If you are interested to learn more about how your menstrual cycle affects your daily life, I would love to invite you along to a free masterclass that I’ll be hosting real soon. You’ll learn the 3 keys to balancing your moods and hormones.
If you are struggling with PMS, acne, sensitive breasts, headaches, anxiety, irritability or low energy, you would definitely not want to miss out!
You can save your seat now by going to www.vandghie.com/3secrets
Transcript:
I’m so happy that you’ve joined me again for this episode of Balance in Beauty.
Today’s topic is something that I’m very determined to share with as many women as I can as I believe it’s a topic that not many people know that facts about.
I remember when I first started my period, it came as a shock. This was not a topic often talked about and most girls were not prepared for this major event. I dreaded my period each month. I was selfconscious and nervous most of those days because I would die if anybody knew i was having my period!
When I was about to get married, one of the biggest things I hadto think about and get in place was family planning. I was definitely not going to play russian roulette by counting the days of my cycle and use that as a form of contraception, because in my mind, I could fall pregnant on any day of my menstrual cycle.
I was still studying at the time, halfway through my degree, so falling pregnant was definitely not an option. So I knew I didn’t want to use oral contraception, because I learned about all the risks and side affects during the course of my studies, so I opted for the mirena.
I now know that I was not well informed about different methods of contraception and how anything that ‘alters’ our menstrual cycle, has an adverse affect on our health.
Many of us were taught that we can fall pregnant on any day of our cycles and that you would need to use contraception every day if you wanted to prevent pregnancy. This is absolutely not the case.
Ovulation, which is when the ripe egg is released from one of your ovaries, happens on only ONE day of your entire cycle , and once the egg is released from one ovary, it disintegrates within 12-24 hours if not fertilised. So technically the ripe egg can only be fertilized during a 12-24 hour window.
But it’s also important to understand here that your fertile window is extended to about 1 week long if you take into consideration the function of cervical mucus, which can preserve sperm for up to 5 days. In other words, intercourse during the 5 -6 days leading up to ovulation can result in pregnancy. Please note ladies, cervical mucus does not mean you have an infection. It’s a normal and healthy part of your menstrual cycle. But knowing your mucus is important as this is probably one of the first places to pick up on an infection or underlying health issues. If you don’t understand your mucus, you probably won’t understand your fertility, the importance of regular ovulation and ultimately when your period is coming. And because this information is generally not taught at an early age, it can lead to a lot of frustration!
So outside of the window of fertility, pregnancy is simply not possible. Observing cervical mucus can be a very accurate way of natural contraception as cervical mucus is only produced leading up to ovulation due to rising estrogen levels. But other than this, you will be producing little to no mucus, which is called the dry and infertile days.
When you learn to understand your fertile signs, you will be able to prevent pregnancy naturally, optimize your chances of conceiving, monitor your overall health and experience the health benefits of regular ovulation. I find it sad that nobody ever taught me the many health benefits of ovulation!
And this is because many healthcare practitioners don’t understand the importance of having a regular ‘natural’ period and ovulation. Therefore, they prescribe the continuous use of hormonal contraceptives at the drop of a hat, which leads to menstrual suppression.
And menstrual suppression, my friend, means you stop having a period and you don’t ovulate. The bleeding that you are experiencing when using oral contraception is not a natural period, but a chemically induced breakthrough bleed.
The use of hormonal contraceptives are so common that most women never ask any questions about the real mechanism of how it works or the true side effects of continuous use of these drugs.
And to be clear, this includes all methods of chemical birth control, such as oral contraceptives, the injection, patch, implant, ring and hormonal IUD.
All these methods have their differences, but they all work by continuously exposing you to artificial or synthetic hormones and these chemicals lead to disruption of your endocrine system.
The hormones in chemical contraception are vastly different at molecular level to natural oestrogen and progesterone and hormonal contraception is the only prescription drug that is designed to shut down a perfectly normal process within the body. Unfortunately many women are ok with this because of a lack of knowledge.
I bet most users of chemical contraception don’t know that it increases your risk for blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, pulmonary embolism, inflammatory disease, mental health issues, increased risk of HPV virus and cervical cancer and increased risk of breast cancer!
Pregnancy and fertility is not a disease, but it’s a completely normal part of the physiology of a mature woman. But it’s the ONLY normal physiologic function that medical providers treat as if it were a disease by chemical suppression, manipulation or surgical elimination.
Furthermore, more and more teenagers are now placed on oral contraceptives for treating skin conditions or managing heavy and painful periods. This leads to suppression of the pathways between the brain and ovaries even before they are fully developed and when these women are ready to start a family, they could be infertile for years as these pathways have to form and establish again.
Our Periods are a normal and healthy part of womanhood! And i think it’s important to instill this in our young girls, so they can learn to understand the language of their body from a real young age!
It’s not always easy to embrace your cycles, especially if they are problematic, but I invite you to look at your menstrual cycle as an important sign of health. If your cycles are problematic, I encourage you to try and get to the bottom of it. What is the real cause of these issues that you are experiencing? Don’t slap a band-aid on it, but rather try to understand what your body is trying to say to you and address the root cause.
I’ve come across an interesting quote from Gloria Steinem which I think holds so much truth!
In her essay called “If men could menstruate”, she writes:
“What would happen, for instance, if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not? The answer is clear—menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event: Men would brag about how long and how much. Boys would mark the onset of menses, that longed-for proof of manhood, with religious ritual and stag parties. TV shows would treat the subject at length. So would newspapers. And movies.”
I think for too long, the menstrual cycle and periods have been seen as a curse, where in actual fact, think of this, if women stopped menstruating, there would be no next generation! That’s how important your period and your cycle is.
A healthy cycle is characterized by fluctuations of your main ovarian hormones, which estrogen and progesterone.
And Progesterone is only produced in significant amounts for up to 14 days after ovulation and requires ovulation to take place in order for it to be produced.
Progesterone is critically important to offset the risks of estrogen.
So what I’m saying, is that balance is the key!
Unbalanced estrogen is known to promote cell growth in certain types of cancer, including breast and endometrial cancer.
Progesterone is proven to protect against cell growth and the development of cancer.
We know that women with long irregular cycles, such as what we see with Polycycstic Ovary Syndrome or PCOS, are typically exposed to high and unbalanced estrogen levels and as a result, these women are nearly 3 times as likely to develop endometrial cancer.
A number of researchers agree that ovulation plays a key role in the prevention of breast cancer by ensuring the adequate production of progesterone. Research also found that women with longer or shorter cycles, typically longer or shorter than 26-34 days, are twice as likely to develop breast cancer in their lifetime.
Optimal progesterone production is also vital for building and maintaining optimal levels of bone density in women. By definition, women who stop ovulating or experience ovulatory disturbances are deficient in progesterone, increasing their risk of developing osteoporosis. This includes women who lose their period or stop ovulating due to stress, overexercising, undereating, ovulatory disorders OOORRRR the use of hormonal contraceptives!
Irregular ovulation is also associated with other risks such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and infertility.
Whether or not you are planning on having children in the future, it is clear that maintaining healthy ovulatory cycles is so very important for preserving optimal health.
Your menstrual cycle is an important language that constantly relays information back to you about your overall health
In her book The Fifth Vital Sign, Lisa Hendrickson-Jack compares our menstrual cycles to a smoke detector. It is quietly sitting on your ceiling for most of the time, but when it starts detecting smoke, you will hear it going off like crazy. At this point, you can put some earphones on to eliminate the painful noise it creates and pretend like it doesn’t exist. Or you can start taking action and put the fire out. But putting on the earphones will not extinguish the fire. Similarly, your menstrual cycle acts as a warning instrument. You can either dampen the noise by taking oral contraception to decrease the flow of your menstruation, get rid of the painful, prolonged periods or other symptoms, or you can start paying attention to the warning bells and try to uncover the root cause of the problem.
My hope is that this episode has inspired you to learn more about and understand your menstrual cycle. When you embrace the intricacies of your body, you’ll start feeling empowered and like you are in control of your body. And the best place to start is to track your cycle each and every month.
I know there are many ladies that already do this, but it’s important to use the data that you get to form an overall picture.
Ok my friends, thanx so much for spending this time with me, and if you haven’t shared this episode with at least one other lady yet, please do so. I would be so very grateful, but you can also make a difference in the life of somebody that is special to you that might be struggling with these intimate issues without you even knowing.
I’ll see you next time.
If you are interested to learn more about how your menstrual cycle affects your daily life, I would love to invite you along to a free masterclass that I’ll be hosting real soon. You’ll learn the 3 keys to balancing your moods and hormones.
If you are struggling with PMS, acne, sensitive breasts, headaches, anxiety, irritability or low energy, you would definitely not want to miss out!
You can save your seat now by going to www.vandghie.com/3secrets, or find the link in the shownotes.
I’ll see you there my friend!