What if I told you, that you weren’t designed to operate on a 24-hour clock…
What if your PMS / period pain / bloating / fatigue/ mood fluctuations is your body shouting at you to live a different way?
Consider this; your physiology is designed to operate on a 28-day cycle, and for years you’ve been conforming to a 24-hour clock.
What is the 24-hour Clock & Why does it Exist?
Well...men (or people with dominant Testosterone physiology), have a 24-hour testosterone cycle. It looks something like this
To orient you, time 0 = 12 am and then hour 24 is 12 am of the next day. Testosterone production peaks between 6-10 am, with a typical peak at 8 am. It reliably decreases over the course of the day with the lowest levels occurring around 8 pm. It then slowly begins to increase over the course of the night towards that early morning peak, and the cycle REPEATS. This 24-hour cycle informed the 24-hour day that we know today.
So this is the 24-hour day – and I’d wager that this it's quite similar to what your 24-hour day looks like (at a high level). But now we know it's based on the testosterone cycle (above) which I have overlayed (represented by the brown line at the top).
Early morning = wake up, work out, plan your day, go-go-go
Mid-morning = peak productivity at work
Early afternoon = lunch meetings, more team-oriented activities
Early evening = happy hour, dinner dates, dinner meetings
Late evening = wind down, watch TV
& REPEAT
So, if every day is hormonally the same. It makes some sense that every day's structure should also be relatively the same. And this is true for men. However, as a woman (or person with dominant estrogen/progesterone physiology) - every single day of your 28-day cycle is hormonally different.
You read that right. Over the course of your cycle (from the beginning of your period, until the start of your next one) - not a single day is hormonally the same. Yet, we operate in a world that expects sameness and consistency day in and day out. Forcing us to ignore our normal cyclical rhythms, worsening cyclical experiences like PMS and period pain.
It’s time to consider another approach. It's time to cycle with your cycle.