20/05/2026
As a cycle coach, you wouldn’t believe how often I get asked a variation of this question in every-day small-talk situations: “Which supplements or herbs should I take for my cycle?”
I understand the urge behind that question. We’ve been trained to believe that health lives outside of us. That there is always something to add, something to fix, something to optimize. But when I ask a follow-up question—“Are you experiencing any symptoms? Any patterns that feel off?”—the answer often is “I’m not sure.”
Orientation has to come first.
That means starting in the body. Noticing what is actually there. Learning the language your physiology is already speaking. Only then does anything like “optimization” begin to make sense. And even then, the word itself starts to lose its grip.
Since around 2020, research across neuroscience, endo-crinology, and trauma studies has started to converge in a way that challenges the entire cycle optimization narrative.
This seems to indicate that we are finally seeing a re-orientation in the scientific community: away from the cycle as pathology towards the cycle as a kind of metronome, an inner clock that governs our overall health in more ways than just as it is related to reproduction.
Your menstrual cycle (& the different hormonal phases you go through each month) creates the landscape in which your symptoms can be contextualized. Without orienting to these hormonal and nervous system shifts, any attempt at healing risks missing the conditions in which those symptoms are actually occurring.
..more on the 'stack!
Where/who/how are you today?
