“Society is organized in a linear way, but for women it is a handicap; the day is organized by looking at the clock and we should also look at the calendarâ€. This is explained by Yolanda GarcÃa, a psychologist and naturopath specialized in women’s health who has just published “I am a woman and these are my rules” (Grijalbo), a book where she gives her keys to managing cyclicality, “because there are days when we have a predisposition better for some types of activities or emotions than others.
According to GarcÃa, “the little study of the female cycle by the scientific community means that we have accepted erroneous patterns, when we simply have to understand our software.”
Women are cyclical, we experience variations guided by our hormones. What does it mean and how does it affect us?
The cyclical hormonal design affects all spheres of life: our immune system is different in one phase than in another, like our skin, our ability to perform tasks of a cognitive order (which require more of the neocortex) or the predisposition for more tasks. emotional (related to the limbic system). Everything is basically intervened by two hormones, estrogen and progesterone. Estrogens dominate us in the first phase of the cycle until ovulation and progesterone in the second phase until menstruation.
How do each of these hormones affect us? What role do they have?
Estrogens are like the crazy friend that makes you do anything, that gives you strength, gives you punch, makes you believe that you can do anything; they make our skin, our memory or our verbal capacity better than ever. Then comes the progesterone that is that confident friend, with whom you talk about deep things on the sofa over tea. And that describes the two phases of our cycle. Understanding this gives us great freedom!
Because? What are the benefits of being aware of our cyclicality?
Understanding that there are some phases of your cycle in which you will have more predisposition for some things than others allows you to organize your schedule. If you are going to organize a party, you will feel better in the pre-ovulation phase, when you feel like a powerful goddess, than when you are on your period. Now, we are not slaves to our hormones, they predispose and we dispose, but always understanding that there is a more favorable energy at one time than at another. If I have to give a conference on a day when what I really need is to be calm on the sofa, maybe I organize my schedule in a different way, to save energy. On the other hand, when I’m ovulating I feel like working, doing an afterwork… We have to understand our software.
What are the menstrual cycle phases and what needs do we have in each of them?
We menstruate, we prepare for ovulation, we ovulate, and we enter the premenstrual phase. It would be as if menstruation were winter, pre-ovulation was spring, ovulation was summer, and pre-menstruation was autumn. Menstruation is the phase in which I am most inward, I am not so predisposed on a social level, I need more hot food, I don’t feel like having relationships so much… The energy fades to wake up like trees in spring, when estrogen rises and I feel more like socializing. During ovulation, summer, is when we are better, we feel like going out, our libido is great, we are hardly hungry. In the premenstrual phase we go inward again, we crave more sweet foods.
What is the physiological explanation for all this?
The menstrual cycle is biologically organized for reproduction, regardless of whether or not we want to have children. From ovulation to menstruation, if there was a baby, our body would have to be able to feed it, and so there is a physiological resistance to leptin, a hormone, so we are very hungry. There is also a resistance to insulin and that is why we have more desire to eat sugars. Our biology works automatically. It seems to us that at some points in the cycle we are like the cookie monster, but that has allowed us to guarantee our survival as a species!
The specific physiology of women in medicine has been little studied. Does that have to do with the little knowledge that we women have of our cycle?
Absolutely, medicine has not had a gender perspective and for it, women are something like men who bleed and gestate, when in reality there is a very large physiological difference. For example, we would need different dosages for the drugs and even depending on the different moments of the cycle. The little that has been studied has been done from a pathological context, but not from an emotional function or from a functional aspect.
You talk about biohacking. What is it?
It is something like the hacking or hacking of our own biology. I prefer to call it the work of self-healing power: knowing how it works and from there understanding at what point in the cycle it is more interesting to take one type of vitamin than others, or knowing how hormones should be working. You can hack your biology if necessary.
The rule should not hurt the rule, but many times it hurts. What aids do you recommend for pain?
Menstruation should never hurt, but there are problems such as endometriosis, polyps or fibroids that can cause pain. Almost always when there is pain, it is related to hyperestrogenism (too much estrogen that predisposes to growth), or to the state of inflammation. Anything that helps us reduce inflammation, anti-inflammatory diet, anti-inflammatory life or remedies such as turmeric, magnesium or aromatherapy, can help manage pain when there is an organic cause, while it is resolved. The orgasm can help ease the pain, although many women still have certain taboos during menstruation.
How should menstruation be? What is normal?
It should be as regular as possible, with cycles of around twenty-eight days, although one of thirty can be absolutely normal, as long as it is regular. Your period should last about four days, and be bright red, like a nose bleed. It should not have clots and if there are, never larger than a coin. The normal thing is that you do not need to change (tampon, compress or cup) before four hours, that you do not stain. There should be no pain at any time during the menstrual cycle, and if so, you must consult because it is not physiological.
You were talking about anti-inflammatory life… What is it?
We are very inflamed and even neuroinflamed. The anti-inflammatory life is the one that is closest to human nature: being in contact with the sun, exercising, being in contact with nature, eating without ultra-processed foods…. There is nothing more anti-inflammatory than eating little, at 80% of our capacity. In all areas of the world with longer-lived people, that is one of the common criteria.
What does it mean that we are very neuroinflamed?
That there is brain inflammation and that is why there is dullness, a feeling of heaviness, the presence of toxins that are also inflammatory… Inflammation is not bad, it is our body’s natural processes to resolve acute situations, if there is a virus or an injury, for example. The problem is when this inflammation is not resolved and is maintained for months or years, and this is combined with menstruation, which is an inflammatory physiological process. The generalized state of inflammation produces overweight, pain, tiredness, fatigue, dullness, diseases that have not yet been diagnosed, but cause discomfort, sadness, anxiety… All of this can have other causes, but it is also present in inflammatory conditions.
What would you say is the main tip to keep cortisol (stress hormone) in its positive role?
Living outside, sunbathing, exposing yourself to the light of dawn and dusk. Respecting circadian rhythms is one of the most balancing factors. The problem is that we go to bed very late. If we went to bed earlier, we could get up much earlier: the cortisol peak occurs between seven and eight in the morning, it is the moment in which the day of mental activity should begin. In modern life it is very difficult to maintain health.
You repeat the idea of ​​going to sleep early a lot. Is staying up late watching series our biggest mistake?
At the time when melatonin peaks, which is the rest hormone, at nine o’clock at night, we mistakenly hack it: we should be getting ready to go to sleep, and instead of that, we haven’t even had dinner and we we expose ourselves to powerful lights, in homes that sometimes look like shop windows on Paseo de Gracia. Our body is altered. In the morning we are exhausted because we do not sleep at the hours we should, because it is not the same to sleep from nine at night to six in the morning than from twelve at night to nine in the morning. You have to copy nature and sleep when there is no light.
Do you recommend changing the lighting at home?
Yes, and when I work with women in fertility processes, this is important advice: lower the light at night, put warm lights, put candles, since the light of the fire is the only one that does not alter our hormones. Understanding that biology is the basis of our functioning is very healing.
As for food, what are the keys to the moments of the cycle?
What is relevant is the base, with a large presence of vegetables, an adequate presence of protein, vegetable or animal, and fats because our hormones depend a lot on them. In other words, eating as healthy and balanced as possible, with twelve-hour nightly intake breaks and four-hour breaks between meals. At each phase of the cycle we only make small adjustments. Before ovulation we need to eat less, then you can take advantage of a diet in which you do not need so much intake, with a small portion of carbohydrates, because it helps ovulation. After ovulation it is much better that there are no carbohydrates because our body will try to retain everything.
There are better times of the cycle to diet, as you explain. Because?
For example, the keto diet, for us, is more interesting to do after ovulation, because our metabolism is more efficient in managing fats or carbohydrates, depending on the hormones that are available. If we know that it is more efficient to do a cyclical diet, it can be very powerful, because it is much less effortful. We must stop living hard, because if we know our nature, it is easier for it to act in our favor.
Physical exercise is key and strength training is very important for women. Because?
It helps us regulate hormones, there are studies that explain that women with polycystic ovaries can have many benefits with strength work. Although you have to do it at the right point, because excessive exercise reduces testosterone and could also destabilize our hormones.
There are more and more fertility problems. What would you say is the key tip?
Whether we want to have children or not, our menstrual cycle has to be perfect. But if we also want to have children, the cycle must be perfectly balanced before going for a treatment. There, more than ever, the pillars of hormonal health such as proper nutrition and hydration are important.
