Master Grazia’s life skills

Tracking your period is key to helping you feel in control of your menstrual health and, in turn, your overall health. While the global average for a cycle is 29 days, yours might be shorter or longer. Tracking your period – by using cycle-tracking apps, for example – helps you know what’s normal for you.

We all know that our menstrual cycle can affect our skin, but it can also take its toll on our energy levels, mood, appetite and food cravings. Most importantly, irregularities in your cycle may suggest underlying health conditions, such as polycystic ovary syndrome or endometriosis.

It can explain a lot about your se;x drive, too. Tracking your sex drive alongside your period can help determine patterns in your cycle and hormone levels. For example, some women notice that their sexual desire spikes around ovulation, decreasing shortly after ovulation is complete. Others report more satisfaction from an orgasm around ovulation, although more research is needed to prove this.

Tracking your exercise along with your energy levels can also help you better determine which days are optimal for training, and which days might be better suited to resting. Research has found that strength-training during the first part of your cycle results in higher increases in muscle strength, compared to training in the second part of your cycle, after ovulation.

Understanding your period is key to understanding your general wellbeing, giving you the power to identify patterns that are unique to you. Finding reliable information around female health is difficult, which is why we just launched our podcast, Hormonal, to shed light on the role of hormones and how they affect our lives.