In April of 2025, a small UK-based startup announced that they were shifting their workweek to accommodate female employees’ menstrual cycles. In a LinkedIn post, Lumen SEO founder Aled Nelmes noted that the shift from four-day workweeks to working 32 hours per week (in any format) was, in part, a nod to “Menstrual health. We’re a female dominant workforce, and there are periods during a woman’s cycle where energy and the immune system are higher and lower, flexibility allows for women to lean into and maintain high performance around their cycle.”
Similarly, Nelmes noted that the 32-hour instead of four-day requirement also allowed men to work to their best advantage based on “Тестостерон. Men’s cycle is daily, with many men (including myself) being highest performing and focusing best early in the morning before 9am.”
Cycle syncing acknowledges predictable hormonal shifts during each cycle phase
Cycle syncing—the практика of adjusting your workouts, social calendar, питание, and even professional commitments based on which menstrual cycle phase you’re in—is increasingly built into female health and wellness apps. (Of note, those recommendations will only be helpful to the extent that the app incorporates your personal fertility cycle biomarker health data and isn’t just a high-tech version of the rhythm method. Also of note, women on hormonal birth control будет не experience these predictable, cycle phase-specific hormonal shifts with accompanying variations in energy, cravings, and, as some research suggests, injury risk.) Adjusting your lifestyle when you’re in your follicular vs luteal phase gets even easier when your fertility awareness app syncs with your Apple watch, for example.
But is ease of access to our personal cycle data (with accompanying fitness or nutrition-based recommendations) leading us to give our hormones too much say over how we live our lives?
We are not at the mercy of our hormones
A September 2023 ВРЕМЯ шт. observed that “cycle-syncing programs seem to be predicated on the assumption that menstrual hormones are the most powerful forces in determining your mood and energy at any given moment” (emphasis added). But this ‘assumption’ risks ignoring “the multitude of other physiological and mental factors that play a role in how someone feels.”
The article quotes University of Illinois at Chicago clinical psychiatrist Tory Eisenlohr-Moul saying, “Exercise [as one example of an activity impacted by cycle phase-specific hormonal shifts] is so much about the brain and your ability to make yourself do things that are sometimes physically uncomfortable.” Absent a diagnosis of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) or other significant hormonal issues, Eisenlohr-Moul asserts that other factors such as work stress or hours slept the previous night are more likely to impact mood or energy than hormonal changes.
What “The Lazy Genius” has to say about working with our hormones
Ironically, our hormones impact both our sleep и наш способность справляться со стрессом, so Eisenlohr-Moul might not be giving them the credence they deserve. Still, it’s true that there are definitely other factors besides our hormones that impact our day-to-day health and wellbeing. So, perhaps the question we should be asking is: What might it look like to respect our hormonal milieu on any given day, без letting these invisible chemical messengers hijack or dictate our lives? The most practical and thoughtful treatment of this topic I’ve seen is in The PLAN: Manage Your Time Like a Lazy Genius, by Kendra Adachi, aka “The Lazy Genius.”
Adachi’s first book, The Lazy Genius Way, advocated being a “genius” about the things that matter to you, and “lazy” about the things that don’t. This approach, Adachi argued, leads to compassionate, integrated living, avoiding the pitfalls of, on the one hand, phoning it in from the couch, and what Adachi calls Big Black Trash Bag Energy on the other.
На сайте The PLAN, Adachi observes that 93% of time management books are written by men and for men, noting in her trademark tongue-in-cheek style, “Most time-management authors and experts are men who do not have a boss, a home to run, or a menstrual cycle. I don’t know if you’re aware, but all three are notoriously unwieldy” (xiv).
На сайте The PLAN, Adachi observes that 93% of time management books are written by men and for men, noting in her trademark tongue-in-cheek style, “Most time-management authors and experts are men who do not have a boss, a home to run, or a menstrual cycle. I don’t know if you’re aware, but all three are notoriously unwieldy” (xiv).
Сайт PLAN: Acknowledging the role our hormones play in our energy levels
Adachi acknowledges, “For women, there is an inextricable link between the organization of their time and the management of their hormones, and if we try to live detached from that link, we will feel the consequences” (76). Adachi encourages women to incorporate their natural hormonal rhythms by Noticing, Preparing, Living, and Adjusting (the letters of PLAN, though not in that order, since she envisions a pyramid with ‘Live’ at the top and Prepare, Notice, Adjust as the supporting sides) in approaching each ‘season’ of the month.
She writes, “A woman’s hormonal patterns, and therefore her energy, vary multiple times over a single month. If, as a woman, you start to notice those patterns and adjust your decisions based on the energy you have, you will prepare differently and therefore жить the way you desire to live (79).” Adachi correlates the various phases of the menstrual cycle with the four seasons:
- Winter: Menstrual phase (approx cycle days 1-5). This is the Notice phase.
- Spring: Follicular phase (approx days 6-12). This is the Prepare phase.
- Summer: Ovulatory phase (approx days 13-18) This is the Live phase.
- Fall: Luteal phase (approx day 19 until your period begins). This is the Adjust phase.
Menstrual phase/Notice
Adachi leads off with humor, writing “This is when you bleed. A delight.” She continues more seriously, “But this is also when you are slower, you retreat, and you easily notice what’s happening in and around you.”
With the changes that occur in the natural world during winter in mind, she urges, “As much as it’s in your control, during this phase each month, don’t be overly social. Do mindless, slow tasks like paying bills, folding laundry, and filling out spreadsheets. Make comforting dump-and-stir dinners… Don’t expect a lot of creativity to come out of you. It’s on a break right now, and that’s expected and part of your rhythm. This is your time to notice. You don’t react or fix. Just notice” (80-81).
Follicular phase/Prepare
Next up is the follicular phase, with similarities to spring. Adachi notes, “Now things start to grow, namely estrogen and the energy she brings.” Increased “elasticity in your creativity” and enhanced “clarity in your ideas” combine to make you “excited to prepare” (81).
During this phase, Adachi suggests, “take advantage of your curiosity and clarity of thought. Write or do deep, focused work. Organize your closet, make travel plans, decide dinner for the next month, house-hunt, and create a product launch strategy.” After considering what’s possible to prepare for in your current season of life, utilize your natural abilities to do so “kindly and wisely” (81).
Ovulatory phase/Live
Adachi shoots straight when it comes to the ovulatory phase with its similarities to summer. “From a physiological standpoint, this is the phase where your body is trying to get pregnant. Therefore, it’s the most open and attractive you’ll ever be to others” (81). Setting aside actual pregnancy, “this phase is when you’re the most fully alive,” which is why Adachi wants “you to keep an eye on this phase. It’s the shortest one (some say it lasts only the two to three days when you actually ovulate), but I believe it’s the one that you need to intentionally lean into.”
Specifically, Adachi advises, “Take advantage of being comfortable with who you are and find ways to be around people. Speak with the confidence you suddenly feel in the conference room. Invite your coworker or neighbor to lunch. Have friends over for dinner, even though you’re usually terrified to do that. Schedule interviews, presentations, and parties during this phase. Live like it’s the best summer of your life” (82).
Luteal phase/Adjust
After all the noticing, preparing, and living of the winter/spring/summer seasons or menstrual/follicular/ovulatory phases, the luteal phase or fall season is a perfect time to adjust.
According to Adachi, “This is a great time of the month to make space for tasks that are detailed and need a keen, grounded eye– tasks that need adjustment. Evaluate household and workplace systems and identify a small change to make the systems more effective. Clean the bathroom, edit the manuscript, make the more complicated recipe, and schedule performance reviews” (82-83).
Giving hormones their due, without making them the star of the show
Adachi spends a whole chapter on periods and hormones. But the next chapter, aptly titled, “Bring Your Whole Self to the Table,” highlights the role of personality, spirituality and our faith life, mental health, upbringing, and “other things beyond your control. The fitful night of sleep because your partner snored, the offhand comment from the stranger at Target that you’re still thinking about, or sudden tragic news” (93).
As an example, Adachi encourages readers to “Get to know your personality and bring the fullness of who you are to the table” (90). Specifically, each one of the supporting sides of Adachi’s PLAN pyramid—Prepare, Adjust, Notice—will come more easily to some personalities than others. And yet, Adachi maintains, every side is important for living a compassionate, integrated life rather than a robotic one, for approaching life as painting a picture rather than maneuvering puzzle pieces into place.
Adachi encourages, “Each person is naturally inclined to prepare, adjust, or notice, and I want you to stay connected to what you’re already gifted in. Name it. Embrace it. Be confident in what you’re good at. BUT don’t let that come at the expense of the other two. Your practice is to learn which one of the three is most dominant and then nurture the others. Over time, you’ll find yourself more present to your life” (90).
Итоги
Our hormones play an undeniable role in our experience of what it means to be female—in fact, it’s why women’s health researcher Dr. Sarah E. Hill has been known to say “you are your hormones.” For this reason, our hormones are worthy of respect and, if there are signs that something is ‘off,’ worthy of medical attention from a healthcare practitioner trained in восстановительная репродуктивная медицина. But, as exemplified in The PLAN, they are far from the only—or even the большинство–important factor in our energy and mood.
This means that we have agency as women to be informed by our hormones, but not at their mercy. They are but one instrument contributing richness (and sometimes surprise and drama) in the symphony of our lives.
This means that we have agency as women to be informed by our hormones, but not at their mercy. They are but one instrument contributing richness (and sometimes surprise and drama) in the symphony of our lives.
Certainly, we can take our cycle phases into account when it comes to how we eat, exercise, socialize, and work, to the extent that our phase-specific lifestyle changes serve us. And to the degree that any given cycle syncing recommendation doesn’t serve us, or any area of our life doesn’t yield to the fact that we’re on our period, we can instead Notice, Prepare, Live, и Adjust based on what matters most in that season.
