Claire's book 50 Things You Need to Know About Periods: Know your flow and live in sync with your cycle is out now
Anyone else feel like lockdown is like the world’s worst PMT week? The feelings of sluggishness, exhaustion, despondency and tearfulness we’ve all been experiencing over the last few months will be familiar to anyone who has burst into tears because their Twix snapped in half before we could get it out of the wrapper, and then had a lightbulb moment 36 hours later when their period turned up (just me?).
According to period coach Claire Baker, our periods could be more affected by lockdown than we realise. Baker works with different women in a life and health coach capacity, and uses knowledge about their hormonal cycles to inform and help them reach their goals. Since lockdown, she’s seen some common themes emerging around her clients’ cycles. ‘I’ve seen peoples’ cycles get longer - delayed ovulation is caused by stress, so that’s no surprise. There’s a lot of collective stress in the air, as well as individual stress. We’re also going out less, which can throw out our 24-hour hormonal cycle and that in turn can impact our monthly hormonal cycle. Some women are telling me that their premenstrual symptoms in the week before their period are worse, which again can be caused by stress.’
READ MORE: Why Is My Period Late? 21 Reasons Other Than Pregnancy To Explain A Late Period
As a period coach, Baker encourages her clients to closely chart their periods and closely observe how they’re feeling at different points in their cycle. ‘Physically it’s looking at things like energy levels, cravings for different foods, libido, strength, physical activity, and people quite quickly notice observations.’
‘We also look at mental health - it’s such a shame that we don’t have more of an awareness of menstrual cycle awareness in the mental health realm, charting symptoms like stress, and the quality and quantity of thoughts, anxiety and depression. And then I also suggest you look at your emotions week to week, do you feel more stable and calm and more level headed or are you more up and down?’
Recognising when you’re not feeling so great, and why, is key as far as Baker is concerned. ‘Knowing when you’re having a more vulnerable week and recognising this is really life changing for a lot of women. But you can also look at it from a spiritual perspective, or a creative perspective or a spiritual perspective. If there’s an area that someone wants more insight or clarity on or if its’s an area where they want to grow, you can start charting - how do you feel, how do your thoughts change, your ideas, everything across the menstrual cycle, and once these patterns start to emerge, with that self understanding you can take better action and make a decision from that place.
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Baker says that self doubt is often an issue her clients are looking to tackle, particularly professionally. ‘I often work on self doubt and believing in yourself. In your premenstrual week this feeling of wanting to throw everything in, quit a job, leave a relationship or give up on a fitness or self care regime can emerge. So if someone is experiencing a lot of self doubt in this week we’ll look at different ways they can celebrate themselves in the run up to the week, write a list of things they’ve achieved in the last cycle so they can return to that. Or sometimes we begin to listen to some of those niggles - often a home truth does come out when you’re feeling premenstrual and frustrated, and maybe if those niggles come back month after month, maybe there’s something there.’
The flip side of course, is how you optimise those weeks when you’re feeling amazing - the Superwoman Week as Claire calls it. ‘The week after your period and the week leading up to ovulation that’s often when women feel their best, energetic, resilient, turned on, so optimise it, if you know that’s the week of your cycle you feel great then get project started, plan social occasion’s, do some networking, present projects at work, or plan time with your partner. I’ve got a client who’s got twins and she always plans nights away with her partner for that week when she’s ovulating because that’s when she’s most turned on and connected to him.’
Claire’s work is about making the most of our natural hormonal fluctuations at different points in our cycle rather than dealing with pain or other problems associated with periods, and when clients experience these sort of issues, she’ll refer them onto a specialist. But for most of us, she believes our periods should become a positive part of our lives, rather than burden. ‘I think I think that there’s a misconception that having a period’s a burden and it’s something we have to struggle through for year after year after year for all of our cycling years, and I hope that my work offers a different perspective, that actually there are will benefits to having a menstrual cycle and all it takes is a bit of awareness and understanding of what’s going on and it can optimise every area of our life. A lot of women I work with tell me they come to love their period and their menstrual cycle.’