How I Learned to Use Hormones to Improve My Habits
Every now and then, Myrth’s founder and CEO, Emma, will share a personal post on the blog. Today, she’s talking about her journey toward understanding how to harness her body’s natural rhythms and cycles to improve her habit-building and self-care routines.
Any person who menstruates knows the reality of needing to know when their period is coming. When I was younger, I was primarily focused on the bleeding aspect of it. Like a lot of people who get periods, I tracked my cycle on a calendar, but it was mostly to try and see where it would be a source of inconvenience for me (and, once I discovered hormonal birth control, to figure out if I could play God and avoid that inconvenience for a while).
In early 2019, though, I downloaded a higher-powered period tracking app as I transitioned away from an IUD and wanted to have a better picture of what my natural cycle looked like. Around the same time, I started to see postings and blogs about how your hormones fluctuate throughout your cycle. One of the period coaches I follow (yes that’s a thing) recommended Hormone Horoscope, and it changed everything for me.
I started monitoring my hormones, not just my bleeding. I also started to think about how my hormones affected my ability to pick up new habits, make decisions, and generally live my life.
I started asking questions like, what big decisions did I make during that pre-period low? What big risks did I take in that summer high? And as I built Myrth and my protocol, I would keep the cyclical nature of my body in mind when thinking about habits and making things stick.
For example, picking up a new habit might be easier in my hormonal summer season rather than in my winter season. Or perhaps that streak I was on was built by a linear masculine system and not a cyclical feminine system. Maybe having break days or slower days makes sense when your body works on a cycle, not a straight line.
The best example I can give of how this influenced my protocol was in my yoga practice. I thought I would do yoga every day. It seemed like something people do. However, what I found was that my body didn’t want to do big yoga sessions every day. Some days, especially during my hormonal autumn and my winter, my body just wanted to do a bit of stretching. And so I adapted the protocol, and it now says, “stretching or yoga every day.”
Here are some personal excerpts from my journal around this time. Note the day of the cycle.
July 1, 2019 (Day 28)
“Keep your hormones in check and know that the moment the period comes you will start to feel more confident.” Feeling discouraged and down. Big Loss.
July 4th, 2019 (Day 3)
“You will figure it out. And just like that you woke up this morning and felt motivated and empowered. Remember, big picture here.”
July 8th, 2019 (Day 7)
“And here you are this morning, more gung ho than ever. Man, hormones are powerful. You will now plan your life, not around the bleeding but around the hormones.”
Now I focus on my hormones and my cycle - especially when building better habits. I don't have to pay such close attention to the app because it has become more second nature to me. And I don’t think about the hormones as much as I think about the season I am in.
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter - For a further explanation of the hormonal seasons check out this awesome blog.
Like their place in the natural world, each season has its place in my body. Just as we can’t fight the changing of the seasons in the world around us, we can’t really fight our internal seasons, either. Embrace them, find the good in each, learn to mitigate the parts you struggle with, and see the beauty in each season.
Do you talk to your friends about what season you are in? What do your hormones say about you? Comment below and let’s have a chat.
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