Understand & Optimising Each Phase of The Menstrual Cycle

8:00AM Jul 19, 2022

Speakers:

Angela Foster

Intro

Keywords:

oestrogen

women

progesterone

month

thinking

period

pcos

heart rate variability

menstrual cycle

follicular phase

luteal phase

hormones

endometriosis

ovulation

moving

flax seeds

point

affected

femininity

cyst

I believe though, when you're faced with something in life, the universe has a wonderful way of giving you a challenge, and a solution, and an opportunity to grow all at the same time.

Welcome to the high performance health podcast with your host, Angela Foster, the show where we talk about everything you need to break through limits and achieve a high performance, mind, body and lifestyle.

Welcome, the topic very close to my heart, as you will learn about today. So first of all, if you want to get the slides after this, which you might find helpful, because some of the things what details you can go and download them on my website, Angelafosterperformance.com forward slash H. O. S. So the reality this is certainly the reality for many of the women that I speak to, is that they only experienced two good weeks each month. Feel free to raise your hand. It's only if it's mostly women in here, anyone find that? You know, they have good weeks, they have bad weeks? Yeah, I can see a lot of people nodding. These are the kind of symptoms surveyed. So these are common, but they're definitely not normal. So 2000, American women aged between 30 and 60 found that nearly half of those women had experienced symptoms of a hormonal imbalance. And about 43% of women say their hormones have been negatively affected. Their overall well being according to new research, and this is this is the reality. It's affecting women's lives, their relationships, their business is certainly as you'll hear in a moment, my story affected my life quite dramatically. So that's some research that was done by Dr. Anna cabecca. But I also have a questionnaire myself or health check where you can get a free health report. And so far, I've had around 18,000 women take this questionnaire, and you can see the stats here. 45% of women suffer with mood swings or irritability, but only 6%. Interestingly, report that right before their period, which is when you would expect why a little bit of PMS, actually it's happening at other times of the month, 56% of women reported that they don't have a healthy sex drive. And a further 23% say sometimes they do. And 71% of women state that they either didn't feel relaxed and happy, or they only did sometimes. And this this, this makes me sad. Also 88% of women store excess weight around their abdominal area. Again, this is largely down to hormones, not hormones I'm going to be talking about today. But this has to do with insulin resistance and cortisol. Now, cortisol, when you're too stressed dramatically affects your sex hormones as well. And 68% of women feel flat or lacking in motivation. So I think it's fair to say, We want to help resolve this problem. These are kind of some of the symptoms that I commonly see in my practice and the women report. So has anyone experienced any of these? And I put my hand up, because I certainly have overtime. Now, I wonder if this was happening to men? Do you think we'd have found a solution? Why now? Yes, maybe they will listen for the men in here about the healthy sex drive and maybe start thinking how they might help the women.

So the thing about this is, is that society is predicated around the circadian rhythm, the 24 hour clock, which is should be, but this was largely instituted in terms of the walking route world around the Industrial Revolution. And there's a second ribbon with them as women that we need to pay attention to. And the traditional approach is kind of nine to five schedules. If you're lucky, that certainly wasn't my schedule as a corporate lawyer, but consistent daily output. And we see that if you go and see a personal trainer, they're generally going to give you a fitness programme that is the same across the month. When we think about what we're eating, we think about, you know, maybe on a daily or weekly basis, how am I going to give myself good nutrition, but we're not thinking about the fact that our hormones are actually changing across the month as a whole. And then many women you know, trying to consistently keep up with that level of output. They've got young children, mine a little bit bigger. Now they're over there. And they're working. And you know, it's, it's really hardcore and pushing themselves to get get up at 5am. And what commonly happens is I see women, often they'll get weight gain that they don't want it's unexplained or weight loss resistance, and the natural instinct because you know, we're held to such high standards is to push harder, and to get up and maybe you're doing one gym class, but now you're adding on an extra one as well. And it's just getting too much. So what I want to show you today is there is a smarter way to optimise your nutrition, your fitness, your sleep, your creativity, everything that you do when you start to embrace your femininity. I started out as a corporate lawyer many years ago, working ridiculously hard in the city pushing through the night. When Jocko Willink puts 4:30pm He gets up on Twitter. We hadn't even gone to bed. This was you know, night after night. It was relentless output and that really affected my adrenal function. But I've had a whole host of hormonal issues really to contend with most of which were glossed over and I just want to share my experience from you know the time that I started my menstrual cycle at age 14. What happened because when mine showed up, it was pretty spot on I'm, and when my parents did arrive, they were extraordinarily painful and very, very heavy bleeding. So it didn't take my mother long to take me to the GP, who promptly prescribed me birth control by the age of 15. Abnormal, right? And here's a prescription. And so I took that, and it was when I got to university, and I was reading law, that it occurred to me that I probably had a handful of periods in my in my teenage years, maybe I should come off birth control and see what happens. I had no idea at this point how birth control can set the stage for things like depression that were to come later. So I stopped taking the pill for a year, and no periods, not a single one. So I went to see a gynaecologist who said to me, Well, don't worry about it. Because unless you're thinking about starting a family at the moment, which I wasn't at 19, we can look at this later, but I am concerned about your bone density. So therefore, I think you should go back onto birth control. So I went back onto birth control. And I carried on taking it practising as a lawyer, again, more this relentless output. And then I got married at 25. And in my late 20s, at a time when I was, you know, moving through the career ladder, looking at going for partnership. My husband and I were talking about starting a family at the same time, I thought, I really need to get this figured out, because I know that the bleed that I get on the pill is not a real bleed. This is a withdrawal bleed. But I don't think I've really had very many periods like what what's going to happen? Can we have children? So I stopped taking it. And I went to see the GP who was pretty unsympathetic, she sort of said to me, Well, have you tried for a baby? And I said, No, not not not not yet, you know, and kind of figuring out what should I think about her? And she was like, well, we don't do that on the NHS go and try it for a year. And if you're not pregnant in a year, then come back and see me. And I was like, what? I'm not sure I'm quite ready to get pregnant right now. I'm also thinking about elevating my career and going for partnership, and she was like, well, you need to go and try. So I thought this isn't great. So we fortunately got a private referral to a gynaecologist who ran some bloods did some scans and said to me, Well, this is simple. You have PCOS? PCOS, what's that? I didn't know. Well, you know, means you might have a degree of insulin resistance, but that's why you're not having any periods. So I was like, okay, so what do we do about that then? And he was like, well, actually, we've got some medication we can give you that will get you get you ovulating. And I was like, what's that Clomid. But we have found that there's like a cyst on your ovary the size of about an orange, so we'll just need to monitor that because you can get more cysts when you take Clomid. So I was like, okay, so I started taking this. I don't know about the other cysts, but I was getting cystic acne and nothing was working. So he doubled the dose. And then one day I came out of a negotiation meeting, doubled over in pain, barely able to walk in the law firm, went to hospital and it looked like this cyst was threatening my ovary. So the gynaecologist said, I'm not quite clever enough for this now. So I'm going to refer you to someone else. So he sent me to an oncologist. So I went to see the oncologist and he was like, why are they prescribing you? Clomid, you have PCOS. This is not the medication you need. You need Metformin for your insulin resistance. So I took Metformin for about, I think I lost it for days, I was literally unable to keep any food down. He brought me in for emergency surgery, which I had a couple of days later. And they found that I had endometriosis, and a chocolate Cyst On the other ovary. So they lasered it all out, very kindly removed everything, drilled some holes into my ovary to encourage ovulation. I couldn't walk for a week, but that's fine. But actually, this was very effective. I've got I'm grateful for this. And I walked out a week later. And he said to me, wait, come back in a month. And let's see how you're doing. And see if we've, we've made some adjustments to your menstrual cycle. And if you're having a period, and I had a period, and for the first time in my life, I looked at my period, which is the fifth vital sign. By the way, ladies, you should be checking this as your health indicator every month to give you an idea of how healthy you are. And I looked at my period, and it looks something like a Pinot Noir, not like something out of a Quentin Tarantino movie, which is someone with endometriosis as what I've been used to. So he was happy with that he was happy with the results. But he said to me, you know, endometriosis can return. Pregnancy is a great cure. Your next six months are probably your best chances of getting pregnant. So if you're thinking about a family, I'd encourage you to do that now. And so I said What can I do to encourage fertility to encourage more fertility and he said, well just grab your husband as often as you can. So I duly did that. I set some lofty goals. I thought I'm gonna go for partnership and try and get pregnant in the next nine months, which was what was on the agenda. And very fortunately, nine months later, there was a new partner with a one month old baby and he'd said to me what you want to do is try and have your children close together, because the endometriosis will regrow. So we duly did that we got quite busy. Um, we had three kids, you can see them there in four years.

And, but that, unfortunately did as beautiful as they did bring its own problems because I then start suffer terribly with postnatal depression caused me and told that this was hormonal imbalances. But once my daughter was two years old, we couldn't really call it postnatal anymore. And this was really debilitating for me. And I think all that adrenal exhaustion that I'd experienced or the problems with hormones, the birth control, I didn't realise that PCOS and itself predispose me to depression. But now I was on more medication, not just antidepressants, but anti psychotics to control bipolar episodes, I'm seeing clinical therapists. And at this point, I was I created a prison in my own mind. I wasn't sure what was going on. But I couldn't control the thoughts in my head. And I knew that I loved my family, my husband and my three children. But I also couldn't turn this off. So I was searching for a way. And what comes up, it's suicide, right? There's got to be a way out. But on the one hand, I just wanted to turn this off. And on the other hand, I was thinking, How can I leave my husband is the widow of the woman who committed suicide? How can I leave my children, as the children, his mother took their own life. And I believe that when you're faced with something in life, the universe has a wonderful way of giving you a challenge, and a solution and an opportunity to grow all at the same time. And that happened to me. And as I walked back into the doctor's office, this time, after a CT scan for lung cancer, I walked in, and he said, it's worse than I thought,

sharp intake of breath, it's worse than I thought, am I now fighting this, but it turned out that I had pneumonia, viral and bacterial pneumonia on both lungs, and I was neutropenic, my white blood cell count was too low. What I later found out was that they thought they would have to intubate me, we didn't end up going there. And this was in hospital, I can only describe I felt a profound sense of peace. Suddenly, I was okay being me. Because as Jon Kabat Zinn says, Wherever you go, there you are. And if any of you, are you familiar with the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza? Yeah. So if you wonder, can you signal genes to act in new ways, can the mind heal the body? Well, I can speak from my own standpoint, very, very quickly, because within 48 hours, of me making the decision that my children needed a mother, that I wanted to continue my happy life with my husband, and I found a purpose to get well, my bloods turned around, and my white blood cells started coming back. And that gave me what I needed to fight viral pneumonia, because obviously, the antibiotics were going to help me with the bacterial. And that started my journey, my journey to get well to finally close the door on the legal profession and to completely retrain. And really, it's my mission to create a new environment for those of you that are listening, to share this to take on board what I'm going to share with you and your own lives, to share it with your your children, your daughters, with your grandchildren, with your friends, because I really want to help us change the conversation around women's health, I think it's really important. And I wanted to create a different future for my daughter, as well. So that's what we're gonna do today. That's a little bit of background about me. But now let's dive into the menstrual cycle. So I believe this will help you upgrade every area of your life, your business, your relationships, and your life in general. And this is the solution is let's embrace our femininity. Okay, we have a gift within us, that allows us to create tiny little humans, whether we decide to do it or not. That's incredible. I was reading Enid Blyton with my daughter the other day. And in it she was talking about how the menstrual cycle was the curse, the girl's parents the curse, we shouldn't see it like this. This is a gift, right? This is the divine feminine, aligning ourselves with nature. So hormones sound difficult, and they are they are complicated. And if I showed you a slide, and for those of you that are protective practitioners in here, it is a complex thing. But the real thing I want you to take away is we're conducting an orchestra. And we can get it to play a beautiful symphony, if we take on board the right nutrition, fitness and lifestyle measures. And these are the key behaviours within your control the way you eat, and what you eat and when you eat, when and how you exercise, managing your stress, ensuring you have good recovery and sleep and to the degree that we can controlling the environment which is getting harder and harder to do because we are just we are exposed to so many hormone disruptors. So here is your Infradian rhythm. And we're gonna go through this in a little bit more detail, but this is this is predicated on someone who has about a 28 day cycle. And you can see here that we've got oestrogen rising in the early part of the month, but we need that lovely pink progesterone later to offset some of the effects So there are three key three key principles should I say that I'd like you to take away today. And they are first abundance. What I see so much of on social media is actually coming from everything from a little bit of a place of lack, you know, how long can I fast? Can I do a three day water only fast? Can I do a daily 20 hour fast. In my experience, the female body doesn't like this. And the science is starting to back it up. We don't have that many studies on women, but they are beginning to grow in number. So I'd like you to embrace things from an abundance point of view, I'd like you to show yourself some self love. Everyone can just hold their heart for a minute, right and recognise what you have. within you, ladies, let's show ourselves some love. Because when you love yourself, everybody else benefits. And then embracing your femininity, which is embracing this and freely and rhythm. So when we look at abundance, I want you to think about and I'm gonna give you some tips here. How can I nourish my body and mind all the time? As opposed to thinking, how long can I fast? Should I be on a really low carb diet? Should I be on a keto diet, I've seen women on extreme ketogenic diets who have ended up losing their menstrual cycle, they effectively go into early menopause. But then when we rectify their nutrition, they come back out of it. Excess hit hit has a place I love it. I think it gives you an amazing kick. Sometimes it's a fantastic way to start the day, but not necessarily across the month. And Ultra endurance can be very, very, you know, stressful for the body. The other thing is, as you're going through this presentation, please just think how can I approach this from a place of self love, and be in that creative and flow state? And really connect with your intuition? Because at different points, I'm going to say to you, you know, how do you think you intuitively feel across the month because that's so important, rather than doing perfectionism, criticism, relentlessness like I did as a lawyer. You know, I think that we feel like we've done six rounds in the boxing ring. But by midday most of us in the way we talk to ourselves, right? I don't want you to think like that. I want you to really, really stop that and just love yourself. So here we go. So here is the menstrual cycle. So here's a short biology lesson. A very, very quick one, not too much science. So oestrogen is job, like I'm over here. You can see oestrogen rising here at the beginning of the month estrogens job is to lay down the uterine lining and assist in conception, in case we're going to get pregnant. Progesterone, when we have luteinizing hormone here, that helps the egg pop out. Now at that point, it leaves behind a temporary gland called the corpus luteum that produces most of the progesterone alongside your adrenals if you're not too stressed out, but the psychological stress, the physical stress, the environmental stress, this increase perception of stress and urgency are all affecting our production of progesterone. Now in the luteal phase, which is the second half of the month, progesterone should be higher than oestrogen. And we can test for that with different tests, urine tests, blood tests, but this isn't always the case for many women. And if you're struggling with hormonal symptoms at the end of the month, one of the reasons could be that you're not producing adequate levels of progesterone. So I like to think of oestrogen as the Queen. And I'll tell you why. Because I think she's correct. I mean, there's actually three forms of oestrogen but we'll call her oestrogen for ease, so queen, oestrogen, she helps you have good mood. enhancers, serotonin promotes dopamine, so you're more motivated. You might notice this in the early follicular stage of the month. She helps with muscle mass. This is one of the main reasons that women as they go through perimenopause start to struggle with body composition, because they lose that stimulus of oestrogen is a really significant trigger for muscle mass, helps with bone health and other problem. Commonly post menopause, heart health, insulin sensitivity, so you processed sugars better, and helps with sleep and is actually an antioxidant. But the reason I say she's like a queen, right? She's like your charismatic friend. She's great at the party, but only if she's controlled in small doses. She needs a little bit of moderating, so we have Princess progesterone, but you need to talk to her a little bit more quietly, and she kind of sneaks out the back door. In perimenopause. She has an amazing job. She holds the uterine lining in place she nullifies the effects of oestrogen helps delight in your periods really important. Less bloating, should diuretic, anti anxiety, support your thyroid and also enhances sleep but really Kili helps to avoid oestrogen dominance. And things like PCOS, endometriosis. A lot of these have problems with oestrogen dominance. So there's like this Goldilocks effects going on, right? If we have enough oestrogen, we feel amazing. But if we have too much, we get breast tenderness, swelling, fluid retention, irritability, headaches, heavy periods, all these things that we don't really want as women. So by aligning and optimising with your menstrual cycle, and these really what I'm trying to show you with these photos is doing different things. At different times of the month, you're gonna help to conduct the orchestra to play that beautiful symphony. And these are kind of the benefits, you'll see much greater energy levels, a leaner, healthier body that's just easier to maintain naturally reduced hormonal symptoms, you'll often see improved creativity and productivity. And I'll show you how to work that in at certain times of the month, and increased happiness. But stress is a huge factor in shorter cycles. So we really do need to target stress in modern life, and self care is key. So when we're thinking about this, we don't just want to look after ourselves at some times of the month. Okay, the journey of the egg is 100 days. So I want you to look after yourself all of the time. And the things that you start doing today, you're going to see come into fruition in the next sort of 100 days or so.

So we start with menstruation can be anywhere between three and seven days. And then we start to move more into the proliferative phase. But both these pits are part of what's known as the follicular phase. We have ovulation nicely in the middle of the month if we have a regular cycle, and then we move into this secretory phase, which is the luteal phase. So let's go through these and how first of all you can use nutrition to help you. So menstruation, the most important thing here is to be rebuilding and re nourishing. So we are losing iron, obviously quite a bit at the beginning of the month. So you want to focus on iron rich foods, red meat, poultry, like the darker meat of the chicken. So things like chicken thighs, for example, we need zinc that's going to help to nourish the growing molecules, preparation for the next ovulation. Things like seafood, whole grains, chickpeas, and we also want to focus on lowering inflammation, right, that's going to help with pain as well. So Omega -3 is great, to be honest, it's one of the few supplements that I pretty much prescribe all the time and tell people to take particularly EPA can help lower that inflammation. Curcumin actually is also very good if you get period pain. So that's something to think about taking so take it in the form of turmeric needs, obviously to be in a lipid form or mix something like black pepper to make it more bioavailable. Now if you're getting oestrogen is low, so at this point of the month is this crazy because you're bleeding, but you're most like a man because oestrogen and progesterone and now both very, very low. And so you may wear oestrogen is lower, you may get some food cravings for often who gets food cravings kind of at the end of the month, your hand up and into the menstrual cycle. So making sure that you're having things like oily fish, fats, flax seeds, avocados, things like that dark chocolate, this is going to help to stave off some of those food cravings as well.

And then as we move into that second part of the follicular phase, we're nearing ovulation, oestrogen is really rising, if you remember from that chart. So what we want to do here is really focused on liver detoxification. So cruciferous vegetables, the allium family, so things like onions, leeks, garlic, really, really good fighter oestrogen is flax seeds. amazing, absolutely amazing for modulating the effects of oestrogen magnesium, also very good starchy carbs, I actually magnesium be my second supplement that I recommend people take and starchy carbs. That's gonna be at this point. As you'll see when I go through fitness, you've got more energy coming in. So you're gonna be able to do more high intensity workouts, so starchy carbs, please don't fear the carbs. We want to work in Whole Foods, sources of carbs into our diet. That's also going to give you energy for your workouts, restore liver glycogen as well, but also importantly, want lots of fibre. So we've got really good bowel movements, and we're eliminating the excess oestrogen B vitamins important for energy. Glutathione is going to help with that liver detoxification and vitamin C as well. And then vitamin D from things like almonds, avocados. One thing I do want to mention here, while we're talking about this is something known as the estrobolome, who's heard of the estrobolome. Okay, good. You guys are very informed. So this is a special part of your microbiome. Its job is directly regulate oestrogen. So these bacteria actually contain genes that regulate how much oestrogen you have in the body. The liver packages up oestrogen as it's been utilised, packages up ready for excretion. And it kind of puts it almost into an envelope but then it goes into the gut. Now these bacteria can reopen that envelope. You can get excess oestrogen, come back in the body. This is why the health of your gut is so critical to Hormonal Health, okay. We can also things like flax seeds and other phytoestrogens. We can convert these compounds known as lignans into oestrogen like compounds and that can help to offset depending on whether you're low on oestrogen. For example, a new meant post menopause or whether your oestrogen is too high, they kind of work adaptogenic ly, very effectively. Now dysbiosis is shown to negatively affect oestrogen levels and again we see different gut bacteria and women like myself who have conditions like PCOS endometriosis. In the luteal phase, you want to be thinking more about fibrous starchy carbs, proteins, healthy fats. At this point, you actually interestingly a burning about 10 to two 20% more calories at rest, tend to 20% more. So if you feel like you're getting those cravings for a little bit more to eat at the end of the month, don't worry about it. This is very, very natural, lots of leafy greens, again to boost things like magnesium and calcium that will help to reduce any fluid retention, which is very common for women at this point. And I'd suggest around 30 grams of protein per meal and also post workout. So, you know, you've probably seen the science, should you have protein post workout, if you've been doing weight training? For women, the answer seems very definitely yes, in particular. And actually having some protein with a small amount of carbs can help to lower that cortisol response for up to 48 hours afterwards. So come out of the workout and then refuel. I haven't seen lots of scientific evidence on this, but I know it works. And I know because people tell me clients tell me about this. When I post about this on Instagram, we had lots of women coming in telling me going oh my god, I saw your post about seed cycling, I've been doing it, it's been transformational. So this is where you rotate seeds. So one tablespoon of pumpkin seeds, and one tablespoon of flax seeds in the first two weeks. So starting with your period, and then you switch over to sunflower and sesame seeds. At the end of the month. Evening Primrose also very good. I want to say a quick note on intermittent fasting and the menstrual cycle. Most of the studies that are done on fasting are done on sedentary overweight men. So if you are exercising a lot, you probably don't need to be fasting a lot on top. Okay, it's actually more stressful for the female body. And this is partly down to kisspeptin, which is a neuropeptide on the way that that interacts with glucose management and female sex hormones. So we want to really monitor daily stress levels. And so if we're doing other things that are stressing ourselves out, like maybe diving into cold showers, I know everyone's biohacking here and doing intense workouts and things we don't necessarily need to be doing long fast. Again, it's this concept with the female body of embracing abundance, you can monitor your stress levels, anyone here use an oura ring, or whoop strap. Okay, great. So you can have a look at that. I would say that you'll see in a moment the way it affects heart rate variability. But you can monitor your stress levels, things like the lumin device that you blow into, you can use these continuous blood glucose monitors, because if you start too fast for too long, your body will start to make more glucose and you'll see your blood sugar go up. Fitness wise, this is interesting. So in the follicular phase, including menstruation, you might not feel like it go with how you feel. But some of this can be psychological. As I said, you're most like a man. So this is the time you can actually hit it really, really hard. Okay. And any kind of movements been shown to help with menstrual cramps. So you can start moving into hit training speed and power work. But if in the beginning, like your iron levels are really low, and you're managing those and you don't quite feel it, then start gently but then you know work up as you start to go through the month. ovulation is a great time, okay, this is where oestrogen surges to its highest, you can really do some heavy strength training, you've got oestrogen, there's a great stimulus for muscle mass, high intensity workout as well. You've got greater strength and you're going to recover faster. And then in the luteal phase, this is where we want to moderate, right, this is where I'd say start moving to more steady state type work. So steady state, aerobic activity, medium level intensity and then lessening it off, right? We don't want to say this week do this this week do this. I think it should be sort of seamless, like you saw at the menstrual cycle. It's like this. Let's just kind of follow that rhythm and really become intuitive about it. And then as you get to the end, it's a great time to do all the work you never do. Right? If you're like me, the recovery stuff, the flexibility, the yoga, influence on heart rate variability, we're I know we're short on time. So I just want to quickly show you if you're looking at your oura data, for example, okay, the heart rate variability is the inter beat variability. It's looking at the connection how well your vagus nerve is functioning and the connection between your sympathetic state and your parasympathetic, you got higher HRV. So we've got higher here on the right. Yep, you'll see that you've got greater resilience. If your HRV is lower, you've got less resilience. Now, oestrogen, interestingly seems to affect the vagus nerve and increase vagal tone. Progesterone on the other hand, while it's very anti anxiety on the brain, it seems to have certain effects on the vagus nerve that actually depress heart rate variability. So if you're seeing like me that in the luteal phase, your heart rate variability just doesn't quite look as good as it did at the beginning of the month. Don't despair. This is a natural process to start, you know, be your own biohacker start logging it and see your resting heart rates probably going to go up your respiratory rate even may be a bit a bit higher, and you get less rem and deep sleep. So ladies, this is the time to be really good about your sleep hygiene. At this point of the month. It's really really important put those blue blockers on in the in the evening and start optimising for melatonin. So these are kind of my top tips in terms of sleep hygiene. Avoid caffeine after 12 to two, block the blue Night have a digital sunset and really bookend your day. If you can close out projects, write everything down. It's going to really help you just mentally put it to rest and then social ability creativity and introspection, right? This is the fun part away around how our hormones work. So, in menstruation, this is a great time for self reflection for planning, visualising really connecting with your intuition, you can course correct as needed. So look back at the previous month, see what you've been doing? What's been working, what hasn't, if you're lucky enough, and you run your own business, for example, and you can really, really take these points away and optimise around your menstrual cycle, then, so much the better. But if not, you know, even just reviewing things in your life in general can be helpful at this point. And then in the second phase of the follicular phase, as you've come out of that period, this is where you have enhanced creativity and openness, you become much more outward focusing and sociable. Right. And this is because we're moving up to ovulation when we're actually becoming very attractive to a mate. So we're naturally more outward focusing. So this is a great time if you're planning things like presentations to put them in here. And then this is the time, these are your days, you know, when you look in the mirror, and you go, Oh, my skin looks really nice. I like I like the way I look today. And my hair kind of looks nice. But why don't I look like this every day, because not every day is ovulation. But if only it was right, you're kind of strong and sexy and magnetic. So enjoy this great time for date night. And your verbal fluency is even higher. And then in the luteal phase, this actually has been shown you're more productive, right. So just getting things done. Closing out your projects at the end of the month is really good, your attention will begin to turn inwards. But this is a great time energy levels vary. If you're taking on board a lot of these things, you should see that you start to become so much more optimised that actually you don't have those PMS light symptoms at the end of the month. So you should be able to have consistent energy across the whole, that's what I generally see if you if you adopt these principles, within about the next three months to three months, you'll really see some dramatic shifts if you take them on board. So you can close things out here, assess where you're at. So let's go over the key takeaways. The first one is embrace your femininity. So start tracking, if you're not tracking already, I speak to lots of women and I go When was your last period and they go oh, not sure I can't remember or how are your peers, you don't quite know. So definitely track it, put it in oura, kind of getting there. But they actually also, they've got an open API system that works with wild AI, that's a really good app that can help you as well interviewed their founder, Helen Guillaume on my podcast. So that's really interesting. There's different apps and things that you can use to track it. But also just journal and tracking how you're feeling getting insights is really good. And how you feel about your workouts and the things that I've been talking about. There are loads of apps that you can use. Yeah, or having

everything in one place. I would say connecting or up with wild AI would be the way to do it. Yeah. And I think they're advancing that all the time. And they're, they're actually working with Dr. Stacey Sims as well. So their intelligence around exercising is getting better as well in there. Yeah, so really good. Great question. So then let's also embrace my second principle, which is abundance. So really, you know, hopefully, you screenshot some of those slides, you can go and download them on my website, start thinking about how you can really nourish your body and your mind. Now, this isn't just food, this is all I've had time for today. But really think about what's in here. How can you nourish your mind with positive thoughts is so so important, just stop halt the crud self criticism in its tracks, and really think good thoughts as much as you possibly can try to replace them. And that brings me to the last point really, which is self love. That's what I want you to do. If you just go around in this question in your head. How can I approach this from a place of self love? Think about how differently you're going to eat? You know? Are you loving yourself when you make that food and you sit down to eat it? Are you loving yourself when you eat it in a rush or when you sit down and really enjoy it and express gratitude before the meal? Are you loving yourself when you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning to what Mel Robbins says and give yourself a high five. You know, don't criticise yourself so much. Really approach this, run a bath once a week put some magnesium salts and some lavender, really focus on your self care as women because it's so important. This really is connecting with you and your femininity. And everyone benefits when you do and let's face it. If you wander to self love, does your life really depend on it? I can tell you from my own experience it does having been through depression. So please really, really focus on these aspects. Thank you for listening. As I say you can go and get the slides here.

Thanks for listening. Remember to review and subscribe. You can grab the show notes, the resources and highlights of everything Angela mentioned over at Angela Foster performance.com You can also snatch up plenty of other goodies, including the highly helpful Angela recommends page which is a list of everything she personally recommends to optimise your mind, body and lifestyle