Because your menstrual cycle comprises an ebb and flow of hormones, the mental and physical changes you experience throughout can feel quite drastic. Hormones like estrogen and progesterone don’t just tell your uterus what to do. They affect your mood and behavior in all kinds of ways, regulating your energy, sleep, libido, and appetite. In fact, hormones don’t just affect menstruators – they rule all humans!

As you’ve learned in these blinks, going with the natural flow of your menstrual cycle can be a radical act of self-care. By helping you discover your individual patterns, faults, and strengths, it will enable you to thrive in all stages and areas of your life. This is such an important book. Maisie's insights and cycle strategy have changed my life and my cycle. Period Power is written with such intelligence, humour and a deep understanding of women's health. If you have a period you need to read this book.' - Anna Jones, author of The Modern Cook's Year Well, it’s not just like that. It’s an incredible and intricate process but we’re skipping that science lesson for today. So you ovulate and there’s a drop off in hormone production. All that estrogen and testosterone takes a nosedive. I can’t tell you how many of my clients have experienced significant relief simply by understanding this. This is such an important book. Maisie's insights and cycle strategy have changed my life and my cycle. Period Power is written with such intelligence, humour and a deep understanding of women's health. If you have a period you need to read this book. * Anna Jones, author of The Modern Cook's Year * I also think that this book is definitely not one that should be listened to on audiobook in retrospect. Maisie Hill does a good job of narrating, don't get me wrong, but it's incredibly hard to remember where you have heard certain snippets of information that you maybe do want to remember and act upon. Unless you have a pen and paper to hand, it's going to be ultimately pointless, and the information will have been lost on you.I love all forms of medicine, they all have their place and some forms can be used successfully together when it’s safe to. But I don’t think it’s helpful to frame things as ‘natural’ or otherwise when it comes to perimenopause. You all know I’m a big fan of so called natural medicine but please hear this, really listen up. I want you to know that there are no prizes for going through perimenopause without western medicine. So you all get to decide what’s best for you. The different stages of your menstrual cycle are like the seasons of the year; each brings with it a different set of strengths and challenges. Your period, during which you withdraw from the world and rest, is like winter. After that comes spring, when your body and mind begin anew. Around ovulation you’re in summer, when you feel light and energetic. Finally, before your period, you move into fall to slow down and get ready for another winter. There are lots of reasons why mental health can suffer in midlife. Some of it will be to do with changing hormone levels and the resulting influence on other chemicals in the brain. These are the physiological reasons that can impact on things like mood, anxiety, motivation, your ability to focus and things like memory recall and cognition. So it can be a time where there is less resilience because of the hormonal changes that are taking place. But this is also a phase in life in which we are usually stretched and the past year will have done so even more I suspect for many of you.

Woah, this book is useful! I will be returning to this a lot, working on the cycle strategy and heightening my awareness of my cycle, but I am sure this will stay a five star read for me.So, to those of you who’ve been asking for this for a while, thank you for your patience. I’m in the ovulation phase of my cycle. And I actually suspect that I ovulated yesterday as, along with some other key indicators, I feel a shift in my energy today. As in a shift in the amount of energy that I have, and the nature of my energy. I’ve had some clients go six months and think that was it. And then their period starts, or even 11 months, really close to that 12 month mark and then have a period. And as we get closer to menopause we do have more anovulatory cycles, meaning ones where you don’t ovulate but there’s enough hormonal activity to instigate a bleeding episode. It’s not technically a period, although you would experience it like a period. But you do have some cycles where you will still be ovulating so contraception is necessary, assuming that’s what you want. maximise your natural superpowers each month while making adjustments for the darker days, and use Maisie's favourite tips to improve them

Some of you will have elderly parents, perhaps you’re part of organisations and things going on in your community. And I say all of this because it’s a good idea to actually stop and recognise all the different things that we are doing because often we arrive at this stage of life realising how much we do for others and how often put ourselves last. And of course some of these roles we love and value and we wouldn’t change them. But I’m going to guess that there are aspects of your life that you’re not happy with for one reason or another. This book!!!!! This must be my favorite non-fiction in a long long time. Maybe of all non-fiction I’ve read so far, ever. This is the first non-fiction book I've ever voluntarily read from cover to cover and it has definitely awoken a thirst for knowledge in me. If they can all be this engaging, relevant and interesting then sign me up. I’ve been reading the entire work throughout several months and during my last cycle, I’ve been reading about the different seasons while I was in a specific season (reading about “Winter” during menstruation, etc.).And I just found that so ironic because over the years I’ve had a lot of clients with low progesterone, struggled to get it prescribed when they were trying to conceive in their 30s. And that’s a rant for another day. I feel like I’m storing up a lot of rants at the moment. I feel like maybe there’s an episode of Maisie’s rants coming up where we’ll just get them all out at once.

Have you ever wondered what perimenopause is and how to know if you're experiencing it? If so, today's episode is for you. Much criticism arrived to pseudoscience in some aspects and this I do have to agree with and would urge others to take caution with. However, that for me was not my purpose for reading, so I was less intent on taking everything said as fact. In the book, many of the things said are still genuine helpful treatments that doctors themselves do use (i.g Vitus Agni’s-Castus supplementation being a popular homeopathic remedy and upping fat intake etc) so I’d say the majority follows good word.Overall though, I think every menstruator should take a go at this book, if not for the explanation instead for the reasons to begin respecting and tuning in with a cycle that brings immensely valuable wisdom to the table. The book also caters to overarching menstruators, so the language is thoughtful and inclusive for those with a more complex relationship with the cycle. To harness your “period power,” you just have to become familiar with the science behind your menstrual cycle, as well as the strengths and challenges that accompany each stage. By learning to go with the flow – quite literally – you’ll be able to access a power you never knew you possessed. So, I’m really thrilled that we’re doing this podcast. And the podcast is for you whether you want to improve cycle-based symptoms, or you want to use your cycle to get what you want out of life. And believe me, I know what it’s like to have menstrual cycle issues that stop you from living your best life or even just getting through the day. And it’s the same for me when I talk about being autistic. I don’t like the term ‘diagnosis’. And I’ll get onto that in a future date. I know a lot of you would like to hear more about this. I’ve been receiving a lot of questions about my so called autism diagnosis. Now, because I want to keep this as straightforward for you as possible I’m going to be making some sweeping generalizations. And because I’m going to be oversimplifying this, I have to tell you something upfront. What I describe may or may not reflect your experience of your cycle. The timing of events in your cycle and how you feel may be slightly different, or very different, to what I’m about to describe. They may be different to your BFF’s or sister’s experience of their cycle, or for that matter mine. That doesn’t mean that yours is wrong. All it means is that you have a unique experience of your cycle and your hormones, and that’s true of every person with a cycle. Okay?