Benefits of Charting Your Cycle

Your menstrual cycle can provide you with a sensitive window into your overall health and can indicate how well your body is coping with your current lifestyle practices. It has been referred to as a woman's 5th vital sign. As with your other vital signs (heart rate, blood pressure; respiratory rate; body temperature) there are well established "normal parameters" for the important aspects of a woman's menstrual cycle. a trained fertility awareness practitioner can look at a woman's menstrual cycle charts and determine if any abnormalities exit. Better yet, you can be trained in the skill of mestrual cycle charting so that you can interpret your own charts and cycle. This will allow you to pick up on subtle changes in your cycle that could be related to certain lifestyle practices (sleep; travel; alcohol and/or food consumption; stress; ect) or an indication of deeper issues. The ability to accurately charge and interpret your charges gives yo teh ability to address the root cause(s) of any changes/abnormalitiesthat arise before they lead to a potentially more serious condition.

When it comes to hypothalamic amenorrhea (HA), the loss of your period is often the last symptom along a spectrum of mestrual cycle changes, rather than the first sign of an issue. Girls and women who are charting their cycles will most likely notice more subtle changes prior to the loss of their period.

These include:

• Mid-cycle spotting

• Delayed ovulation

• A short luteal phase

• Short or light periods

• Anovulation

  
  

What Causes Abnormalities in the Menstrual Cycle in Women With HA?

• Insufficient caloric intake

• Insufficient intake of fat and protein

• Excessive exercise

• Exercise that is too intense with too little recovery

• Excess stress

• Low reproductive hormone production

In short, the body is shutting down the reproductive system to conserve energy for more vital systems necessary for survival. The body as determined that NOW is not a good time to conceive a baby due to limited energy reserves or too much strain on the body from varying forms of STRESS!

Some women will never lose their period, but will continue to have cycle abnormalities associated with low reproductive hormone production over the course of many years. If you are not charting your cycle, you may not know there is a problem until you are trying to conceive a baby. Some of the menstrual cycle abnormalities along the HA spectrum, such as a short luteal phase and anovulation, make it impossible to conceive a child until the root cause is addressed and balance is restored to the body. Healing and restoration of balance to your body will be demonstrated by improvements in the parameters of your menstrual cycle.

Charting can give you a deeper understanding of your body

• You will better understand how your emotions are influenced by the cyclical hormonal changes in your cycle.

• If you experience strong and disruptive emotions at certain points in your cycle, charting will help to pinpoint exactly when in the cycle these start and stop, allowing for targeted strategies to address these emotions.

• You will be able to determine the fertile and infertile days of your cycle.

• You will develop and intimate knowledge of your body's threshold for stress as you notice potential changes in your cycle in response to sleep disruption, changes in eating patterns, varying exercise intensities, travel, illness, emotional stress, and work/school related stress.

• If you begin to implement positive lifestyle changes, charting will give you real time feedback about the effectiveness of these changes.

• Your body is unique, menstrual cycle charting will help you understand what your body needs to function optimally.