Yes I’m hormonal, keep up.

We often focus on the negative aspect of our hormonal fluctuations, but hormones are incredible, so try to keep up!

A headline that reads ‘Annie Athlete smashes PB in what is heralded as ride of her life to take home cycle road race championships.’ ‘When asked about her outstanding performance Annie said ‘I think we got the training plan and race fuelling just right today, and combined with the fact that I’m in the second week of my cycle, made me feel like I could just push through, really dig deep and smash it’…… what a shoutout for her hormones!

The power of our hormones

It is literally my dream that an athlete somewhere, someday, will be so well tuned into her cycle and how she feels at different points. Not only will she be able to find solutions for when its challenging, but she’ll also be able to tap into, and openly recognise, when her hormones are working for her, and can help her fulfil her wildest ambition. The more athletes and coaches I speak to, the more I hope I increase the chances of some journalist being the first to write the report which hails the female hormones, rather than blames them.

For two long we have used the phase ‘being hormonal’ to describe the emotions a woman feels in the days leading up to her period. Women even use the term themselves to dismiss a heighted emotional response to something in her pre-menstrual phase ‘oh, don’t mind me, I’m a bit hormonal.’

Reclaiming “hormonal”

It’s time we reclaimed ‘being hormonal’ for what it really means: being human. Humans couldn’t survive without the chemical messengers, which we call hormones, sending signals all around our body influencing our daily cycle of life. They control our sleep, our appetite, our metabolism, our mood, and our life-cycle, growth, development, puberty, fertility, pregnancy, menopause, aging. We are all hormonal. All of the time.

The frustrating part is females aren’t unique in being both positively and negatively influenced by their hormones. However, you don’t hear of a man being labelled ‘hormonal’ when he shows traits that are a typical effect of his reproductive hormones.

The dominant reproductive hormones in women are oestrogen and progesterone, and in men, testosterone. Testosterone plays a role in behaviours like aggression, dominance, confidence and self esteem. But when have you read a report about a rugby player who lost it on the pitch being ‘hormonal’? At best it might say ‘his passion for winning this game spilled over’ or at worst ‘his ill discipline cost his team the game’. The notion that women’s reproductive hormones make them any more irrational and emotional than men is utter rubbish.

Don’t dismiss us as hormonal!

What’s worse is that by labelling women as ‘hormonal’ in the days before her period it gives everyone (including the women herself) permission to dismiss what she is feeling. If a women gets more upset than usual because she has been treated unfairly, or gets unusually overwhelmed by her increasing list of work tasks and home chores, hormones did not create those feelings. The premenstrual phase can mean we are unable to manage our feelings as well as usual, or have a heightened emotional response. Nevertheless, the underlying reasons for those feelings still remain very valid and true for that person. Being treated unfairly or taking on the majority of the family’s mental load is challenging, and to diminish a woman’s response to those situations as being ‘hormonal’ is a sure-fire way of invalidating the underlying cause of those feelings.

What’s actually going on?

Interestingly, research into prevailing attitudes about gender, emotionality and hormonal influences suggested that the menstrual cycle phase was not the best predictor of daily mood. Physical health status, perceived stress and social support were better able to explain mood variability over time. Another nod to the fact that cycle hormones aren’t always the bad guys!

Everyone has hormones, and everyone’s hormonal!

So, men, women, young, old have ever-changing hormones, and it’s a good thing! Our hormones are part of making us who we are, and how we behave and react to literally everything. It’s time we stopped making ‘being hormonal’ a female thing. It’s time to start accepting that the more we can tune into our hormones, and how they ebb and flow or even peak and plummet, the more we can tap in to when this is helpful for the things we want to achieve. And when it’s not, we can find effective strategies to help us work with our hormones rather than against them.

So ladies, if you are feeling brilliant today, it is obviously because you are totally amazing, but maybe also give a nod to the hormones that are helping you on your way. They need a re-brand! And by tuning in to how our hormones effect our physical and emotional selves, throughout our cycle, it’s likely that we could be their biggest ambassador. And I’ll see that headline after all.

The sciencey bit:

Over 90% of women (or people with a womb) experience PMS at some point in their life. But despite its prevalence, it is still relatively poorly understood, due to a lack of research (and lack of funding for said research). What we do know is that the physical and emotional symptoms women experience in the days before her period isn’t due to a deficiency or excess on hormones of the menstrual cycle, oestrogen and progesterone, but the body and brains reaction to the changing levels, from very high, to very low.

Just before the period, oestrogen and progesterone fall from their peak, to their lowest levels of the cycle, and this often rapid change in levels is what can cause symptoms. How sensitive each woman is to the hormonal fluctuations will effect how severely she experiences symptoms. And whilst we often associate negative symptoms with this time of the cycle, of the 200 reported symptoms experienced by women (showing how every woman is different!). Some symptoms are positive, like increased confidence, libido and energy, and some are more challenging such as emotional fragility, low mood, fatigue and pain.