Why Cycle Tracking for ADHD Women is Essential!
Cycle tracking isn't a fad or something you can only do if you menstruate. Rooted in ancient wisdom, modern science, and female empowerment, understanding your cycles is key to helping you channel and nurture your energy, enhance your strengths, honour your needs and boost emotional well-being.
Many of us are navigating the complex interplay between our hormonal cycles and ADHD, and this conversation aims to shed light on how cycle tracking can help us reconnect with our bodies. We’ll explore how hormonal fluctuations impact our well-being and the importance of recognising these changes, not just as symptoms to endure, but as valuable insights into our overall health.
In this episode of the ADHD Women’s Wellbeing Podcast, Kate is joined by Laura Federico and Morgan Miller, co-authors of The Cycle Book. Together, they offer practical insights, personal stories, and expert guidance on how understanding your hormonal cycle can transform your wellbeing.
Laura, a certified sex and couples therapist, and Morgan, a seasoned midwife and reproductive care advocate, share their unique perspectives on navigating hormonal health through PMDD, endometriosis, postnatal depression, and beyond.
Preorder my book: The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit here.
What You'll Learn:
- The power of cycle tracking as a tool for self-understanding, self-advocacy, and healing
- Why no two cycles are the same, and how learning your hormonal patterns is essential
- The emotional and physical realities of conditions like PMDD, endometriosis, and postnatal depression (especially in neurodivergent women)
- How to begin advocating for yourself in a medical system that often overlooks women's hormonal health
- What to do when you’re not getting the support you need from healthcare providers, and how to persist without burning out
- Why it’s vital to start these conversations young, empowering girls to understand and trust their bodies
- The value of community, curiosity, and consistency in your hormone health journey
This episode is a compassionate call to action: your body is not a mystery, it’s a source of wisdom. With the right tools and support, every woman can learn to track, understand, and advocate for her hormonal wellbeing.
You can connect with Laura and Morgan via their Instagram page (@thecyclebook).
Timestamps:
- 06:20 - Understanding Hormonal Cycles and Neurodivergence
- 10:40 - Understanding Hormonal Fluctuations and Neurodivergence
- 19:24 - Understanding Cycle Tracking and Its Impact on Wellbeing
- 32:33 - Exploring Hormonal Impacts on Mental Health
- 40:50 - Navigating the Healthcare System: Advocacy and Challenges
Links and Resources:
- Missed our ADHD Women’s Summer Series? Get the workshops on demand [here].
- Join the Waitlist for my new ADHD community-first membership, launching in September [here].
- Find my popular ADHD webinars and resources on my website [here].
- Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod
Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed ADHD women find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clarity.
Transcript
Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.
Speaker A:I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.
Speaker A:After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.
Speaker A:In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.
Speaker A:Here's today's episode.
Speaker A:Today we're talking about something that I often talk about in podcasts and as sort of like a bit of a sideline when we're talking about hormones.
Speaker A:But today I'm so happy to be able to have a whole conversation dedicated to cycle tracking and menstrual awareness and just really understanding our cycle and how we can help ourselves through energy and mood and all the things that that brings alongside our adhd.
Speaker A:And I'm absolutely delighted to welcome two fantastic authors of the most fantastic book called the Cycle Book.
Speaker A:It's called an interactive step by guide to tracking hormones and knowing your body and it's by Laura Federico and Morgan Miller and they are both here.
Speaker A:One's from Canada and one is from Maine in the US and we'll get down to it, but I'm just really happy to have you both here so we can talk more about this subject which I know will just be so helpful for for many of us.
Speaker A:So welcome to the podcast.
Speaker B:Thanks so much for having us.
Speaker A:Do you know what's so interesting?
Speaker A:Because we're talking about cycle tracking and I was just garbling through that whole intro and I know where I am in my cycle and I probably shouldn't be doing this podcast right now.
Speaker A:It's one of those things where all of a sudden word finding my articulation, my brain just goes kind of like empty and I have only just learned it relatively recently.
Speaker A:I'm 44 or nearly 45 and I wish I'd known, you know, further down the line that there's going to be certain times in my cycle where I just not really fit for having any sort of public facing conversations.
Speaker A:So I hope that you'll bear with me, but I'm really excited to have this conversation with you both.
Speaker A:We kind of want to get to know you both and both your background.
Speaker A:So maybe Laura, you can start and give us A little bit of a background on what you do and how you help people.
Speaker A:And also, I guess, what made you want to write this book.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Well, thank you again so much for having us.
Speaker C:We're just so excited to be on this podcast.
Speaker C:And what we really love about what you do is introduce ADHD and neurodivergence as a whole person experience.
Speaker C:And I think that that's something that we relate to really deeply, that the parts of our bodies that we're talking about at any given time are not isolated, but part of this entire experience.
Speaker C:Experience of the environment around us and how we're feeling and the other body systems in our body.
Speaker C:So that's a big part of the work that I do.
Speaker C:I'm a sex and relationship therapist, and I'm in private practice.
Speaker C:And part of what brought Morgan and I to this book was not only hearing all of the things that our clients were going through as they were coming through our doors, but our personal experience as well.
Speaker C:I have something called pmdd, which is premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder and what we think it is at this moment in time, there's not enough research to help us really understand exactly what that means for every individual that has it, but maybe a sensitivity to hormonal shifts that manifests as, like, for me, kind of losing my mind a bit a few weeks out of every month.
Speaker C:But it is really expressed in these really significant mood changes.
Speaker C:And often it's accompanied by physical changes as well.
Speaker C:A ton of physical discomfort for a lot of people.
Speaker C:And I didn't really understand what that meant for me.
Speaker C:I was lucky to get a diagnosis, but I didn't really, truly understand what my hormonal cycles meant, what PMDD truly meant for me, and how to take care of myself.
Speaker C:Until I was coping with infertility, and I was forced to try to understand what was going on with my body.
Speaker C:But that wasn't until my late 30s, and I felt so lost, and I really felt disconnected from myself.
Speaker C:I had a lot of hopelessness.
Speaker C:And because a lot of the infertility treatments involve fertility medications that impact hormonal levels, I also, because of the experience that I have with sensitivity to that, I was also really, really sick.
Speaker C:And I didn't know how to advocate for myself.
Speaker C:And because I didn't understand what was happening hormonally in my body, I didn't even know how to explain it to just myself, let alone other people and certainly not doctors.
Speaker C:So I really, really, really struggled.
Speaker C:And it wasn't until I connected with Morgan who is, I'm lucky, one of my best friends for many years, but also an incredible midwife that I really started to understand.
Speaker C:And for me, that felt just so un believably heartbreaking that there are so many of us who are not being given some pretty basic body education, not just sex education, but body education about what's going on with our cycles.
Speaker C:And the only time that we're actually confronting it is through the lens of fertility, which is also heartbreaking because, of course, we are living in these hormonal cycles all of the time for the entire course of our lives, and they affect so many parts of our bodies.
Speaker C:And so that really brought Morgan and I into this project of how can we get this information out to as many people as possible before they're in crisis?
Speaker C:And how can we do that in a way that's also really safe?
Speaker C:Which is why we ended up pursuing the book.
Speaker C:I know Morgan has her own experiences here that also led her to this moment, but it was truly, how can we fix this gap?
Speaker C:It's in how we are taught about our bodies.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, I think what you say is so important because we know that there's a much higher instance of PMDD in neurodivergent women.
Speaker A:We know that many women who are being diagnosed with neurodivergence, so it's ADHD and autism, have all stated that they have struggled with their cycles, with their periods, with pain, with illness, with endometriosis.
Speaker A:There's so many different connections hormonally that women are all stating that they've had issues with.
Speaker A:It might not all be the same.
Speaker A:There might be fluctuating levels, and it might be sort of, you know, more extreme circumstances in different places, but there seems to be.
Speaker A:I don't think I've ever spoken to one woman that's been diagnosed later on in life that hasn't had some form of hormonal issue.
Speaker A:And I'm talking postnatal depression, maybe severe sickness in pregnancy, fertility issues, like I say, pcos, endometriosis.
Speaker A:And we need to start seeing all of this as like a holistic kind of crossover with so many different.
Speaker A:It's like a Venn diagram.
Speaker A:So ADHD is not just ADHD for women especially.
Speaker A:So it's really powerful.
Speaker A:And I just think if we're not talking about hormones, we're not giving people the full picture.
Speaker A:We're really not.
Speaker A:We're giving everyone just the very, very tip of the iceberg, which is not very helpful.
Speaker A:And, you know, even if we move neurodivergence conversation to one side a little bit.
Speaker A:Why is mental health never been connected to hormones in women?
Speaker A:If we don't understand, why are we not understanding how hormones can be impacting our mental health?
Speaker A:And the fact that we're being given pharmaceutical medication, which can be very helpful over hormonal health.
Speaker A:It baffles me and I know that there's a small shift, it's not happening great enough and it's not happening fast enough, but there is, you know, a small shift.
Speaker A:So thank you for sharing your story, Morgan.
Speaker A:Maybe you can sort of explain a little bit from your side, especially from a midwifery side, because it's so interesting how you've come obviously from different disciplines, but the overarching kind of, I guess your, your kind of contribution is to women's health really, isn't it?
Speaker A:So I'd love to hear from you, Morgan.
Speaker B:Yeah, my own journey into becoming a midwife actually started, started with my own health experiences as well where, you know, I have a condition, endometriosis, like you were talking about.
Speaker B:It's for many people a really painful condition that happens with the bleeding phase of their cycle.
Speaker B:And I am one of many, many people that it took nearly 15 years to get a diagnosis and understand what was happening in my body.
Speaker B:I saw many, many providers who would not really give me an answer of what was happening.
Speaker B:And I kind of felt dismissed and gaslit through the entire experience and, and that became a norm for me.
Speaker B:But I, being the person I am, kind of dug into research on my own and figuring out my body.
Speaker B:I like wanted to understand why I felt the way I did because it was such an extreme sensation and kind of accidentally became a midwife through the process and it's been wonderful ever since.
Speaker B:Like a ton of my work has to do with pregnancy and babies, but a lot of it I' actually really focused on holistic gynecology.
Speaker B:Like we're talking about being able to use the hormonal cycle to apply to overall well being and how, how are those hormones presenting in your life on many different facets other than just your bleeding phase, like what's what, what's happening with your cognition and your emotions and your digestive system and many other systems on board.
Speaker B:I am also a person who is a very late to life diagnosis of adhd.
Speaker B:And that's been something that's been not shocking.
Speaker B:I guess to find out later in life when we know that people who menstruate just tend to be under diagnosed and misdiagnosed.
Speaker B:That's the generalized trend in healthcare.
Speaker B:But very interesting as I've been applying all of my understanding with cycle tracking and understanding the menstrual cycle and the hormonal flows to see how those neurodivergent factors can show up more or less in my life at different phases.
Speaker B:It's been really phenomenal.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, I guess you can see it through your different clients how hormones, you know, play a part.
Speaker A:And I've got three daughters, two has sort of like, you know, one's 17, one's nearly 14, so this sort of puberty side and for them understanding and going through all of that, they've both got ADHD themselves.
Speaker A:It's hard being a mum because they don't really want to listen to me.
Speaker A:I showed them your book.
Speaker A:Actually my 17 year old was a little bit more open to it.
Speaker A:But again, even though we can give them all the information, they have to be mature enough and they want to learn it.
Speaker A:And unfortunately, sometimes we know that we find these things out when the time's right, you know, whether we're able to process it, absorb it, we want to hear it.
Speaker A:So I kind of have to take this cautious step of like not overwhelming my daughters too much with so much information, even though I'm like desperate for them to hear it.
Speaker A:So I have to drip feed it.
Speaker A:And interestingly, last night, you know, from a synchronicity perspective, my 17 year old, she's on a progesterone only pill for various reasons and she was asking me, she said, I don't know where my cycle is, but she said that I started to notice that I'm starting to get really teary and I'm crying at like random things I wouldn't cry at.
Speaker A:And I've started to notice that I'm tired at certain points, whereas when you've got a period, you actually have the bleeding, you kind of have that, that time in your diary when you know what's like, you know, like in a week's time, if you're cycle tracking, I'm going to start feeling more teary, anxious, low, whatever that is, more sensitive.
Speaker A:My energy is going to start dipping.
Speaker A:But when you're on birth control and you're not having that bleed, it's really hard.
Speaker A:So I just wondered maybe if you could speak to that because I was a bit stumped as well with, with how to guide her.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And you know, Morgan, I know is going to have a lot to say about what's actually happening hormonally in those moments, but I just want To.
Speaker C:Before we get into that, just normalize the experience of feeling like something is really, really difficult.
Speaker C:And the options that we have often include the hormonal birth control pill to treat really difficult symptoms.
Speaker C:And it sometimes doesn't feel ideal, and it sometimes feels worth it to try it out.
Speaker C:And I think that when we're approaching cycle tracking, it feels super important for us first to give ourselves the compassion and the understanding that we're really trying our best in all of these scenarios and to be able to look at treatment options with a bit of neutrality, because I think that we put so much pressure on ourselves, especially when we have this information, to be making only the best decisions for ourselves all of the time.
Speaker C:And, yes, we want the best for ourselves, but we also still live in the world, and the systems that we're in are just not where we would ideally like them to be in order to really treat what's going on in our bodies.
Speaker C:And we know that we have this huge research gap.
Speaker C:We know that there is not enough, you know, women in research.
Speaker C:We know that a lot of research is still done on, like, male cells, for example.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So there's a gap.
Speaker C:And, you know, speaking for myself, I am, I think, sort of like, entering into some early stages of perimenopause and have had some, like, really frustrating symptoms to manage, including hot flashes and, you know, hot flashes for many hours in the middle of the night.
Speaker C:And after trying a lot of treatment options myself, I also recently went back on the birth control pill, which was not my first choice at all.
Speaker C:But I kind of had to make a decision for myself to try to manage the symptoms and then find some stability and then reevaluate my options again, because sometimes things get to the point where we're really kind of stuck.
Speaker C:And so before we talk about, like, you know, the potential question here, which is, what do we do?
Speaker C:How do we evaluate if the pill is working or not, or if we want to make a different choice?
Speaker C:I just really want to validate that, like, we're all out there, like, really trying our best, and sometimes, like, shit is just really hard in our bodies.
Speaker C:And these are the options that we do have, and I want to validate the reality of that.
Speaker A:Yeah, thank you for that, because that really is actually very helpful, because, as a parent say, and because I speak to so many amazing experts like yourselves, who give me all this information, and then we.
Speaker A:And then I'm like, well, why is the change not happening?
Speaker A:Like, why are we not seeing better options?
Speaker A:Like, we know that certain things aren't working for us, especially as neurodivergent people.
Speaker A:Like, why are we not being able to get better options?
Speaker A:And then, you know, as with my daughter, I want to try and use everything that I've learned recently and help her.
Speaker A:And then you kind of get to this wall of, well, this is really the only option.
Speaker A:It's like the best of, you know, two bad things like suffer and bleed and feel awful and be, you know, really in a bad situation or put kind of like synthetic hormones in your body and feel slightly better, but then not have a cycle and understand what's going on.
Speaker A:So I think that validation is very helpful because I hear so much from people that get in touch with me and kind of go, well, I don't want to do this and I don't want to do that and that, you know, but I have no other options.
Speaker A:I mean, just to speak to your, you know, I.
Speaker A:Again, it's just to normalize.
Speaker A:I started having perimenopausal symptoms at 40, and I was told in my head and society and the media that you don't have perimenopausal symptoms until you're at least, you know, in your late 40s.
Speaker A:And, you know, to go on HRT is crazy because you're only 40.
Speaker A:But I had the same as you.
Speaker A:I was waking up dripping in sweat every single night, you know, for two weeks of the month.
Speaker A:I wasn't sleeping.
Speaker A:I felt horrendous.
Speaker A:My energy was low.
Speaker A:I was riddled with anxiety, and I thought, I am not going to listen to society.
Speaker A:And I went on hrt, and it's been the best thing for me, you know, from a personal perspective.
Speaker A:But it's not for everybody.
Speaker A:But it's trying to normalize these new messagings now of menopause.
Speaker A:Perimenopause isn't waiting until you're suffering so badly.
Speaker A:Then you.
Speaker A:And it's like the last kind of resort.
Speaker A:It's like, yeah, let's make.
Speaker A:Let's make what we can, you know, better with what we've got right now.
Speaker A:And hopefully in 10 years time, you know, whatever that is, there'll be other options.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker A:Thank you for saying that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:I mean, maybe, Morgan, you have something to offer with that perspective as well.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I love that you guys are hitting it on all the perspectives.
Speaker B:I'm a huge fan of continuing to track these hormonal markers in our body, Whether you're on a hormonal therapy, be that birth control or HRT or Just in that phase of life that's perimenopause that feels like you're having a hard time navigating what those sensations are.
Speaker B:I think it makes such a difference when we have that ability to stay in tuned with our body and understand how it communicates its needs prior to being in a state of crisis and prior to like navigating healthcare and complicated systems where we can and can't get the prescriptions that we need and want or the diagnoses that we want.
Speaker B:I think that's where Laura and I are such big fans of let's.
Speaker B:We gotta get people to know this before they're at these phases of life that feel like crisis.
Speaker B:Because it's such a difference when you know your daughter already is able to articulate that she doesn't feel the way that she expected to feel, or she doesn't feel the way that feels comfortable and normal to her.
Speaker B:Those things are so powerful because she has that understanding and she has that baseline now.
Speaker B:So that if she continues to track that information, she might be able to speak with her doctor provider and find that maybe they want to switch from a progesterone only birth control.
Speaker B:Maybe there's a different one that would help manage those symptoms better and keep, you know, the way that you feel in your head the same, that you exist in the world in the same way.
Speaker B:And so you absolutely can do cycle tracking whether you're using some form of hormonal therapy or not.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's a game changer in being able to find out that we're having the right therapies and we're getting the right management on board for our bodies.
Speaker B:It can be true with any medication you may be taking or any new therapy that you're integrating in your life to help set up support for yourself.
Speaker B:Finding that language link between how your hormones are communicating can be the missing piece to truly understanding how your body wants to function.
Speaker A:Yeah, you hit the nail on the head there when you said it can really help with the physical symptoms, but what's it doing with the mental side?
Speaker A:I guess what we can bring it back to is what do you think?
Speaker A:And I'll say this to both of you, is what, what does cycle tracking bring to people wherever they are in the chapter of their life, Whether they've had children, they're pregnant after pregnancy, you know, menopausal time, what does that bring to people's life?
Speaker C:I'm so glad you're asking that question because this is true.
Speaker C:Truly.
Speaker C:The thing that we're so passionate about.
Speaker C:It's not only the access to this critical data.
Speaker C:That data is so, so, so important, but the thing that we see is that this is a way for us to come back into our own bodies.
Speaker C:And like you are talking about, we have been socialized on every level to endure pain, to tolerate discomfort as normal, to just sort of get on with it.
Speaker C:That this is how we and everyone around us kind of continues forward.
Speaker C:And what we want to do is disrupt that.
Speaker C:And one of the easiest ways to do that is to just listen to our bodies.
Speaker C:And so many of us truly don't know how to do that.
Speaker C:So when we are thinking about cycle tracking, sometimes you get a great doctor who wants to understand your cycle, which is kind of rare.
Speaker C:But let's say you have one of those, like, amazing clinicians who's like, let's sort of see what's going on with your cycle, cycle track for a few cycles.
Speaker C:Come back to my office, we'll talk about what you found.
Speaker C:That's not enough information for most of us.
Speaker C:Most of us are actively dissociating from our bodies because of the world that we live in.
Speaker C:We are all busy, we are all ignoring the pain signals.
Speaker C:We are all telling ourselves, be strong, keep moving.
Speaker C:You can do this.
Speaker C:Everybody else is doing this.
Speaker C:Like, you know, the, the kind of like quintessential grind culture, right, that we're all kind of immersed in has taken us outside of our bodies.
Speaker C:So the experience of every day, just for a brief moment asking yourself, what was happening in my body today?
Speaker C:What was happening emotionally for me today?
Speaker C:If you're tracking something related to your relationships or your sexuality, how did that feel today?
Speaker C:That is so huge.
Speaker C:And Morgan and I see this all the time with ourselves and with everyone that we work with.
Speaker C:That the experience of just reconnecting to your body and the message that you are giving yourself.
Speaker C:Listening to my body briefly once a day is a priority, is actually so life changing and is kind of healing in this painful reality that we're all articulating right now to say, actually, like, my pain does matter.
Speaker C:Actually, my body does matter.
Speaker C:Actually, my mental health does matter.
Speaker C:And the way I'm going to demonstrate that is just by noting it.
Speaker A:Yeah, I learned that, say if you've had a really particularly stressful month or couple of months, you can see that in your cycle and you can see that in your period.
Speaker A:And you know, without getting too gruesome, you know, the type of blood or clots or this or that.
Speaker A:And that for me was like a Big indicator because say, if I'd had a really easy, you know, cycle and period, I look back and go, actually that was a really good month.
Speaker A:Like things just flowed.
Speaker A:There was no major stressors.
Speaker A:And then I have like a horrendous build up, feel like awful, drained, heavy bleeding, all of that.
Speaker A:And I'll know because I'll be like, yeah, that was a really hard month.
Speaker A:So it's almost like a body screaming at us to, you know, with, with like you say this, this data, this information that if we could just pause and check in for a little bit and so yeah, I think, I think it's just we just need these reminders because we are in this culture of just push, grind and hustle and ignore and just keep going.
Speaker A:And I think I'd love to say that when, since I've started cycle tracking, I really do know when to pull back.
Speaker A:Now.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:You know, sometimes I just book in podcasts, but I know that I love this conversation so much that it'll just flow.
Speaker A:I might just be a little bit less articulate, but I won't put in like really strenuous things.
Speaker A:I won't do crazy exercise, scary meetings.
Speaker A:I won't put myself into that pressure anymore.
Speaker A:Like I used to, I used to just have this flat line through the month and then I would be disappointed in myself when I didn't meet those expectations.
Speaker A:You know, especially with adhd, we have RSD rejection sensitive dysphoria, which is so much more prominent around our period before, I think from ovulation onwards we have these sensitivities.
Speaker A:So when we understand it and then we have a moment of rsd, sort of like questioning ourselves and blaming ourselves, we've got more self compassion.
Speaker B:I love everything that you're saying.
Speaker B:There's so much of cycle tracking that I feel like really just fosters autonomy and grounding and like brings back agency in our lives.
Speaker B:And there's so much of this tracking that when we really start to understand how our bodies communicate and we really start to listen, it's just like you're saying that like if you're lucky enough to menstruate, you just happen to have this phenomenal magnifying lens into your overall health.
Speaker B:This is your hormones who communicate in a pretty overt way to let you know what your bodily needs are on a day to day basis.
Speaker B:And so you can use that information and use it to remind yourself that you're not broken, there's not something wrong with you, You're a complex human being in a nuanced world and how you navigate it changes on day to day basis.
Speaker B:Especially with things like neurodivergence and the adhd.
Speaker B:Recognizing that those hormonal flows are going to show up in different ways and when you have that knowledge and you have it in the moment and it's not just retrospective that completely changes your life on how you're living it versus this constant critique of I'm not able to fit into the world, it's not feeling right, I'm not able to do it.
Speaker B:But if you know that there's this flow that's happening, if you know that this is how your body's going to present, you can start to use all of the like magical ways of having an ADHD mind to benefit yourself and the world and stop having this complex in your head of like, I'm broken and I need to fix things to match everyone else.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean you just, you mentioned then if you're lucky enough to bleed and I want to speak to the people who are listening now who don't have these regular cycles that may have endometriosis that really struggle, you know, it could be like months before they have a bleed or again as we're heading into, into menopause when our cycles just start fluctuating in these crazy ways that we've never really experienced before.
Speaker A:I know for me, I used to always have a very bang on 28 day cycle and it was like to the day I knew 28 days I would get my period.
Speaker A:Now it's gone to like 24, 25 days.
Speaker A:So it feels like the recovery time is not quite there and it's a bit harder.
Speaker A:But if you're then say you've got like a 40 day cycle, how, how do we track and how do we have this awareness if the bleed is not guiding us?
Speaker B:I think that's one of the biggest things for Laura and I is recognizing that tracking our hormones.
Speaker B:There are so many ways that they show up in our body beyond just the bleeding phase.
Speaker B:There's ways that you can feel different physical factors in your life or might have different body fluids that still will clue you in to let you know how this hormonal dance and orchestra is going on in your body, that you can still get that grounding and still find that, you know, resiliency in your life.
Speaker B:Whether the bleeding phase itself is happening or not.
Speaker B:There's still so many other ways that the hormones communicate in your body.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think even just our mood regulation, our sensitivity or sleep, you know, for me, sleep's always been a clear indication of where I am in my cycle.
Speaker A:I, I think even just enthusiasm for life.
Speaker A:I noticed that, you know, again because of the estrogen surge, I'm so much more kind of, I've got more ideas and more creative and more sociable.
Speaker A:I, I want to go out more, I'm more maybe loving towards my husband.
Speaker A:Like all these different things and those are my clues.
Speaker A:What I would love to speak about a little bit is the, the hormones and maybe we can sort of dispel a few myths as well.
Speaker A:And I'm going to say speak through the Lens of Again, ADHD, autism.
Speaker A:We really know now know that something like 70 to 80% of women who are being diagnosed with ADHD now also have autistic traits or will have a co diagnosis of both ADHD and autism.
Speaker A:So we are understanding neurodivergence, those nuances, you know, in a different way.
Speaker A:Even you know, in the past couple of years, this, this new lenses showing up and then we've always thought that estrogen is kind of like our power hormone and that's the one that we should be focusing on especially for adhd.
Speaker A:But more recently I've recognized that actually progesterone for me is just as important, if not more important and has helped me so much now having taken progesterone as part of my HRT to understand how, how it's helped relieve like my anxiety, it's helped my sleep, it's helped digestive issues.
Speaker A:So I'd love, maybe you can give us a bit of a 101 on maybe estrogen and progesterone so people can understand.
Speaker B:I mean, I love everything that you're describing because it starts to, I don't know, dispel these ideas of like being hormonal.
Speaker B:Like being hormonal is a bad term to describe someone that they're off their rocker.
Speaker B:That's what's happened.
Speaker B:But each of these hormones just communicates differently in our bodies.
Speaker B:There's a lot of things that people will sometimes commonly feel which maybe is where you're, where you're going out with that where like estrogen can be like a pickup in energy for people and sometimes progesterone is a little bit of a slowdown phase.
Speaker B:All of those things.
Speaker B:What I've found over the years working with clients though is different for everybody.
Speaker B:So those like predictive algorithms and the cycle tracking apps on your phone, it's not always true how estrogen feels for you versus somebody else.
Speaker B:Sometimes the estrogen dominant phase of their cycle is Their I feel awesome phase.
Speaker B:And for other people, it's like, this is.
Speaker B:I hate this part the most.
Speaker B:I love the luteal phase.
Speaker B:The luteal phase is actually when I, like, really get to hunker down into my life and start to digest it and understand it so much more.
Speaker B:But I think that that's what's so powerful, is just understanding how individual all of our bodies are and how we feel that some people around ovulation are like, God, my energy's through the roof.
Speaker B:I just feel like I'm on fire.
Speaker B:I'm, like, crushing it on all my work meetings.
Speaker B:And it's amazing.
Speaker B:And for other people, those hormones, that kind of cocktail of hormones that shows up around ovulation can bring somebody total dread and discomfort in their body and feel like they want to pull away from it.
Speaker B:So I think there's a piece of me that loves to just say, it's gonna be different for everyone.
Speaker B:But recognizing how significant each of these hormonal markers are and how they show up in our lives, in our bones and our muscles and every other system in our body, is such a big difference.
Speaker B:And especially when we're talking about neurodivergence, I think it's huge for cycle tracking to be able to see where are there moments where I feel the impact of overstimulation, or I am really needing to isolate myself and pull away from some of the life patterns that usually keep me going.
Speaker B:Sometimes those are things that you'll see show up around particular phases.
Speaker B:Maybe it's ovulation, or maybe it's right before the bleeding phase happens.
Speaker B:But all of those are really helpful to add in more resources in your life when you know that that is what's going to happen in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker B:It's like, oh, well, great.
Speaker B:Now that I know that I tend to get overstimulated in this type of space, and my superpowers are actually over here.
Speaker B:I'm going to reframe how I'm going about my days and what my work is looking like so that I can use my magical brain to its very best instead of feeling like I'm not able to fit in the world.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I wondered if I could ask you, Morgan, about postnatal depression, especially in neurodivergent women people.
Speaker A:I mean, currently we know that people are offered medication, anti anxiety medication or antidepressant medication.
Speaker A:But I've always worried and wondered, why are we not given hormonal supplementation after birth if we know that perhaps we are going to be prone, or perhaps our mum was prone to it, or we know that we're autistic or ADHD and there's a high prevalence of postnatal depression or postnatal anxiety.
Speaker A:Could this be the future of supplementing hormonally after birth?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, we know that there is a huge shift that happens after birth.
Speaker B:You know, you give birth to a human being out of your body and then there's also that placenta.
Speaker B:There's like this entire endocrine organ, like hormone proof producing organ that you expel from your body as well.
Speaker B:And you've been reliant on those hormones for the last 10 months and suddenly your body does this giant shift afterwards.
Speaker B:I think there's small amounts of research, not enough, but really looking into placenta consumption.
Speaker B:And regardless of how people might feel about that, if that feels a little, you know, crunchy or out there to them, the science behind it is really following what you're talking about, which is this, how do we manage this hormonal dip that occurs?
Speaker B:And like, why is it that every other mammal that gives birth in this way consumes their placenta but humans don't?
Speaker B:Is it something we socialized out of ourselves?
Speaker B:And why, why is it that, you know, there seems to be some benefits between having a balance of those hormones that like were way up here before and then tanked right here right after birth.
Speaker B:When we integrate and kind of slow that slope by consuming those hormones again or having them back in our body.
Speaker B:The anecdotal evidence is that people feel a lot more ease around a lot of those immediate postpartum sensations.
Speaker B:I think there's a ton of research that just needs to be done on it.
Speaker B:But there are people out there that very much so see that potentially looking at hormones instead of SSRIs is a way to be managing anxiety.
Speaker B:You know, I think there's a ton of phenomenal practitioners that work in nutrition as well that are able to see if we're able to replenish these like, trace minerals and certain things like even iron levels in somebody's body.
Speaker B:We can have dramatic results around anxiety and how that presents with like heart palpitations and feeling uncomfortable in the world, and that there's all these other modalities of how we look at how to best support ourselves.
Speaker B:And I think that's where I love looking at hormones, because hormones are ultimately just little chemical messengers in our body.
Speaker B:So if we can start to pay attention to each one of those different tracking items, you might be looking at whether it's your anxiety or depression or physical symptoms like the heart palpitations, we can start to kind of triangulate that data and see that it actually may line up with a hormone as opposed to lining up with a life situation like that.
Speaker B:This is in response to the world around me.
Speaker B:Then that gives you so many more tools to figure out how you best want to support yourself.
Speaker C:To add on to everything Morgan is saying, I think we also would benefit from expanding the ways in which we are talking about things that don't feel right in our bodies.
Speaker C:And especially when we're talking about any kind of post part of mental health or even shifts that happen when people were nursing their children.
Speaker C:And then they wean right.
Speaker C:Like any of these scenarios in which we're seeing a pretty big hormonal shift that is a result of what's happening in our bodies to facilitate what's happening in our bodies, we have pretty narrow definitions and scales to measure what's going on for people.
Speaker C:So if you perhaps are feeling really not like yourself, or if you are feeling that you expected a certain emotion and that's not the emotion that you're having, or if you are feeling quite outside of yourself, or if you are feeling that all of your emotions are kind of on a flat line, that may not fit into a, for example, sort of scale that you might fill out at your doctor's office about depression, but it may still be a signal to you that something is not right.
Speaker C:And that can really impact how you experience parenthood, how you bond with your child, how you feel about recovery, how you take care of yourself.
Speaker C:And so I think to also make sure that we're expanding the way that we're talking about these things.
Speaker C:So it's not just the classic symptoms of anxiety or the classic symptoms of depression, but the kind of existential experience of this, the spiritual experience of this for people, the awareness that there's something that maybe feels like a bit of a hole inside of you and you don't know how to fill it.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:These like much more real, yet not fitting into a scale ways of understanding that there's something that's not right for us.
Speaker A:So true.
Speaker A:So true.
Speaker A:And especially as women second guess themselves around perimenopause, where, you know, we could be having symptoms very sort of, you know, nuanced symptoms, subtle symptoms from the age of like 38, 37, you know, as young as that.
Speaker A:And it's only when we get those really big physical symptoms, then the doctor listens, then we think it's worth asking you know we're worthy of help.
Speaker A:But like you say, we could just be flatlining, we could be low, we might just not have any joy.
Speaker A:We might not know where, you know, we might be struggling in friendships, career, and something's changed, but we don't know why.
Speaker A:But it's about asking questions and creating awareness through conversations like this.
Speaker A:What I love about this podcast is that we're speaking to thousands of people here.
Speaker A:So hopefully the conversation like this is then opening eyes and awareness for people to then have other conversations.
Speaker A:But the frustration with the podcast is that I get a lot of questions saying, it's amazing what you're saying, and I've learned so much.
Speaker A:But then I go to my doctor and my doctor shuts me down, and where am I meant to go from here?
Speaker A:And then I kind of feel like, yes, I can advocate for myself, I can do all the research, but if the provider isn't there, it's very frustrating because I want to help people.
Speaker A:But then if the gatekeepers are really shutting the door, what would you suggest to people?
Speaker B:This was so important to us.
Speaker B:I think, you know, Laura and I work in healthcare.
Speaker B:We are aware, we made choices to be in private practice so that we can circumvent some of the systems that don't function.
Speaker B:But we are well aware that most of the time, people get like five minutes with their provider, and it's a very quick exchange and it's a tough, tough system to navigate.
Speaker B:It's just really not set up in a way that is really helpful to of people these days.
Speaker B:So we did go out of our way to figure out a system and integrate a health review appointment aspect of our book that lets people really disseminate the information they've done from cycle tracking and condense it so that they can walk in like, armed and ready to advocate for themselves to a provider that may not be as resourced around it or have as much understanding, but that can communicate these really key details so that that provider can do something with it.
Speaker B:Because it's not that there's necessarily tons of evil providers out there, it's just they're stuck in systems where they can't do the thing that they want to do either.
Speaker B:But if we can give some really clear guides and help to figure out how to communicate information as quickly and efficiently and effectively as possible, then that can make such a huge difference.
Speaker B:And it's disappointing, it's upsetting that that's the world we live in and that's how we have to really advocate for ourselves.
Speaker B:But I think we were really adamant when we created this book that there be functional tools for people to live, to use wherever they live, and however the systems around them are functioning these days.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And there's.
Speaker C:There's also the reality that it may take a while to find the right provider for you.
Speaker C:And unfortunately, we have to be our own best advocates.
Speaker C:That is not how it should be.
Speaker C:That is not right.
Speaker C:That is not fair.
Speaker C:But that is our reality.
Speaker C:And so we always want to encourage ourselves and others to take care of yourself accordingly.
Speaker C:It's a lot of emotional energy and labor to show up, try to best represent yourself, advocate for yourself, be shut down, go home, feel that real low sense of hopelessness, and then get yourself back out there to try it again.
Speaker C:And if that is your journey, if you are doing the hard work of advocating for yourself until you get to the right provider who's going to be able to hear you and support you with your real needs, then please, we urge you, we implore you, name that for yourself so that you can build any kind of systems of support that might be helpful around that.
Speaker C:Don't just say to yourself, this is just it.
Speaker C:This is what I meant to endure.
Speaker C:This is just the experience of being a woman in this world.
Speaker C:It's not right that this is how it is.
Speaker C:And yet we continue fighting on.
Speaker C:And so take care of yourself.
Speaker C:If you need to build in time, before and after, if possible, do that even just mentally to say to yourself, like, I did something really hard, I'm going to do it again.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:To just give yourself credit for this, because it's really, really tough.
Speaker C:And Morgan and I, both, years and years and years, just in our own journeys of fighting to get to a provider who could help us and support us in the way that we needed to know what it's like to go into an appointment crying, to leave an appointment crying.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Like, it's really, really tough.
Speaker C:But it doesn't mean that it's not important and necessary.
Speaker C:And you deserve to get to the provider that is going to work with you.
Speaker C:But it can be a very long journey.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, thank you for that because I think you've just kind of explained and articulated the sentiments of what so many people have experienced and gone through, you know, myself included.
Speaker A:And your advocate, advocating for yourself, and you may be advocating for children as well, and the combination is really, really hard because we're at this turning point where we are getting these realizations.
Speaker A:We're understanding, we're getting answers, which is brilliant.
Speaker A:But, you know, the healthcare system hasn't caught up with that.
Speaker A:We're then looking at past generations and seeing all the things that we didn't know and understanding and connecting those dots.
Speaker A:And then if we've got ch children, we're trying to like change things for the future.
Speaker A:We're trying to help them and make sure that they don't go through what maybe we went through, what our, you know, our other female family members may have gone through.
Speaker A:So it's so complex and multi layered and we're, I think we're very much in the messy middle right now and hopefully we are clearing the debris and helping clear the decks a little bit for the next generation.
Speaker A:But I think what you just said then is you really important because it is exhausting, really time consuming and soul sucking work sometimes.
Speaker A:But then on the flip side you find an amazing provider or you find an amazing compassionate doctor who just really gets it and then it's, it's worth it, it's been worth the wait.
Speaker A:But I just want to say what a gift your book is.
Speaker A:It's called the Cycle Book, an interactive step by step guide to track each hormones of knowing your body.
Speaker A:It's by Laura Federico and Morgan Miller.
Speaker A:I urge you to buy it because it's just worth having the amount of information that's in there and I can really sense how much dedication and hard work, you know, has gone into it.
Speaker A:So thank you both for being here.
Speaker A:Really appreciate it.
Speaker A:Can, can you tell people how they can find what you guys do privately and.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Where can they learn more about you?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for, for having us today.
Speaker B:People can follow us at the Cycle Book and then our website is also thecyclebook.com there's information about Laura at night's private practices there as well.
Speaker A:Fantastic.
Speaker A:Well, thank you both so much and I hope to speak to you very soon.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker A:If today's episode has been helpful for you and you're looking for even further, further support, my brand new book, the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit is now available to order from anywhere you get your books from.
Speaker A:I really hope this book is going to be the ultimate resource for anyone who loves this podcast and wants a deeper dive into all these kinds of conversations.
Speaker A:If you head to my website, adhdwomenswellbeing.co.uk, you'll find all the information on the book there which is going to be out on the 17th of July.
Speaker A:Thank you so much, Sam.
