27 Jan One unusual thing you do more often during your period–without realizing it
If you’re in your Week 1–your period week–do me a favor: Before you continue reading, stand up, walk a few paces, then turn around and come back. Then repeat this walk-and-turn at least one more time. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Did you do it? If so, think about which direction you turned each time when you walked back–was it to the left or to the right?
Chances are, you turned to the right.
That’s the word from a 1997 study in the journal Hormones and Behavior that found most women tend to make more right turns during their menstrual week than during other weeks of their cycle.
The researchers admit they’re not sure why this occurs, but suspect estrogen affects certain pathways in the brain that give us a “turning bias”–the tendency to turn one way or the other without consciously deciding the direction.
While this isn’t an incredibly useful study and has no real practical application (except for placing bets on unsuspecting menstruating women), it is pretty interesting and serves as an important reminder of the many varied ways hormones impact us every day in ways we never even considered.
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