That syncing feeling

As period tracking apps grow in popularity, Helen Coffey investigates whether adapting work around the monthly female rhythm could help women be more productive

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Picture the scene. You're lying in bed, sluggish and tired, when an advert for the Dogs Trust comes on. One of the dogs, says the voiceover sombrely, was beaten then abandoned as a puppy. You find yourself weeping inconsolably for the next 90 minutes - his sad eyes! His vulnerable little face! - and vaguely wonder, not for the first time, whether you might be losing your mind. But lo! The next day, your period arrives, and the world makes sense again.

Anyone who has menstruated is all too familiar with the taxing 28-day emotional rollercoaster it entails, and the impact it can feel like it has on your working life. (Who hasn’t, at some point, gritted their teeth through an important Zoom meeting while secretly mainlining paracetamol and clutching a hot water bottle to their abdomen?) There’s the period itself — a week of cramps and heaviness as the womb lining makes its ungainly exit from your body. Next, the glorious fortnight when you feel like a “normal” person. And then there’s the week building up to the next “crimson wave” (to borrow a delightful bit of terminology from Nineties cult movie Clueless) - typified, for many, by low mood and energy, irritability, and a galling tendency to burst into tears at adverts for animal charities.

Though every individual is different, many will likely notice these changes are tied to the four distinct phases of their cycle: menstruation (your period), follicular, ovulation and, finally, luteal. Each is influenced by fluctuations in hormones like oestrogen and progesterone. “Energy is usually lower during menstruation when these hormones are at lower levels, and increases as oestrogen rises in the follicular phase, peaking around ovulation,” says Dr Anna Cantlay, a British Menopause Society-accredited advanced menopause specialist and women’s health GP. “In the luteal phase, rising then falling progesterone can lead to fatigue, mood swings and premenstrual symptoms.”