The Cycle Syncing Method defined by Alisa Vitti: “ working with your body’s natural processes to both optimize your health and your life without adding anything to the body system.” The aim is to understand your 2nd clock, which is operating as your internal coding center, which by understanding will allow you to operate at your best and align with this built in pattern. This is a type of biohacking that aligns your lifestyle to your biological rhythm, encouraging a collaborative, anxiety reducing and embraces to the fullest extent your “feminine energy”.
Why education about our cycles are crucial! Why we need to “Biohack” our cycle:
- PMS symptoms DON’T have to be part of your monthly routine
The PMS symptoms can all be mitigated–these symptoms only arise when we have an imbalance of progesterone and estrogen during our luteal phase. The triggers behind these tend to be the diet choices we make–including sugar (this is my arch nemesis), caffeine, and not nurturing our bodies properly
The NIH conducted a BioCycle Study(https://www.nichd.nih.gov/about/org/dir/dph/officebranch/eb/biocycle#) in which they discovered the longer we allow our PMS symptoms to go without any treatment/change we have a greater risk for diabetes, cancer, heart disease and in some cases dementia postmenopausally. This is why this is so important that we prioritize living in tune with our cycles and nurturing our bodies to combat any imbalances.
The author Alisa Vitti- considers pms time an important time of clarity, insight and direction which she calls “prioritizing my self”. It is essential we take the time to slow down, allowing our mind and body to rejuvenate and refresh.
The other fact that was shocking to me is that period cramps are AVOIDABLE! I myself have had horrible cramps and depending on my levels of stress, these cramps can be debilitating. The main contributor of uterine contractions is the prostaglandin–PgE2, which in excess causes cramps. However, our bodies also have other types of prostaglandins called PgE1 and PgE3 that are made to counteract the cramps. These are our natural painkillers and our body was built to relieve any pain. This process can only happen though when we eat the right foods and equip our bodies with the correct building blocks that will generate the good types of prostaglandins.
Grace and I have the goal to understand and be in tune with our cycles so that we do not experience the pms symptoms and allow us to operate at peak levels during all 4 phases of our cycles. This requires vigilance to monitor what we are intaking, as well as environmental exposure on our bodies.
The truth is that research is still lacking on the complexity of women’s bodies. The author Maya Dusenberry states that “Women’s symptoms are not taken seriously because medicine doesn’t know as much about their bodies and health problems. And medicine doesn’t know as much about their bodies and health problems because it doesn’t take their symptoms seriously”.
The danger is that physicians tend to prescribe women incorrectly when in retrospect we should hone in on a more simple holistic perspective of our bodies. Unfortunately, more than half of all US Women are currently taking at least one prescription medication, and the number is increasing for approximately 26 million that are on five or more prescriptions. We are only putting a bandaid on this issue and still not getting to the ROOT of our health issues. Our bodies clearly are communicating to us we need to change our lifestyle, yet, we make too many excuses not to prioritize these changes.
We need to be weary of trendy diets that are not considering the shifts in our cycles, and even supplements.
This is also why Grace and I in discussing our body shifts have understood more and more of women’s stories and the frustrations that come with caring for our bodies. I hope we can cultivate a community for women and encourage them to have these conversations. Plus, build an accountability system to sync with our cycles and be patient since the results will be life changing.
Grace and I are cheering you on to prioritize understanding and optimizing your cycles!