Toni Weschler’s Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health is a monster. More than 500 pages long, the book covers everything related to the Fertility Awareness Method, including anatomy, the menstrual cycle, fertility signs, balancing your hormones, and pregnancy—and that’s just the start.
From a young age, most women (myself included) are instructed on how to use tampons and pads and find a hormonal birth control that works for us. Some of us continue to do fine on conventional products, but it’s important to know that there are other options that don’t contain pesticides, reduce waste, and help manage PMS symptoms and irregular periods without adding synthetic hormones.
Going plant-based, increasing your exercise, and cutting back on red meat can all be positive changes to your lifestyle, but for some of us, those same choices can result in anemia.
A lot of women wonder if it is okay to practice yoga during menstruation. Aside from avoiding certain postures and keeping the vibe mellow, engaging the body in a healthy yoga routine during moon time can help you both embody more fully, and transcend all at the same time. Here are a few tips for yoga while mooning.
Bloating, cramps, headaches, body aches, swelling, breast tenderness, mood swings -- is this what we were destined for? To a young girl newly entering puberty I knew nothing better. I entered the era of menstruation without proper initiation or training. I had no wisdom-woman grooming me in the way to consciously awaken into my womanhood. I only had societal conditioning, programming, and a mother who grew up with shame and guilt around bleeding.
Some really effective herbal medicines are in the kitchen, and here in Part 1 are my favorite uses for myself and my clients. In Part 2 next week, we’ll flip things around and look at culinary uses for medicinals typically neglected in the kitchen. You can geek out more on how to use kitchen herbs and spices for health here and here. Remember that quality counts .
According to Ayurveda, the menstrual period should happen every 28 days, last about three days and be pain free. That said, if you do face painful periods then here is what you should know and do…
I envy the women who are lucky enough to experience a pain-free menstrual cycle each month and essentially go about their daily lives with little to no interruption as their monthly moon waxes and wanes.
My experience has been quite the opposite for as long as I can remember.
For as long as I can remember, my menstrual cycle has been a source of pain, fatigue, and emotionality. While I consider this monthly process of the body to be a sacred one, the disruption that it causes due to the pain and fatigue that I experience during this time is at the point of needing to plan events and trips around my cycle, and sometimes needing to cancel events when it arrives. Needless to say, for the majority of my life, I have overall not ‘enjoyed’ my menstrual cycle, and it is something that I have come to dread and feel powerless to the effects of.
Periods are nature’s way of reminding women that we give life, but they are bastardized and joked about in society because they can be an inconvenience. PMS, cramps, and mood swings that accompany the monthly menstruation cycle are only the tip of the iceberg. Many women have health conditions (such as endometriosis) that make periods extremely painful.