Day 1
Today is day 1 of your cycle!! What does day 1 mean? Day 1 is the first day of your full flow period. (If you have spotting for a few days leading up to your cycle, you will not count that as day 1… and hopefully that will be a thing of the past once you start following along to sync life with your cycle).
Don’t have a period? That is OK too. This applies whether you don’t have a uterus or have an irregular cycle like a no-show or all-month period. You have a built-in feminine cycle no matter how dysfunctional your endocrine system is right now! In fact, if you fall into any one of these cycle abnormalities or one we haven’t mentioned, you’ll most definitely benefit from this approach.
In the case of no period, you can follow the moon cycle (not incidentally about the same length as a female cycle!). Day 1 starts on the New Moon.
Here are some basics. The entire feminine cycle is roughly 28 days. Each of the 4 phases of this cycle contains about 7 days (give or take, depending on your cycle length). Because each woman is a little different on the timing, we named each phase to be more easily applicable to all women.
Release: approximately Days 1-7 of your period
- The Dark Subphase: Days 1-3 are a special few days that are set apart from the rest of this phase
- Rise: approximately Days 8-14 (or Day 7-ovulation)
- Plateau: approximately Days 15-21
- Pause: approximately Days 22-28
Day 2
It’s day 2!! Since at this point of your cycle (those of you with a period) you are in full flow, now is a good time to think all about nontoxic feminine products. This is a big topic, so make sure to keep reading!
Did you know that a regular pad you can buy at the store will take roughly 800 years to decompose?? That’s 40 generations from you right now! Makes you wonder what’s in them, right?
Good question! Did you ALSO know that anything you put in or on your body will take between 20-60 seconds to end up in your bloodstream?
These little facts are big deals. In the scramble that modern society has to keep our periods a “secret” and something “dirty” to hide from the rest of the world, we’ve lost sight of the fact that we often approach them in not-so-healthy ways. Our pad wrappers aren’t supposed to make sounds and our tampons are supposed to be as tiny as possible. Guess what? None of these things serve our bodies or our minds in positive ways. It’s normal, healthy, and beautiful to see your body go through the continual process of growth, renewal, and rest…let’s get more in touch with that instead of pretending like it’s not happening!
Understanding your cycle through nontoxic feminine products is a wonderful way to learn how your body works and what it really needs. Because this switch can be overwhelming, we did all the work for you! Check out our FREE guide for Top 10 Crunchy Feminine Products. zestyginger.com/crunchyfeminineproducts. Regardless of whether you use pads or tampons or liners, there’s a more natural option out there for you!
Day 3
Day 3 is a part of The Dark Subphase, a special few days that are set apart from the rest of this phase (if you don’t have a period then the new moon is the best time for doing this activity we discuss in this post!). This is a period of release and transformation. Both physically and emotionally, we are called to let go of what we no longer need so that we can have space to consciously rebuild more of what we desire in our world.
The first few days of your cycle, or the new moon, can bring out a sense of loss of what we are letting go of. This is totally normal and natural. As we take time to honor everything we have experienced and learned from, we give ourselves space to recover and replenish from a more deliberate and purposeful place. This is a time for self-love, intuition, and time either alone or in the presence of supportive loved ones.
Try a ritual today. But don’t wait or say, I’ll do this later!! This is a special time that happens once a month and during your period you have the ability to tap into your left and right brain at the same time. You can think analytically, but also use your intuition. This is the best of both worlds.
Set aside 15-30 minutes to journal about all that you appreciate about yourself. List everything from the small things to the deep and fundamental aspects of yourself. Let that list flow into what you want to happen this month. Starting with the things you appreciate about yourself as gratitude helps us to get into the alpha state (think meditative state!) and in this creative state we can tap into what we really want to make happen in our life. You can think of the start of a new cycle like the start of a new year.
If you are rolling your eyes at the idea of journaling, we get it. I (Megan) came kicking and screaming to the journaling idea, but have to admit I am a total convert (especially after my neurofeedback work at 40 Years of Zen and EMDR work with my therapist!)! Try it.
Day 4
Physiologically, this is the lowest point of your hormones before the new cycle starts again. While this period seems like there isn’t much going on, it is actually a crucial time to build the foundation for a happy and healthy cycle for the upcoming 4 weeks.
As your period finishes, the ovaries are getting the signal to build up multiple eggs so that ovulation—and possible fertilization to make a baby—is possible.
At this time, it is crucial to help the ovaries get the appropriate signals that allows one egg to reach maturation and trigger the hormonal cascade involved in ovulation. When ovulation happens at the set time, we have cycles that are regular, predictable, and less painful.
Building up the body with sufficient nutrients to power cellular activity and lowering inflammation so that the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-ovarian axis isn’t suppressed are the keys to this week. One of our favorite ways to boost nutrients is with elixirs!!!
Here is an elixir that is ideal for this week:
The New Rebuild
- 12 oz filtered water
- 1 tablespoon liquid chlorophyll
- 1⁄4 squeezed organic orange or grapefruit
- 1 scoop grass-fed collagen peptides
Day 5
Time to start something new
As you transition away from your period is the best time to start something new!! Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you attempt a new “diet”, “plan” or “elimination protocol” you are super successful and other times it is the most painful and deprivation-inducing experience? Often we pick a date.. such as “I am going to start my healthy eating or detox on Jan 1st!” without any regard for where we are in our cycle.
I (Megan) found this out the hard way. When I first attempted an elimination diet many years ago I picked a random start date and went with it. It happened to be toward the very end of my cycle. My brain and body rejected the change. It was a battle. I felt deprived.
When playing around with strict #keto I happened to time the start a few days after the start of my period. I had a lot of determination and seemed to easily jump right in. I felt great, my energy increased and I stuck with it easily for a month. I happened to pick the ideal time in my cycle without realizing it. (although keto did seem to mess my hormones up after a couple months, you get the idea that this was a good time to start!)
Today is the day to try something new. What habit have you been hoping to implement? Comment below with what you are going to add to commit to. Just writing it down and publicly announcing it on social media drastically increases your odds of getting it done. Not sure what to start with? Then join our 5 day free Cycle Syncing Challenge for ideas.
Day 6
We’ve been talking about experiencing what living with your natural cycles feels like. But what if you’re on birth control? Can you still benefit from this approach?
The answer is a definitive yes!! Whether you are on birth control for the contraception or for heavy bleeding, acne, hormonal headaches, or irregular periods, you can still significantly benefit from honoring what systems are naturally in place within your body throughout the cycle. In fact, because you are taking in artificial hormones, a focus on inflammation and detoxification at the correct times is ESPECIALLY important for you.
While we don’t want to turn birth control into the “bad guy” (or make you feel bad for taking birth control!), it’s important to know that oral contraceptive pills can deplete magnesium, B6, B2 and riboflavin and increase estrogen levels which has a dual effect of both impairing methylation and increasing need for methylation.
Day 7
Want to have a smoothly running menstrual cycle all month? Focusing on inflammation in the first half and detoxing in the second are the broad strokes way to do this!
Having your period is basically a controlled inflammatory response in the body. For this process to work well, the body needs adequate levels of vitamins, minerals, and cofactors to power important biochemical reactions.
In order to have nutrient sufficiency, we like to focus on eating a WIDE variety of different nutrient-rich foods in our diets. Instead of focusing on the things you “can’t” (aka: choose not to) eat, it’s often more helpful to focus on eating the most varied diet possible. Incorporate different brightly colored fruits and veggies into each and every meal…and make sure that you’re consuming a balance of proteins, fats, and carbs whenever you go sit down to eat.
If you’re still worried about your nutrient stores, you can choose to supplement. Our favorite multivitamin is called Nutreince by @caltonnutrition because of the formulation.