Cycle Syncing: How to “Hack” Your Period for Productivity
Image courtesy of Surface via Unsplash.
Cycle syncing for productivity has become a hot topic. It’s a little like biohacking—people are trying to “optimize” for performance, whether that be physical, mental, or emotional.
While I appreciate this concept, this post is not about establishing dominance over your body’s systems and muscling it into perfect, predictable phases. It’s about owning your ups and downs. It’s about allowing yourself to be off when you’re off, and when you’re on, rocking on with your super-productive self.
That said, if you learn to listen to your body, you can find a more productive rhythm that’s in sync (pun intended) with your natural tendencies. And that can help you “hack” your period (or your partner’s period) for productivity.
Before we get started, a caveat: All of these are generalities based on a textbook standard 28-day cycle. Time in each phase and intensity of the characteristics of each phase will vary from person to person and with different phases of life and health. And, any form of hormonal contraception (birth control pills, patches, IUDs, etc.) disturbs this set of processes. They will prevent pregnancy and cut out some of the hormonal lows, but they will also dampen the hormonal highs and some of the productivity that comes with them. Take that into account as you continue reading about cycle syncing for productivity—and consult a holistic women’s health specialist for personalized care.
Cycle syncing is about more than productivity; it’s about holistic health. It’s important to support each of your sex hormones with matching behaviors to facilitate healthy body functions.
Let’s dive in!
For those of you who like visual aids, here’s a simple chart from a company called Hormonlogy that helped me out a ton while I was trying to make sense of all of this.
The Follicular Phase (Days 1-14)
Physically, the follicular phase consists of two stages, but hormonally, it’s a single phase. It lasts for about two weeks, starting with mensuration and ending when ovulation starts.
Menstruation
What’s Happening: The first physical stage is menstruation (the first 3-7 days). Physically, your body is shedding a layer of uterine lining to begin creating a new one. This is what causes the bleeding associated with this phase.
How You Might Feel: Hormonally, all four of your major sex hormones are at their lowest point on the first day of menstruation. This, combined with the physical stress of bleeding and recovering tissue can leave you feeling energetically low, especially if you have low iron levels.
This is when any chronic, recurring conditions are likely to flare up. This is also the time when stress levels are likely to be at their highest. In women estrogen, progesterone, and oxytocin drive down cortisol levels. In this phase where all of them are naturally low, cortisol can creep up leaving you feeling more stressed out than usual.
How to Cycle Sync With Your Early Follicular Phase (Week 1-ish)
The key here is to give yourself space and support your body in making the estrogen and oxytocin that will support your mental state and your physical processes. The better you manage your stress levels, the earlier you’ll have the bandwidth to increase your productivity.
Practice Saying “No.” Cut all unnecessary demands on your time and attention. In this time, you will have little available bandwidth for non-essentials.
Ask for Support. Request help from the people around you or postpone major projects by a few days (while knowing that a more productive phase is coming).
Plan an Outing or Date That You Can Look Forward To. This is a low-stress way to help boost your oxytocin and estrogen a little faster. If you have a romantic partner, doing this with them will give you the most hormonal bang for your buck. If not, take this time to schedule a mani-pedi, a massage, a haircut, or a trip to your favorite social event.
(Late) Follicular Phase
What’s Happening: For the remainder of the time between menstruation and ovulation, your body is building up a new uterine lining and developing between 5 and 20 new follicles (premature eggs) in one ovary. Usually only one or two of them mature. Estrogen drives these processes and triggers ovulation when it reaches its peak.
How You Might Feel: Over the course of the follicular phase, your estrogen levels will steadily rise. As your estrogen rises you might feel a myriad of mental and emotional effects:
Increasing desire to socialize, collaborate, and connect with people
Decreasing stress levels (due to estrogen and oxytocin driving cortisol down)
Increasing levels of creativity, motivation, willpower, and ability to process information
Increasing drive to nurture relationships with family members and close friends
Increasing libido
For the last few days before ovulation, your testosterone will also spike. This will help make you feel more independent, assertive, daring, action-oriented, and able to delay gratification. It will also amplify the libido enhancing effects of your high estrogen levels.
How to Cycle Sync With Your Late Follicular Phase (Week 2-ish)
As you move past your period and build up to ovulation, the effects of estrogen, oxytocin, and testosterone reach their height—meaning this is the time to get all of the things done.
Do Things that are Necessary But Painful. Now is the time to do heavy workouts, medical procedures, etc. High estrogen has the added benefit of increasing endorphin levels, which can dull pain sensations and create feelings of euphoria in response to challenging or painful situations.
Start New Projects. Because of your increased creative capacity, willpower, and ability to delay gratification, now is the best time to start new initiatives, either at work or at home. Try starting a new nutrition plan, workout routine, or long-term work project.
Focus on Strength-Building Workouts. This is the best time to grain strength and lean muscle. High estrogen will drive faster muscle repair, high endorphins will increase the euphoria you feel after the workout, and the high testosterone will boost your motivation during the workouts. It’s a win-win-win situation.
Provide Support for Your Family. The higher your estrogen levels, the more drive you’ll have to nurture the people around you. Take this opportunity to focus on providing more care and support to your children, spouse, parents, and/or close friends.
The Luteal Phase (Days 14-28)
The luteal phase is the entire last half of your cycle from ovulation to the onset of menstruation. There are 3 main functional stages to this phase—ovulation, post-ovulation, and what I call the wind down.
Ovulation
What’s Happening: Ovulation is about a 1-day period, from the time that the egg is released from the follicle to the time that it breaks down. The egg will live in the fallopian tube for 12-24 hours without being fertilized. In theory this happens on day 14. In the 4 or 5 days around ovulation, your estrogen, oxytocin, and testosterone levels are at their peak.
How You Might Feel: During this time, your sex hormones are doing everything in their power to help you get pregnant, so they set you up to want romantic attention.
This is a great opportunity to stack the hormonal deck in your favor. By doing some oxytocin boosting behaviors now, you can set yourself up for some long-lasting mood-boosting effects. The resulting oxytocin high can help you feel more connected and supported through the rest of your cycle. If you skip this step, it can set you up to feel disconnected and resentful for that same 3+ week period.
How to Cycle Sync Around Ovulation (End of Week 2 + Beginning of Week 3)
These “productivity” steps for the ovulation phase are good for the 5 days around it (about 2 days before and 2 days after ovulation).
Have that Romantic Date or Outing that You Planned in Week 1. If you have a romantic partner, this is the time for them to pamper you. It will have far more impact now than at any other time. They can treat you to a nice date, give you massages, do favors for you, etc.
Get Some Non-Romantic Personal Attention. You can also take this time to do non-romantic activities to boost your oxytocin too. The key is to look for un-equivalent exchanges—you give something different than you get (this is known as pair-bonding). One way you can do this is to exchange money for a service, especially if it involves physical touch: get your hair cut and styled, get a massage, or ask for one-on-one help from a fitness trainer.
Masturbate. I know this might be taboo, but stick with me. The high levels of estrogen and testosterone in your system right now make it much easier to orgasm. This means a flood of oxytocin for your whole system whether you’re doing it with a partner or not. If you crave more physical touch than you’re getting, do it for yourself. Or, find other ways to increase your oxytocin—it can be as simple as taking a warm shower or bath.
Post-Ovulation
What’s Happening: The post-ovulation stage includes the 8 days or so after ovulation, when the big hormonal switch happens. Estrogen will tank for a couple of days, and then rebound as your progesterone levels continue to increase. Progesterone levels will peak around day 22, with a second, lower peak in estrogen.
How You Might Feel: You may experience a kind of 1-day mini-PMS (some irritability, depressed mood, fatigue) from the rebound in estrogen. After that, your energy level can decrease as your progesterone levels increase.
Remember, progesterone has a sedative effect. Presumably, it’s trying to get you to slow down and focus on taking care of yourself just in case you’re about to grow a baby. If you are prone to anxiety, progesterone’s calming effect can provide some much-needed relief. Supporting it with strategic behaviors can promote this effect.
It might also increase your cravings for high calorie, high fat foods, and decrease your motivation to do extra things. This is when you are likely to experience your lowest energy times and possible episodes of sadness and crying, especially if you’re sensitive to progesterone.
How to Cycle Sync After Ovulation (Week 3-ish)
Focus on Self Care. High progesterone is going to leave you in a calm state, craving friend relationships and time for yourself. This can seem like an abrupt change to your partner, especially if your partner is a man (after all, a few days ago your hormones wanted to make a baby), so make sure to communicate with them. The best way they can support you now is help you create time and space for friend dates and self-care routines with or without them. This is one of those things best established ahead of time, because you may feel like you want their pair-bonding support, but the best thing you can do is work with your progesterone by focussing on self-care and social bonding.
Ask for More Non-Sexual Touch. See above. That is all.
Eat as Soon as You Get Hungry. Now is not the time to be trying to train your food cravings. Not eating enough food during this phase can set you up for huge and unpredictable swings in mood. You can still make good food choices, but do not deprive yourself of calories.
Do Fat-Burning Exercise. The high levels of progesterone and estrogen that come toward the end of week 3 rev up your metabolism. Right now, your body is super efficient at using fat for fuel—somewhere around 30% more effective than usual. Now is a great time to get in a couple of interval training or HIIT classes.
The Wind Down
What’s Happening: Everything after the peak in progesterone is a wind down to menstruation (assuming you’re not pregnant). The last 6 days before menstruation starts again are characterized by the steady decline of both estrogen and progesterone. (If you did get pregnant, then you’re in for a whole new hormonal roller coaster.)
How You Might Feel: Decreasing sex hormone levels can make you feel progressively more sad, irritable, or stressed. It can also prompt PMS symptoms. On the plus side, the decrease in progesterone can cause some of your energy and libido to return.
Side note: Symptoms of severe pain and mood swings during pre-menstrual days are common in our culture, but are NOT necessarily normal. They are a sign of a dysfunction, and there are ways to address them. I recommend consulting with a holistic women’s health specialist to talk about your individual situation.
The key to reduce irritability and stress from decreasing estrogen and progesterone is to support serotonin. Supporting the production of serotonin can create more feelings of contentment and security, which are often lacking in the days before menstruation.
How to Cycle Sync Before Menstruation (Week 4-ish)
Do Familiar Things. Stick to your routines, especially around self-care. Go to familiar restaurants, order your every-day coffee, take the same old route to work. Anything you can do that feels familiar and stable will help you increase your serotonin levels, combat the emotional weight of decreasing estrogen levels, and keep your cortisol in check during this stage.
Start Cutting Unnecessary Tasks and Stressors. Just like you did in week one. Consider how to preserve your mental resources.
I know that all of this can feel very complicated. Frankly, that’s because it kind of is (I had to do oodles of research just to bring some cohesion to this topic). You don’t learn these things in school, and neither did I. In a time where we desperately want things to be consistent and predictable, riding the waves of your body’s (or your partner’s body’s) hormonal shenanigans can feel overwhelming. My hope is that by shedding light on the ups and downs of these cycles, you can make sense of each of these phases and set yourself up to take full advantage of the high points and respect your body’s desire for rest during the low ones.
More Resources for Cycle Syncing
There are many great resources out there to help you understand more about how to work with your body’s own natural cycle. I recommend starting with these:
Blogs from my friend Dr. Cassie Wilder:
How to Create Cycle Syncing Self-Care Habits Around Your Period
How Your Hormones Change As You Age: What to Expect In Your 20s
How Your Hormones Change As You Age: What to Expect In Your 30s and 40s
For helping your partner work with you and your cycle: Beyond Mars and Venus, by John Gray