Your cycle,
in four parts
By Ben Jonas Goedeke · 3 min read · checked against its sources
Your period
Day one is the first day of bleeding. Hormone levels are at their lowest. Many people feel tired and crampy at first, and lighter as the days go on.
The follicular phase
After your period, estrogen rises as your body prepares an egg. Energy and mood often lift. This is the stretch many people describe as feeling most like themselves.
Ovulation
Around the middle of the cycle an egg is released. This is the fertile window. Some people notice a twinge on one side, clearer discharge, or a higher sex drive.
The luteal phase
After ovulation, progesterone rises, and then both hormones fall away if there is no pregnancy. For people with PMS or PMDD this is when symptoms arrive, usually in the last week.
The lengths vary
Textbooks draw a 28 day cycle. Real ones run anywhere from about three to five weeks, and the first half is the part that stretches. That is why Tideline shows a window for your next period, not a single date.
Keep the record your doctor needs. Tideline is a period and mood tracker for iPhone: write one sentence a day, and after two cycles it puts the week before your period next to the week after it starts. Free to track, no account.
Get Tideline on the App Store
Keep reading
Sources
- US Office on Women’s Health: Your menstrual cycle
- Endotext (NCBI Bookshelf, NIH): The Normal Menstrual Cycle and the Control of Ovulation
- NHS: Fertility in the menstrual cycle