Riding the wave
On becoming more aware of hormones in the female life.
I like to live my life as if I am invincible. I like to feel strong and capable. The days that I feel weak and tired tend to spiral into even deeper malaise simply because I have been trained that having or showing weakness is a failing. So, I have failed at being what I aim to be, and on the self-contempt goes until I go to bed.
The saying that “tomorrow is a new day” has always been apropos to my view of life. A little sleep, and I awaken to a new perspective, am able to take on challenges, am strong once again. But, this doesn’t work on all days, and some time ago I began to wonder why.
I have been female my entire life, so the world of cyclic hormonal changes is not foreign to me. However, aside from exposure to cultural derision related to PMS (premenstrual syndrome) as I developed into a woman, I was never taught about the deep impact hormones have on mood. Sure, I studied reproductive physiology as a graduate student, and came to learn about all the wondrous feedback pathways involved in getting an egg out of the ovaries. Even though I could apply it to my own birth control efforts, it wasn’t until recently that I really began to understand and appreciate how hormones influence the ebb and flow of my daily rhythms.
My journey to appreciation began with having a child. The act of allowing another individual to grow inside of me changed my body in many overt and subtle ways. Those changes continued after the birth and with breast-feeding. Then I severed the milky tie to my offspring, and nothing went back to the way it was before.
One of the reasons is that I decided not to go back onto hormonal birth control. You see, I started taking the pill when I was 16 years old. I had only just begun to experience monthly menstruation, and I started controlling it by taking a daily pill full of hormones that tricked my body into thinking it was pregnant. Up until I actually became pregnant, I had never truly experienced my body’s natural hormonal cycles.
So suddenly, I was at the whims of hormonal surges exerting themselves to find balance. In order to find some sort of mental stability while lost on a hormonal sea, I started tracking my moods, diet, sleep, and activity level. At first, it was just a jumble: elated one day, depressed the next. It took months for me to start seeing a regular pattern emerge from the chaos.
Now there is a pattern, a regularity that is predictable. My hormones have found the balance they were looking for, and to a huge degree so have I. Now I know when to expect down moods or general crankiness. I’m learning how to navigate the cycle that drives my body and brain. I am learning how to keep my hormones from ruling my life, and instead live effectively based on my understanding of their influence.
I’m using scientific knowledge of hormones to find my way through the uncertainty of waking up feeling irritable knowing that I went to bed with a smile or vice versa. This is something that all women can do: look up information on hormones, the menstrual cycle, and mood. There is a lot of great information out there.
For instance, estrogen and progesterone influence the release of serotonin, dopamine, and other “feel-good” neurotransmitters in the brain. When estrogen and progesterone plummet, their influence on helping you feel good does too, which can lead to cranky and apathetic moods. It’s as if estrogen and progesterone are drug dealers for your brain, and one day they just aren’t there leaving you to go cold-turkey. Anyone would get a little testy!
Once upon a time, I was afraid of becoming a woman because modern society has no room for the ups and downs of the inner female reality. We look down upon inconsistency, and displays of emotion are seen as weak. Yet, there is strength in having an ebb and a flow; girls and grown women can benefit from recognizing their personal rhythms and learning how to wield them wisely.
However, the impersonalized presentation of reproductive information goes over the heads of many. It can be totally overwhelming. I remember the difficulty of trying to memorize all the hormones involved and what they did when studying for tests in school. But then, I was just trying to memorize without putting it into a life-relevant context.
The context is what makes the science real. Why should a 16 year old girl know her cycle inside and out? Aside from helping her avoid pregnancy, she’ll know why she feels different ways on different days. She’ll know why she is so much more likely to chat on the phone some days. She’ll know why she’s more emotional on others. Why she really wants to eat fries instead of a salad. Instead of simply being a passenger on the monthly hormonal waveform, feeling totally out of control, she will be an informed participant in her own internal life.
It’s pretty exciting to me that because of science and through technology women have access to information about the processes going on inside of them, that make them women, and that have historically led to women being misunderstood by society. And, if as a woman, you are tech-oriented and like apps, I recommend checking out some of the apps available in the various app stores for tracking your cycle and other pertinent factors. Two of my favorites are Hormone Horoscope and Period Calendar / Tracker.
This is a time like no other to bring science into the human experience of womanhood. I am finally enjoying the ride because of it.
