Knowing our cycles is a way of knowing ourselves.
And if we know ourselves better, this can help us manage our health and our routines. It can help us be more productive, more active, better rested, and more aware of what we do and don’t want to do.
What do I mean by cycles?
I refer to our daily cycles (our circadian rhythm), our menstrual cycles, and our annual cycles.
Some are bigger than that - from child through puberty to our fertile years and through perimenopause to our ‘power years’ (at least that’s how I refer to the post menopause!).
Why does this help?
Because knowing more about the ebb and flow of your energy levels, your focus, and your creativity can help you plan your days and improve both your productivity as well as your mood. They can also be great indicators of your current health and stress levels.
An example I regularly use is to think of those days when you feel like superwoman. Those days when you can do a million things before breakfast, when you power through your to-do list and can cope with life’s hurdles with grace.
I know you have them, every now and then.
Because you may well also have the days when you feel like you’re wading through treacle. When you can’t decide what to wear, what to have for breakfast or cope with the children’s homework/meltdowns.
But what if you knew when a super woman day was approaching?
What if you could plan around it? And if you knew when you shouldn’t be juggling too many things at the same time and should just rest and retreat instead?
I think you can do this through connecting with your menstrual cycle. I think it can really help manage the symptoms of PMS (‘the rage’ anyone?) as well as make use of the ‘superwoman’ phase around ovulation.
And you can do this with the annual cycle too, knowing when your peaks and troughs in the year are, is a useful tool for planning life, and know when to step back.
I’ll go into these in a little more detail in the next few blog posts, and will shortly be running a 4 week cycle awareness course online.
A chance to learn how to apply this a little more.
Photo by Andrew Preble on Unsplash