Irregular Cycles and how to work with Menstrual Cycle Awareness

Image: Uday Mittal via Unsplash

According to the NIH, irregular periods affect between 14–25% of women and it can be frustrating when books, resources, courses and teachers talk about a cycle always being 28 days if this isn’t your lived reality. The world of Menstrual Cycle Awareness and Menstruality in particular can be an alienating place if you feel your cycle doesn’t belong in that 28-day standard model.

Having fluctuation in your cycle is normal. It’s affected by the way we eat, sleep, move our bodies, where we live, how we work and so much more. Life is an ever-moving, inherently stressful thing, so if you have a 27 day cycle one month and a 25 day cycle the next, do not worry. This does not mean you have an irregular cycle.

What’s considered as a ‘regular’ cycle?

This is probably easier when the question is reversed. The following are considered to be ‘normal, regular’ cycles and periods:

• A cycle lasting 24–38 days, i.e. your period comes every 24–38 days. It’s important to note it doesn’t mean your period will come after 24 days one time and then 38 days the next, rather that this is the ‘normal’ range for a cycle to complete. It’s a big variation from the standard 28 days already!
• A period that lasts between 2–7 days. Again, you might usually bleed for 4 days but have cycles where it lasts just 2, or goes on for 7. This is, again, considered within a normal range.
• A follicular phase (between period and ovulation) that lasts around 12–24 days. This means it’s normal for ovulation to happen between days 12 and 24. This is, once again, quite a variation from the stereotypical ‘ovulation happens on day 14 of the cycle’ that we read and most period tracking apps use to calculate your cycle.
• A luteal phase (between ovulation and your period) lasting around 11–16 days.

As you can see, the variations are huge! So if you’re within these ranges, you’re considered to have a healthy, normal cycle.

So what is an irregular cycle?

An irregular cycle can be defined as any or all of these:

• Periods lasting upwards of 9 days
• If you have a very late ovulation i.e. day 25 or after (that’s 25 days after your period started)
• If your cycle fluctuates wildly e.g. a 24 day cycle followed by a 44 day, then a 36 day cycle

What causes an irregular cycle?

There are many reasons for the cycle to dysfunction including:

• Stress. Stress can delay your ovulation, which in turn delays your period. And stress can be anything from a relationship breakdown, death of a loved one or losing your job, to getting a new job with more responsibility, moving house, trying for a baby, getting married, exams, travelling and jetlag, financial worries or not getting enough sleep because of the busy road outside…and more! Stress can be both good and bad, and can make a huge impact on your cycle.
• Medications
• Transitioning from hormonal contraception — it can take up to a year for your cycle to rebalance and your period to come back, even if you’ve only been on it for a few months
• Perimenopause
• Miscarriage or termination of pregnancy
• Menstrual disorders such as PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), fibroids and endometriosis
• Giving birth
• Eating disorders
• Being in menarche (you’ve just started your period)
• Shift work
• More serious issues such as cancer (but please don’t freak out about this — get yourself checked)

There’s a wide spectrum of reasons for your cycle to become irregular, some of which can be helped along with lifestyle changes and others which will need the help of a doctor or complementary/alternative therapist.

How to practice Menstrual Cycle Awareness if you have irregular cycles

1. Track your ovulation

Because your period can only happen once you’ve ovulated, and the length of time between your ovulation happening and your period coming is fixed, knowing when you ovulate means you can accurately track your cycle. This will help you to plan for your period and allow you to have an anchor point in your cycle so that you can keep track of where you are as time goes on.

To reiterate, it’s not your period that’s irregular, rather your ovulation. This is why tracking your cycle is the very foundation of having a menstrual cycle awareness practice.

How do you know when you’ve ovulated?

Tracking your basal body temperature is the only way to know you’ve ovulated, apart from having an ultrasound. Women constantly tell me they know they’re ovulating because their libido spikes, their breasts are swollen, they have cramps, spotting and a myriad other symptoms, but remember this:

Your ovulation can be delayed!

If you’re body thinks its under stress, it may try to ovulate. You may feel those symptoms as your body works to release your egg, but the ovulation itself doesn’t happen. This can happen multiple times. I cannot stress enough that relying on symptoms alone is not a surefire way to know you’ve ovulated, especially if you’re using that as a method of contraception. Tracking will allow you to have more of an overview of your cycle.

2. Align yourself to the moon

I get it. This might sound a bit woo-woo, but there’s plenty of supporting evidence out there showing a link between the moon and the cycle. From a purely objective point of view, the moon goes through a full cycle every 28 days, which means you’ll have something of a guide to start attuning to when it comes to aligning with energy, tasks and so on.

Secondly, we know that the pituitary gland (responsible for sleep/wake cycles) is affected by light, especially natural light. This is why it’s so much harder to wake early during the dark mornings of winter. The advent of artificial light and screens means we’re exposed to light much later than we’re biologically made for, which disrupts the pituitary gland and this in turn disrupts the cycle.

If you’re aligning to the moon, the new moon will be considered as the first day of your cycle, with full moon representing the halfway point of ‘ovulation.’

3. Or, align to seasons

If you have a very long or fluctuating cycle, aligning to the moon might feel difficult to do. In that case, you can align to the framework of the inner seasons instead.

The inner seasons represent each hormonal phase of the cycle, and the general characteristics of them reflect what’s happening in our bodies and psyches. This is effectively giving your body a framework to copy, so it can learn to bring itself back into alignment. Considering that stress is such a big factor in disruption, learning to to live more cyclically is a great way to help our bodies rebalance.

Here’s how the seasons tally up with the cycle:

• Inner Winter — this is characterised by your period, for the length of time that you bleed. You might feel like being in Inner Winter a day or two before your period and you may feel the transition to spring at the tail end of your bleed, but generally, you’re in winter with your period whether it lasts 4 or 9 days. Winter is about rest, regeneration and introspection.
• Inner Spring — your inner spring correlates to the follicular phase, that is — until you ovulate. If you have a very short cycle (and ovulate early) your spring will be short. If you have a long cycle (and ovulate late) your spring will be long. It could mean your spring lasts anywhere from a few days, to a couple of weeks or more. Spring is about re-emerging into the world while still guarding your energy.
• Inner Summer — inner summer is always characterised by ovulation, whether its happening later or earlier in the cycle. Because of this, inner summer is relatively short. This is the peak of your cycle and is about being seen, in full bloom and in the fullest expression of yourself with high energy. For some, this can feel too much and be overwhelming. The feeling of inner summer can linger a couple days after you’ve ovulated.
• Inner Autumn — inner autumn is the remainder of your cycle, until your period comes and lasts around 10–16 days. If you have heavy PMS, it can feel very long, but if you enjoy this time, it can feel fleeting and short. Inner autumn is about self-care, saying yes to yourself, creating boundaries and preparing for your upcoming period.

There are so many creative ways to sync your cycle, from your diet to how you work to how you exercise. The most important thing is to start living with your natural rhythm instead of the same way every day.

By making small moves to recalibrate, you can help your body find balance, and bring your cycle back to regularity.

This post was first published on www.nataliekmartin.com on December 3rd, 2021.