Release some stress + stress and cycles
Tips to destress with plants, and how stress (maybe) affects your cycle.
For many, this has been a stressful week with a lot of uncertainty.
In honor of that, I’m sharing some ideas for relieving stress. Second, I’m sharing an inquiry how stress affects our ovulation cycles.
Of note—I am not a medical doctor and all info I provide is always for educational purposes only. Do you homework, check-in with your providers, and don’t take my word without doing your own research.
Self-Care Tips from an Herbalist
Pull out the lavender: Lavender is one of my favorite herbs. It has few contraindications(reasons and is accessible in many places. While interacting with the full plant, whether out in your garden or dried is divine, essential oil is also an effective and accessible option.
Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia): Relaxing, soothes the nervous system, helps relax muscles. Lavender has volatile oils--they’re very small structurally and able to easily enter the bloodstream. They work with the nervous system and can inhibit certain neurochemical responses associated with stress response/sympathetic nervous system. Thus, lavender can help us get out of our stress response and relax. There have been a number of clinical trials using lavender with promising results around anxiety, insomnia, mild depression.
Ways to use it:
Inhale. Put a little on wrists, or elsewhere (PSA—lavender is one of the very few essential oils that is commonly considered safe to put on skin. Most essential oils are NOT safe to put directly on your skin).
Mix it with a carrier oil such as jojoba, olive oil, or sesame oil. Massage yourself (see below) or a loved one.
Resource: How to from Mountain Rose Herbs—note you can follow the general instructions and add whatever EOs (essential oils) you have on hand.
Sink into a warming bath with salts and lavender EO.
Here’s another simple recipe that involves salt, baking soda and your choice of essential oils
Make yourself a cup of tea:
Set an intention, slow down…sip. It’s the simple things. Any tea will do, but here are some that could support you in this moment:
If you want nourishment consider raspberry leaf, nettles or milky oats.
If you want to support your stress response, consider an adaptogen like Tulsi, or uplifting lemon balm. Chamomile and lavender are also lovely, and there’s a nice Traditional Medicinals tea that combines them.
If you’re just trying to find the stamina to complete the week, consider a refreshing, energizing mint, or look into the adaptogen ashwaganda. I also love Schisandra berry, which has added benefits for sexual health. (There’s some research on ashwaganda for this too, specific for sperm).
If you simply need to connect back to your heart, look for a tea with rose or hawthorn.
While getting loose leaf herbs is always the most potent, make it easy and pick out a good quality organic tea wherever you shop, if that’s what reasonable right now.
Practice Self-Massage (abhyanga in Ayurvedic)
Take that lavender massage oil you created, or whatever else you have available (plain sesame or olive oil is fine) and give yourself a loving massage from head to toe—or just spend 5 minutes and focus on your next and shoulders.
This is a beautiful way to slow down and connect with your body.
If you want some guidance to move through it, here’s a video I made a couple years back.
Potential benefits: lymph stimulation, relaxation, healthier, more lubricated skin, increased mindfulness and connection with body, medicinal benefits of selected oils, moisturizing.
Ok, if you’re at the end of this list and the prospect of doing any of these feels overwhelming, take a few deep breaths, and know you are enough and doing your very best right now. You can also go for walk and get some sun on your face, do a forward fold (helpful for the parasympathetic nervous system), or is there anyone to hug? Pets count!
The Cycle and Stress
TL;DR
Stressed this week? Could it affect your cycle? Maybe. Research is mixed and it also depends on the phase you’re in. Things to look out for are a longer follicular phase (the 1st half before ovulation, and potentially heightened flow and period pain.
You might notice the first half of your cycle is longer when you’re stressed, increasing the length of your overall cycle. The second half of your cycle will probably be pretty consistent, regardless of the stress.
Example:
If you normally ovulate on day 15, and have a 12 day luteal phase your total cycle is 27 days.
If you don’t ovulate until day 18, your luteal phase may still be 12 days (or close to it), now your cycle is 30 days.
If you know you ovulated 3 days late, you’re already expecting a 30 days cycle and aren’t surprised or worried.
More info:
I’ll be honest. I expected to find lots of research to support what I’m about to share, I’m surprised to say the research appears quite mixed. (Poitras 2024). So do your own self-study—get to know YOUR body, and see what’s true for you.
Have you ever noticed that you get your period late when you travel, or if you’re super stressed for work, or maybe off your regular eating and workout routine? When stress is high, ovulation can be delayed, leading to a longer follicular phase. In some cases the body may skip ovulating all together. This is called an anovulatory cycle, and is occasionally normal even for otherwise health people who menstruate.
The follicular phase of the cycle is most variable based on stress. Here’s why:
Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) drives follicular development.
As the follicles develop, they release estrogen.
A swift and stead rise in estrogen is what triggers Luteinizing Hormone (LH), which in terms triggers ovulation.
Because this is a complex process with many moving pieces, dependent on a constant dance of hormones, it can be disrupted.
Those of us who track cycles know sometimes it moves in a predictable progress, where we can see an steady rise in estrogen (measured by progressively more fertile cervical mucus). Other times it may be fits and starts, with the body moving closer to ovulation and than backing off.
Once the egg is released from the follicle (ovulation), there is less variability.
The corpus luteum has a fixed shelf life. It can only last for so long, regardless of external stressors.
After ovulation, the follicle turns into the corpus luteum, which produces progesterone (and smaller amounts of estrogen). Once the corpus luteum devolves, hormone levels drop and menstruation begins.
While the luteal phase can vary between menstruators, for a give person, it’s relatively consistent from cycle-to-cycle.
This means if you know when you ovulate, you’ll have a really good idea of when you’ll bleed—it’s unusual for luteal phase to vary more than a day or two.
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Notes and recommendations:
I’ve been having fun getting to know Substack. I am learning, and playing, and don’t know how to do this perfectly yet. I’ve already changed my mind and thinking the newsletter will go out biweekly on Thursday. I am posting other, shorter notes available in the app/platform daily, if you want more.
Here are a couple other relevant posts I found, exploring Substack the past week:
Weedom: A great Popular Bud monograph—I love how they weave in history. Poplar bud is one of my favorite medicinals for massage oil.
Steeped Stories: A lovely Substack on tea. I’ve linked to the Matcha post. Another great way to destress, cut out some of that coffee and replace it with the teas above, or Matcha for many benefits described in this post.
The best way to support this newsletter is to share it with a friend—and of course subscribe if you haven’t. 💚
xx
Lily