Know Thy Cycle Part I: The Premise.

To start, here is the premise we all already know: There are generally 4 weeks to a cycle.


WEEK 1

• During the first week of your cycle, you bleed.
• DAY 1 of your period is DAY 1 of your CYCLE. Some women assume their period is the last week of their cycle. But it is actually the start. New period = new cycle.
• A healthy period should last around 4-7 days.

WEEK 2

• During the second week of your cycle, you’re feeling energized and upbeat. Your period is over! The hormones that signal the body to stop bleeding are the same ones that make you feel renewed.
• While you’re feeling great, a tiny dominant egg inside of a little pouch (called a follicle) begins to grow faster than the others inside of your ovaries. (Did you know, your ovaries are about the size of a single almond?! So tiny!)

WEEK 3

• Sometime around the top of the 3rd week, give or take your personal variation, boom!: You ovulate. The dominant egg bursts out of its pouch like Secretariat out of the gate and is swept into a fallopian tube.
• There, your egg either meets up with a sperm inside of the tube or continues on its own down to the uterus. All of this is happening as your sit and scroll through Instagram during work meetings.

WEEK 4

• As the 3rd week melts into the 4th your fertilized egg burrows into the lining of the uterus where it is officially renamed an embryo.
• Your body kicks into high gear and produces chemicals that will nourish the embryo until the placenta takes over around week 12.
• If pregnancy has not occurred, your body prepares to shed the lining.

And with that we are back at Day 1 of your next cycle, when your period arrives.