, but that it will come back around.

So it's it kind of compels me to like make the most of my time in a way that

I don't think I was aware of before.

So what would you say to the doubters who would say, well you just

need to muscle your way through and every day should be the same as the other

day, or you are just using this as an excuse to not work hard on those days.

Yeah.

So well, I would say that that sounds like messaging that has come from a male

dominated world, and I think that that approach to productivity like it makes

sense if you're a male and you have, you have a predictable hormone cycle as well.

It just happens to reset every 24 hours instead of every 28 days.

So I, I've noticed there's a lot of like male motivational speakers who are

like, you need to wake up at 4:00 AM and get stuff done when everyone's asleep.

And I just completely discount that advice because I am not a male.

I am a woman of reproductive age and that's actually going to backfire for me.

So I just I just kind of have to be secure in myself.

And that's, that is the messaging that I'm gonna get from the world because, you

know, we have a male dominated society.

Even a male dominated like research orientation, you know, like a lot

of medical studies are conducted only on men, then the results are

applied to women, and that's just not very helpful a lot of the time.

Even things like intermittent fasting it doesn't make sense for a woman

of reproductive age and it's going to put undue stress on our bodies.

That actually is like counterproductive in our goals of, you know, being

a healthy and fit individual.

Okay, so the four o'clock thing, I have heard that from a lot of different

places, and you're right, they're all male authors and my husband is able

to do it, and for the life of me, I can't because to me, four o'clock is

in the middle of the night, you know?

Mm-hmm.

It is one thing to rise with the sun, like the farmers of old, right?

It's another thing to wake up when the stars are still out for another two hours.

So why does it not work for women?

Well, I think it doesn't work for a lot of women and it also

doesn't work for a lot of men either.

Because there's this concept of having a chronotype that is just

like baked into our physiology.

Some people are like morning people.

Some people are night owls, and I forget what the, the in-between group is called.

But like I have a friend who is very productive from like 10:00 AM

to 2:00 AM are his waking hours.

And it's kind of frustrating for me because I am like, you know, I'm

probably more of like a seven or 8:00 AM till about 10:00 PM kind of person.

And you know, we're, we're just wired differently.

I think that we would all do well to just encourage each other to figure

out, okay, how are you wired uniquely?

When are you the most productive?

When when is an ideal time for you to have your me time or whatever?

Because it's gonna look different for everybody.

But I think there's like some kind of virtue that has been placed around this,

like four or 5:00 AM waking and, you know, grinding out journaling or, you

know, writing or I guess that's the same thing, but like, or can be yeah, and,

and that's just doesn't work for me.

I personally don't even think we should, I don't think we should

get up before the sun ever.

I have to do that, you know, part of the year because of the

hours that I have at my job.

But that's part of why I wanna get out of nursing is because I don't want to

like for the, that half of the year when I'm getting up, when it's pitch black

outside, like I can feel it in my, my mental and my physical health suffers.

So I think, I think that we're meant to be these cyclical beings that are maybe

more productive in the summer months and more like restful in the winter.

But we have this, not only is it like, you know, day to day expectation that

we can be the same, but also like 365 days a year that our productivity

would not have like ebbs and flows.

So I would...

to figure out and lean into what works for you.

Yeah, that's, that's definitely true.

I feel like sometimes I feel like I'm a robot because I'm supposed to

function the same every single day, when inside, you know, that you don't.

Why?

Oh, I was just gonna say, like, as a homeschool mom, you know,

I feel like our, our, the school system, the government school system

in our country really doesn't take that into account for the students.

And I wonder if your experience as a homeschool mom has really shown you

the value in kind of paying attention to what kind of mood or, you know,

learning state your child is in any given day and like, leaning into that

rather than like being really rigid that certain things have to get done on

certain days at certain times or else.

Yeah, that's a, it's a tough call because while you're homeschooling, you're

also trying to teach self-discipline, and so from my own experience being

an immigrant and being Asian, the discipline comes first, and so...

Mm-hmm.

there are a lot of things that I deal with my kids when they were younger

to instill discipline that I think I would do differently today with what I know.

But I definitely noticed that.

Like, for example, so I have four kids, so one, one son in particular, he seems

like an extrovert and he would go out and have an entire day, like morning until

late night of activities and he's great.

And you never see him wind down at all until the moment he goes to sleep.

But then the next day he's non-functional.

Literally he's like a zombie.

You can talk to him and he won't, he won't answer.

And the Chinese in me would've said, this is where self discipline comes in.

You need to buck up, and even though you had a long day, you're,

the next day should be the same.

But what I have found is if I just leave him alone for one day

so that he can recover mentally, physically, the next day, he's fine.

But if I don't allow him that space to recover, then it drags on many more days.

So that's an example of you just gotta know the person, right, you gotta

that cycle that you're talking about.

His cycle was very particular.

It was, it was, he was great, you know, very, very energetic

for very long, prolonged time.

And then he needs a very long period to recover, versus another child

would, would literally shut down after being active for just a few hours.

But the next day is the same.

So she doesn't need an entire day of recovery because she shut down

long before the other one did.

You know?

So cycles are very different and respecting your individual cycle

is so important for, I keep saying productivity, but I feel like that's

even the wrong focus really, here.

Yeah.

It's really just like your life rhythm of like, 'cause we all have stuff

that we have to do to like keep our lives going forward, you know, paying

the bills, like making sure we like schedule routine maintenance of things.

So it's, it's just kind of, it, it really makes your life less like

drudgery because you're like, okay, I'm gonna leverage the time when it's least

annoying to do these annoying things.

So that I'm like, I'm being kind to my future self who like is just

gonna be so glad that I already took care of this kind of thing.

It's, I think it's a way, it's just a different approach to discipline maybe.

So yeah, my, one of my biggest things in life and, and something

that I do struggle with is like, I don't, I don't like to force things.

And so if I really don't feel up for doing like a really intense

workout or for I don't know.

I, I'm trying to think of other things that can feel really forced or really

just really unpleasant if they are forced, maybe like a difficult conversation or

something like when, when I just like surrender to it happening in its own time.

Like it happens, like it still gets done, but I don't have to like be

at war with myself all the time.

Yeah, for sure.

Can I ask you a, another question, which is kind of a personal question.

You mentioned that inter intermittent fasting is not good for women.

Why is that?

Because I hear it is so popular right now.

Like everybody should be intermittent fasting.

You should always have 12 hours of digesting without giving

your stomach more work to do.

Why do you say it's not good for women?

Yeah.

So I do wanna say like, it really depends on how you're doing it because I do think

there's something to be said for giving our bodies time to digest and detox

kind of between dinner and breakfast.

But the problem for women, specifically women of reproductive age A, we need

carbohydrates to make our hormones, B, just the burden of cortisol, like running

on cortisol is a lot higher for us.

And so and I, I admit, I'm, I'm not great at this.

I like to drink coffee first thing in the morning on an empty stomach.

I do it and it's something that I'm hoping to change soon.

I don't really plan on cutting out coffee 'cause I'm fine with my relationship

with it and the fact that I do kind of need it to get going in the morning.

But I've just heard from so many different people that I trust in the, in the

world, of like women's health that it really wreaks havoc on our hormones.

And it's much better to like eat a satiating meal and then drink coffee.

Because like our bodies are supposed to signal to us that

they're hungry in the morning.

And we can suppress that with coffee.

Or we can just like ignore it with our willpower.

I just, I think our bodies are really intelligent and really they don't

really deceive us or lead us astray.

I have met people who disagree with me and I've noticed that those people are

really at war with their bodies, and that's just not how I wanna live my life.

I, I made a shift sometime back where I just decided that I would be my

body's ally and that I would listen to what it was telling me, I would get to

know the language that it speaks in.

And if it's saying I'm hungry and I'm hungry for watermelon, I'm like,

okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to make that happen and like, or I'm

hungry for a steak or something.

Like, I just think that our bodies' cues can be trusted and our bodies are really

trying to help us, like, help ourselves.

And even things like injuries you know, you might have some kind of

sprain or something like that and it becomes swollen with inflammation

and like the, the prevailing attitude is like inflammation bad must reduce

with ice or with medication and it's inflammation that actually carries those

repair cells to where they need to go.

And so, and now sometime...

like excess inflammation is maybe another, another story, but I don't

think that we need to, like...

our bodies for becoming inflamed because they're trying to heal.

Like that's, that is part of the healing process.

So you know, we can, we can try to identify and remove sources of

inflammation, but when inflammation makes sense, then I, I don't think

that we should be interfering with it.

Yeah, I think we can talk all day long about this because

I have so many examples that I would be able to share with you.

I'll just quickly say that I go to a Chinese herbalist,

he's also my acupuncturist, and in the Chinese medicine, you

just, ice is just not a thing.

You know, if you, if you twist your ankle, you apply heat, 'cause you're

helping your body repair itself.

Ice is not a thing.

So, but, but in the Western medicine, you get injured and

it's ice, it's immediately ice.

You know, ice it down kind of thing.

And then I've heard some people say, when you have a fever, let

it run because it's your body fighting the bacteria or the virus.

But of course the, the scary part is a fever can become a runaway fever

and then you have other issues.

So it is a very fine line to walk, I think.

Yeah, definitely.

Right.

And, and I'm very pro fever as well with the caveat of like,

okay, if I, I know I have this fever because I have an infection.

I'm going to try to support my immune system in other ways by like giving

it nourishing you know, building blocks for my immune system to keep

functioning like to stay in the fight.

You know, like I'm not just gonna do nothing, but I'm not going to

suppress it without, suppress my immune system without supporting it.

So...

Yeah, I really like the way you put that to, to not

suppress it, but to support it.

Mm-hmm.

But it's, it, I must say it's still really scary to do that, especially from

the point of view of a mom watching a child, you know, go into that fever state.

It's really scary.

It's really scary to, to just sit back and go, I'm gonna let it do its work.

It's such a shift in the mindset, you know.

I wonder how much of that that fear comes from like, you know, it's

like it's legitimate rational fear or fear that comes from just what you've

been told about fever equals bad.

So, 'cause I, I kind of think even the threshold for what we

maybe should consider a, a healthy fever is higher than we think.

But I'm, this is not medical advice.

Yeah.

I mean there, like I said, there's, I can tell you story upon stories

of, of my personal experience.

But anyway, we'll just wrap up here and we'll, we'll talk about that another day.

Thank you so much, Lindsay.

I really appreciate you talking with us.

Me too.

This was so great.

So how did you like that?

Did you find that helpful or would you rather stick with purely Bitcoin stories?

I'm just curious.

When I talk to different guests, they, they all have such different backgrounds

and they have such different insights, and if I hear something interesting

that I'm curious about, I would love to be able to explore it further.

Instead of making the Bitcoin segment super long, I would just pull the

material out and make them bonus segments.

So please let me know.

Send me an email.

Tell me what you think at Tali, at orangehatter.com.

Talk to you soon.