Ending Miseducation About The Female Body
Starting a rebellion through education
Girls are taught to view their bodies as unending projects to work on, whereas boys from a young age are taught to view their bodies as tools to master the environment.
Gloria Steinem
From a young age, if not from birth, we as women are taught that we are the weaker sex and that we have predetermined functions in this society that we should not sway from and that our role as a whole is that of a supporting one.
What if we were taught the opposite?
Or better yet, what if we were taught the truth about our bodies, our hormones, and the advantages we inherently possess?
What if we were taught not that we were the weaker sex but that we possess our own advantages specific to the female body and that those advantages are just as important to society’s prosperity?
Acknowledging the fact that women are not the weaker sex would shift the power dynamics of our global culture — we would have to change basically everything about our societal norms to create equal footing.
As young women, we are introduced to our bodies through some of the most negative ideas imaginable.
PMS, mood swings, cramps, breakouts, etc.
The way education about the female body is handled only deepens the oppression and makes us into our own oppressors and that of each other.
We are taught by our mothers, our grandmothers, and society as a whole that we are meant to suffer and that we shouldn’t expect our bodies to be symptom-free — which leads to us to never even considering improving our hormonal function.
When Your Biology Is Your Blindspot
Not having the knowledge you deserve about your body doesn’t allow you to tap into your full potential.
You grow up believing you are not a capable leader only because you do not adhere to our current societal characteristics.
Imagine if you were to tap into your the natural power of your cycle and operate from a place of synchronicity? You would eliminate the struggle and spend that energy operating in much more productive ways that are best optimised for your chemistry.
From trying to fit our body clocks to that of men to suffering from blatant hormonal dysfunction to holding back our greatest potential because we have not been taught how to care for the beautifully complex system that is our female body.
With already a full plate of work, social lives, motherhood, careers, and draining societal norms — adding a hormonal imbalance on top is doing yourself an injustice.
Why fight what Mother Nature has gifted you with when you could be using it to your advantage?
We struggle with diets, medications, productivity tools and routines that leave the female cycle out of the equation. Most of the productivity advice offered is general and based on the assumption that what works for men with only a circadian rhythm will work for women who have an Infradian rhythm on top of that.
Crash Course on The Female Infradian Rhythm
While men have only the 24-hour Circadian Rhythm to adhere to, women also have something called an Infradian Rhythm.
The Female Infradian Rhythm is a 21–35-day cycle broken down into 4 phases.
- Phase 1: Menstrual — the 3 to 7 days of your period
- Phase 2: Follicular — the 7 to 10 days after your period
- Phase 3: Ovulatory — the 3 to 7 days in the middle of your cycle
- Phase 4: Luteal — the 10 to 14 days between ovulation and your period
Throughout these 4 phases, 6 of your systems are being strongly affected:
Brain
Your brain chemistry changes up to 25% over the course of your cycle
Metabolism
As your metabolism speeds up and slows down you need to be changing what you eat and how much, along with changing up your workouts in order to avoid hormonal imbalances and spinning your wheels in the mud.
Immune system
The menstrual cycle itself a cycle of immunity. The immune system becomes suppressed during ovulation to allow sperm to enter. After ovulation, it kicks in again in order to shed the lining of the uterus.
Microbiome
Naturally, as you go through chemical changes in your brain throughout your cycle, the same thing will happen to your gut health. What your body accepts in terms of nutrition and supplementation changes throughout the month.
Stress response system
As you go through your cycle the way you respond to different types of stress will change. You are more suited to handle stress (physical, mental, and emotional) right after your period, and a little bit less so as your cycle progresses. This may seem unfortunate at first but in reality, it’s your body’s very own vacation clock and prevention against burnout.
Reproductive system
As the cycle goes on, you’ll notice there are days or weeks where you feel more inclined towards sex and other days when it’s completely not on your mind. Right after your period, you might be lower in sex drive because it’s prime time to be focused on work and getting the more difficult tasks done. However, as ovulation approaches, which is the best time for conception, your chemistry changes to make you more attractive, as well as face symmetry, energy levels, pheromones, etc.
Debunking Common Myths About Your Period
1. PMS is part of having a period
- Mood swings
- Bloating
- Break Outs
- Cramps
These pre-menstrual symptoms are not normal.
This myth about PMS is perhaps the most damaging as it convinces you you are meant to suffer. If you’re taught that pain and suffering are part of the deal you prevent yourself from looking for solutions. The myth is further used against women to dismiss our opinions, emotions and judgments due to our hormones.
Which, just because you have hormonal fluctuation doesn’t mean what you’re feeling isn’t valid.
The Truth
PMS symptoms only arise when there is an imbalance of progesterone and estrogen during the luteal phase.
The imbalance is triggered by diet choices e.g. caffeine, sugar, dairy, juice-cleanse, crash diets, low-fat diets, etc., and more importantly by suppressing natural female energy — the energy of change.
When women live in tune with their cycle, eat according to their biological needs, and focus on nurturing their feminine energy — PMS symptoms disappear.
2. Cramps Are Unavoidable
When you’ve been taught all your Life that cramps are what you have to live with or get over — you accept it without thinking of making it better.
The Truth
Your body produces a hormone called “Prostaglandin”. One of those is PGE2, and it causes uterine contractions and in excess leads to cramps.
One the other hand, your body pumps out 2 additional hormones: PGE1 and PGE3 that are anti-spasmatic in nature and counteract the effects of PGE2.
These are the body’s natural painkillers and are there to relieve pain, meaning your body generates twice the hormones towards relieving pain, rather than causing it.
By consuming the right foods throughout the month you provide your body with the resources to produce the right prostaglandin.
3. Being on the pill helps you regulate your period
You might think you still menstruate when you take synthetic birth control, and you might even be bleeding each month.
The Truth
What you have on the pill is not a real period. It’s called a withdrawal bleed and bears no physiological resemblance to your actual period at the end of your hormonal cycle.
The bleed you are experiencing is the result of a marketing ploy that was designed by manufacturers early in the day, who figured that women would be disturbed by the idea of not bleeding at all that they wouldn’t want to use the pill.
For real menstruation to occur you need to be ovulating and the pill prevents this vital phase of your cycle. Without ovulation, your cycle gets stuck in a low-hormone phase that cannot create a period.
As well as, synthetic birth control does not help to regulate hormonal imbalances. Instead, it suppresses your hormonal function and makes you go years or decades without addressing the real causes of symptoms. This, in turn, worsens your health.
Aside from side-effects mentioned on the pamphlets, synthetic birth control depletes nutrients, disrupts your microbiome, and increases depression.
4. “You don’t need to have a period.”
There have been articles and sources, as well as some obgyns claiming that we are better off if we didn’t bleed on a monthly basis, thus giving the green flag to take active birth control pills continuously to skip the process indefinitely.
The Truth
Just because we as a species have found a way to suppress our hormonal functions doesn’t mean we should.
Mother Nature is far more intelligent than we are and gave us our wonderful cycle as a means of protecting our long-term health. Tampering with your biology by trying to suppress its natural function has long-term side effects and dangers.
Ovulation and menstruation play a vital role in safeguarding our health throughout our lives and guard us against the likes of heart disease, breast disease, osteoporosis, and dementia.
With every ovulation and menstruation, you have you are investing away protection and health benefits that will help you in the years after you stop having a cycle.
Our cycle is so crucial to our wellbeing, to the point that the ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) has declared menstruation as the 5th vital sign, a.k.a. on the same level of importance as body temperature, pulse, breathing rate, and blood pressure.
Missing your period may be a sign of low estrogen which has been linked to heart issues and bone weakness.
5. If you’ve had a bad period, there’s not much you can do
If you started your period and have no idea how to ease the discomfort, doesn’t mean you should let it run its course. You wouldn’t do that with a cold, would you?
The Truth
Same as with a cold, where you would take measures i.e. getting more rest, more vitamin C, and overall slowing down, you can and should do the same for when or before your period hits.
With simple adjustments to your food intake, rest, amount and type of exercise, and supplements you can see results as soon as your next cycle no matter where you are at in the month.
Rounding up the numbers
Most of the beliefs we have about our bodies are largely based on research that has been done by men on male subjects.
Down to our daily routine which is based on the 24-hour hormonal circadian rhythm of men. As a society, we rarely talk about male hormones because well, we live by them (or try to) every day.
While men have their hormonal ups and downs throughout the day, from having high testosterone levels in the morning to having them drop down throughout the day while estrogen levels increase.
In contrast, for women, our hormones change throughout the month, and with that so should our exercise routines, the food we eat, and the way we approach work and our daily lives.
In Conclusion
Having your period synched up and working like clockwork is a good sign your hormones are balanced. Along with good timing, your period should have a similar duration, the heaviness of flow, and colour month to month. Having all of these consistent and in check will be a step in the right direction for optimising your health.
As women, we have been dealt the short end of the stick when it comes to education about our bodies.
It’s time we change that.
Inspired by Alisa Vitti’s book “In The FLO”
More information can be found through the blog at www.floliving.com
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