Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Hello. Welcome back to one day at a time where we try not and overstress ourselves, and we try and deal with overwhelm by folks and what's in front of us, which is today, until the bedtime today, and trying to our best. That's all we can do guys. But, today I want to talk about and I spoke I didn't say it in the last night I was asleep. Covered a lot of research.
Speaker 1:If you want the link to the deck, let me know. Today I want to talk about menstrual cycles, and you might be thinking, Scott, you're a bloke. You know nothing about cycles, and it's true. I've never had a menstrual cycle shockingly. But this research study I can reveal to you might be useful for you to listen to.
Speaker 1:Some people think everything revolves around a cycle, there's certainly people who it affects more than others, speaking to a lot of members, some people are not impacted at all, some people are very much impacted. Right? So it can go somewhere like this. You get your period, then you have a couple of weeks where you feel normal, followed by a week of PMS, and then, like, bloating and mood swings, and then you get your period. It starts again.
Speaker 1:Okay? That's kind of how it goes. Now we wanna look if does this impact your training recovery? Does training in tune with your cycle help training and recovery? Does it make stress to stress you out more?
Speaker 1:I don't know. There's a lot of evidence that menstrual cycle phases make don't have much of an effect on performance or recovery for athletes. Right? Most of the research done is on elite athletes, still not enough research done, and the effects are very small even in the population. So for elite athletes, it doesn't show much of a difference, so likely for you, it might not be that much of a difference when it comes to recovery trading.
Speaker 1:But it's still fascinating to look into, and that's why this new study published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance is worth worth looking at. Okay? So there is a lot of debate about this stuff now. So let's see what this new study says. What are the phases of the menstrual cycle first?
Speaker 1:If you don't know a lot about the menstrual cycle, having a basic rundown will make understanding the study a whole lot easier. Here's the quick summary. A normal menstrual cycle is anywhere between twenty one and thirty five days and is divided into two main parts. The follicular phase, which is before ovulation when an ovary releases an egg that could be fertilized by your sperm. It takes with the it starts with a period.
Speaker 1:And then the luteal phase, which starts as soon as ovulation ends. It ends when the period begins and a new cycle starts. But then we need to go into more detailed phases to fully understand the study. So period, this is the beginning of a new cycle when the uterus sheds its lining causing bleeding from the vagina. In this study, data was collected in the first few days of the period, which they called the early follicular phase.
Speaker 1:Preparation for ovulation. The ovaries start preparing follicles where eggs grow in preparation for ovulation as soon as menstruation starts, but this process really ramps up the closer you get to ovulation. In this study, the days right before ovulation we call the late follicular phase. Ovulation, this is when the egg is released from an ovary, it happens in an instant, but the five or so days leading up to this moment and the day after are known as the fertile window. The body's hormonally ramping up the ovulation during this time and unprotected sex during this could technically lead to pregnancy.
Speaker 1:And in this study, they called the day after a positive ovulation test which measures the hormone that triggers ovulation and the day after the ovulate ovulate oh, I can't say it. Phase. Luteal phase. The time from ovulation until the period arrives is called the luteal phase. If the ovulated egg isn't fertilized during the fertile window, then the period starts, and the whole cycle starts again.
Speaker 1:They call days five to seven after the ovulatory phase, the mid luteal phase. Woah. Wow. So many words. Are you still with me?
Speaker 1:Are you awake? Are you sleeping? I don't know. Listen. Here's how the study worked.
Speaker 1:The study worked by following 49 elite female athletes average age 27 from a variety of sports, including cycling, running across country skiing. The goal was to gauge their rake gauge their recovery and readiness to to train for the mental cycle. The participants had to exercise at least six times a week in order to be included, so it's safe to say they were working on more than the average person. What the study found. The resting heart rate, which is often used as a measure of recovery, was higher in the mid luteal phase but only a couple of beats per minute.
Speaker 1:The researchers say this is unlikely to have a big effect on training or recovery. Perceived sleep quality was lower in the mid luteal phase, meaning the athletes felt like their sleep was worse during that time. Physical readiness to train was lower in the ovulatory phase and mid luteal phase. This measure represents how ready an athlete feels their bodies to train on a given day. Overall, the researchers explained that the effects of each of these factors are really small, small enough that they probably won't make a dig big difference even for elite athletes.
Speaker 1:In the study conclusion, the author suggests instead of thinking of the menstrual cycle as the most important factor in determining how to structure the training schedule, it should be thought of as one of the many possible stresses an athlete could deal with. The finding with a strong the strongest evidence was the recovery might be slightly impaired in the luteal phase. In other words, people might have a bit of a harder time recovering from training in the time leading up to their period. Okay? That's pretty much the the the takeaway from this.
Speaker 1:So recovery, don't stress too much. We speak about dementia's life of a turtle. We've had some experts come in. Again, some of you might be really impacted, some of you not. So if you're not impacted by the cycle much, then don't worry about it.
Speaker 1:Just train if you feel good, you've got your good sleep, nutrition's in order, stick to your training plan. If you feel like your cycle does impact you a lot, then you can work your training plan around then recovery. If your recovery is worse leading up to your period, then maybe that week you don't really wanna be trained and your PMS symptoms are, you know, all over the shop. Maybe you wanna do some really light walking that week. And that's pretty much how you go and become your own scientist about this.
Speaker 1:Okay? So there's not a lot of scientific support yet perhaps for training different and recovery different for different phases. It might change. There might be some studies that come out. Well, no.
Speaker 1:No. There is definitely. And we have to be open to this because most of this research done on men. There are individual benefits to cycle fitness training plans. A lot of people do like training where depending on their cycle.
Speaker 1:It's not a bad thing. It's just like does it stress you more trying to fit the training plan around your cycle? Or can you just follow a basic training plan? You know, it it really depends. And for men listening to this going, what have I just listened to?
Speaker 1:It's important to know these things. Especially, you know, in, in a world where you could be, you know, helping someone, coaching, some family member. You know, we can't discount how different people feel in part of their cycles. But don't make it a thing if it's not a thing. You know, I've spoken to some women like, it's not a thing for me.
Speaker 1:It's not a thing. There's some people who take this to the extreme and they do like really, really structured plans around the cycle and make it very complex. Some people might like it. What's important is recovery, sleep and recovery, which is what we focus on this week. Do what works for you, only you know, really.
Speaker 1:You're the one that knows your body, I can't tell you. You know, if you do get an eight hour sleep, great. If it's eight and a half hours, if it's nine hours, if it's seven and a half hours, if it's seven, don't go below seven. Find out what it is for you. You know, like, because the research can say this and that and take an average, but that's not you.
Speaker 1:We know that sleep deprivation under seven hours makes you hungrier, makes you crave sugary food, makes you eat high fat foods. Sorry. It doesn't make you eat, makes you crave high fat foods. And in the research, people consume 300 more on the post dinner snack phase, which is where our cognitive ability goes down as well in the day. And if you take caffeine after twelve, you might be causing some issues.
Speaker 1:Caffeine does not substitute for lack of sleep. You must get sleep in order. Then you can have a caffeine boost in the morning, make you even more alert. Brilliant. Stop drinking caffeine after twelve.
Speaker 1:Get the sunlight in in the morning and in the afternoon. No foam before bed, and watch your recovery improve drastically. Right? And you don't have to worry too much about the cycle right now. Just focus on sleep, focus on recovery, make that a thing today, make it a thing.
Speaker 1:If you were listening to this in the morning and you're not even getting outside, it's a bit cloudy, doesn't matter if it's cloudy or not, get outside into the natural light. It's very, very important. Spend some time out there midday as well. And then when it gets to the evening, you know, don't have your lights on full blast, dim them down a bit. Don't go on your phone an hour before bed.
Speaker 1:And you're pretty And also another tip is if you if you can't fall asleep in bed, if you can't fall asleep, you're trying to sleep in bed, get out of the bed, go to the living room or wherever, go to another room, read a book that you like for pleasure or wherever, do something that doesn't involve light like screens and films or you can have something down really dark and quiet maybe, and just wait until you start feeling sleepy then go back to bed. So one of the research things, research studies said that, trying to sleep in bed, one of the things they do therapy for people with insomnia is to get them out of the bedroom if they can't sleep, because this drives you insane. Try to sleep when you can't sleep, when you're laying in bed, it's not a good good thing. So get out. So that's a few tips on, sleep and recovery.
Speaker 1:I did sleep yesterday, but listen to the seminar. I've covered all the research I could find that's great on this stuff. It's, like, forty five minutes long. You may give it a listen. Comes with slides, but I don't wanna bore you to death with more sleep stuff.
Speaker 1:You know how to do this, but action. That's what one day at a time is, but action one day at a time. So take this moment to take some action to be the person you wanna be. And if you're gonna live for the next six to twelve months, know when you sleep deprived, they haven't done anything about it, only you to blame for not trying to make it better because no one's gonna come and make you sleep better. And it's not a, oh, it's cool thing to do.
Speaker 1:People are like, oh, you didn't sleep, like no one really cares. But you you'll perform much better if you sleep better, so make it a priority if you wanna be your optimal self. And I'll see you back here tomorrow.