Alisa Vitti shares how working with your infradian rhythms can help you break free from the culture of constant hustle, biohack your hormones, reclaim feminine energy and step into your power.
So many women feel like they’re doing it all, constantly pushing themselves and feeling increasingly burnt out and unfulfilled, but aren’t sure what’s missing. In addition, 80% of women will struggle with a hormonal imbalance in their lifetimes, and we don’t have the support we need to address that easily.
I know the struggle well. As a former PCOS sufferer myself, I saw first-hand how the conventional model of care falls short not only for women with PCOS, but for women with all hormonal issues. This is due to a lack of understanding of root causes of hormonal dysregulation, the long lead to diagnosis (an average of seven years) and the one-size-fits-all approach to treatment, aka the ubiquitous prescribing of birth control as a solution.
I wanted to help myself, and then I wanted to help every woman going through these issues. To do this, I built one of the original femtech companies, launched in 2012, called FLO Living. Through our patented app, supplements and digital therapeutic programs, we help women to take control of their hormonal health at home for menstrual issues, infertility issues and perimenopause issues. It’s a hormonal health management platform for every woman, from their first bleed to their last.
I’ve written two best-selling books,
WomanCode and
In the FLO, built a top menstrual health app, MyFLO, had a family and run my company as CEO. I share all of this to say that I’ve absolutely had to find a different way to be productive to protect the hormonal balance that I fought so hard to achieve. It was my research into biological rhythms that led me to the secret key that I’ve been using for years, but that ultimately is the basis for the Cycle Syncing® Method that I created.
I have personally been using the Cycle Syncing® Method for the past 20 years. It has been the reason I’ve been able to keep my PCOS in remission and to get pregnant at advanced maternal age, and even to be going through perimenopause more slowly. I compare it to a yoga practice: it’s not about being perfect, it’s just about coming back to the practice every day and being willing to try and learn more about my cycle phases and myself.
Cycle Syncing® has an unexpected added benefit of healing a lot of the cultural conditioning we receive as women about doing it all and being in constant ‘go’ mode. It has been a method that has both physical and emotional benefits.
Meet your unique female biological rhythm
There are many different biological rhythms. We have the circadian rhythm, which is something that we experience in the course of 24 hours. We have the ultradian rhythm, which consists of things that we experience that are shorter than a 24-hour period. And we have the infradian rhythm, which consists of cycles that are longer than a 24-hour period. For women, we experience the infradian rhythm in our monthly cycle most noticeably, and it turns out that it affects many other key systems of the body.
You haven’t heard about it before for a few reasons. First, research in medicine, fitness, and nutrition has historically focused on male biology. Female biology is being overlooked. Also, chronobiology is still a relatively young field: people are just now understanding that there is something called a circadian rhythm and that it needs to be supported with lifestyle adjustments. Finally, in our culture, we have a history of not giving a name to female biological experiences, so we tend to have a lack of vocabulary to describe our biological reality.
The infradian rhythm is active from puberty to menopause – only about four decades, and that's why it’s so precious. The degree to which you support and align with your infradian rhythm will dramatically impact the quality of your health and life, both while it’s active and post-menopause. While it's active, you have access to all of this amazing fluctuating creative, productive, inventive energy to apply to all the different areas of your life.
Though we experience the infradian rhythm over our monthly cycle, it is just one aspect of the rhythm. What is so important is for women to understand that with this infradian rhythm, we have to understand how to stop disrupting it. Otherwise, it has negative effects on six systems: the brain, the microbiome, the metabolism, the stress response system, the immune system, and the reproductive systems. When we optimise and care for the infradian rhythm – just like when you start to take care of your circadian rhythm – you have more energy, you get better sleep, and your body functions the way that it should.
The Cycle Syncing® Method is the practice I created to help myself and women live in alignment with our infradian rhythm. It’s really simple and logical – and most importantly, based on your biology! You have four predictable hormonal phases in one month. You change what you eat and change which workouts you do to match the metabolic and cortisol changes you experience each phase. You also organise your day-to-day tasks to be in optimal alignment with different neurohormonal focuses that are present in each phase.
The problem is that if you’re living in a continuous state of infradian disruption, you feel drained at the end of every day, and that feeling gets particularly worse in the second half of your cycle. After months, you can develop an actual hormonal imbalance. You never feel as clear-headed as you want to be. That becomes your norm. But once you start aligning these basic self-care practices, the energy gain is dramatic. By supporting the infradian rhythm, you boost energy, reduce cortisol levels, keep blood sugar stable, promote efficient detoxification and balanced microbiome, nourish proper hormone levels, and promote cognitive health. It’s the most elegant and efficient way to care for yourself in your reproductive years.
Ignoring our infradian rhythm leads to big-time burnout. For example, your metabolism is slower in one half of your cycle and faster in another half of your cycle. So the very idea that you would have one way of eating, one combination of macronutrients and so on every day throughout the month is completely illogical in the light of the reality of your metabolic shift.
Again, this comes back to cultural conditioning. For those with male hormones, the hormonal pattern does follow circadian timing. Eating and exercising the same way every day does optimise these hormonal biological rhythms. From a female-hormone point of view, eating the same way every day of the month makes you perform suboptimally. And then women blame themselves that they haven’t tried hard enough to ‘stick with it’, but it’s not a lack of effort – it’s that they are following guidance meant for a different biological rhythm.
Women are taught that we can't trust ourselves because of our hormonal fluctuations. The story we tell about female hormones is a villainous one. But the Cycle Syncing Method extols the virtuous story of what I think we should be telling ourselves around our biology and our hormones and our infradian rhythm—that the key to your well-being is not what you're doing so much as when you're doing it. Our hormones are a powerful gift.
The four phases of the menstrual cycle
In the follicular phase, estrogen levels are lower, but rising and our energy rises in tandem with it. During ovulation, estrogen, FSH, LH and testosterone surge and we feel very social and energised. In the luteal phase, oestrogen and progesterone rise and fall over 10 to 12 days and we should feel more focused and calm. Many women feel terrible during this phase due to oestrogen overload and insufficient progesterone levels – which can absolutely be corrected. Finally, in the menstrual phase, all hormones are at their lowest levels and we feel the most inwardly focused.
There should be no phase of your cycle where you feel sluggish or bad. That is a cultural narrative based on myth, not science. If you feel bad or symptomatic in any phase, it’s due to mismanaging these phases with diet and lifestyle.
Think of it like spring, summer, autumn and winter – nature’s growth pattern is a macrocosmic representation of what happens inside of us. The follicular phase is spring, ovulation is summer, the luteal is autumn, and the menstrual phase is winter.
We can adjust our diet to support hormones and adjust our lifestyle to support these inner seasons, all of which has the effect of restoring our energy balance, reducing stress and becoming more productive, with less force and more flow.
How to eat and exercise in sync with your cycle phases
Food
Follicular and ovulatory phases: Think lighter meals with an emphasis on more raw foods.
Luteal phase: Focus on blood sugar stabilising meals: root veggies, beans, whole grains, cooked vegetables, good quality fats and proteins.
Menstrual phase: Focus on protein and fats and easy-to-digest meals, like soups and stews.
Fitness
Follicular and ovulatory phases: Try cardio and HIIT. Since your metabolism is slower (needing fewer calories) and your resting cortisol is lower during this phase, you can use cardio to burn stored fat as fuel.
Luteal phase: Studies show that because metabolism speeds up and resting cortisol is higher during this phase, you need an average of 279 more calories per day. You should focus on strength training to burn fat as fuel, build lean muscle and keep blood sugar stable – which will help you eliminate PMS during this phase as well and optimise your workout results. It also means you must not do HIIT workouts during this phase, as it will turn on muscle wasting.
Menstrual phase: All hormones are at their lowest levels, so try restorative cardio like walking, yoga or Pilates.
Productivity:
Follicular phase: Plan out the month ahead and try new activities.
Ovulatory phase: This is when you are most verbal and social, so give a presentation at work, go out with friends, ask for a raise or go on a first date.
Luteal phase: That progesterone is a power productivity hormone, so get big projects done at work, clean your home, pay bills, don’t have meetings but do say ‘yes’ to social events. Stay focused.
Menstrual phase: Introspection is your power during this phase. Evaluate how each aspect of your life is going and decide what you want to change in the next cycle. There’s no need to wait to do this annually on New Year’s – you get a fresh start every cycle!
What to expect once you start living in your flow
Initially, you’ll notice symptoms around your cycle dramatically improve. Then you’ll notice a more consistent mood and energy levels. This means your hormones are starting to get to their preferred optimal balanced levels. Things start to get interesting once you have that foundation down and you add productivity into it: you start to get more done, but with less of that sense of stress and pushing. Then you can even get to the place where you start to become more discerning about what you will do, and – gasp – start to prioritise your pleasure and joy. Now, what would a world full of healthy and happy women get up to? It could be game changing… just saying.
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