Why you can be thankful every day of your cycle

Tomorrow in the United States, many of us will be celebrating Thanksgiving, which is traditionally a day we give thanks for what we have.

In the spirit of the holiday, I thought I’d run down what all we cycling gals have to be thankful for each week of our monthly cycle.

Okay, so I’m ready to enjoy a big dose of hormonal gratitude! Who’s with me?

Week 1
Day 1 (first day of period) to Day 7
Unless you’ve just gotten a pregnancy scare, you probably don’t equate your period with feeling thankful. But, thankful you should be! That’s because the first sign of red indicates that your estrogen is starting to rise after having dropped like a stone for the previous six days. It also means sedating progesterone is now a distant memory–and with it its tiring, brain-fogging effects. So, you can be thankful that as estrogen rises higher and higher throughout your Week 1, this hormone makes you happier, more energized, mentally sharper, more resilient and just brighter overall. Not too shabby, right?
Tip: Make your Week 1 even better by eating iron-rich foods (including beans, fortified cereal, lean meat and tofu) or taking a multivitamin with iron (15 mg. for girls 14 to 18; 18 mg. for women 19 to 50; 8 mg. for women 51+), which will help reverse the iron shortfall that occurs during menstruation and can cause mental and physical fatigue.

Week 4
Final 6 days of your cycle
While it’s true that descending estrogen in your premenstrual week is best known for its negative side effects (such as moodiness and the blues), the plunge in this hormone has benefits you can be thankful for, too: For starters, it saps your patience, which at first sounds bad, but in reality this makes you a lot less likely to continue putting up with problems and injustices you’ve tried to overlook in more patient higher-hormone days in your cycle, such as your co-worker continually taking credit for your work or your roommate not paying her share of the rent. As a result, you’re likely to get nagging issues finally resolved. In addition, dipping estrogen makes you more in touch with your feelings, so you can channel this extra emotional sensitivity into creative projects, such as songwriting and painting. Finally, the drop in estrogen can give you a reason to treat yourself to special indulgences you rarely give yourself permission to enjoy, such as a bubble bath, binge-watching a TV show or eating a favorite food–all without feeling guilty. In fact, research shows that special treats actually help reverse some premenstrual symptoms by prompting a temporary surge of feel-good chemicals in the brain.
Tip: Make this week better by reducing your intake of coffee, tea and Red Bull since caffeine tends to worsen premenstrual irritability. And cut back on salt to reduce premenstrual bloating and breast tenderness.