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The People Building Their Lives Around Their Menstrual Cycles
Devotees of cycle syncing argue that tracking their physical and mental fluctuations helps them to plan better for everything from workouts to social time
For the past five months, 27-year-old Sara Robbert has been tracking her menstrual cycle — in a graph-ruled notebook, scribbling down a sentence each day about how she feels. Every 28 days or so, she has a new set of data points, which she mentally adds to an ever-expanding portrait of her own emotional and physiological patterns.
Though she’s been tracking her cycle since high school, Robbert says, she now uses these patterns less to predict her periods and more to predict — and make decisions around — her mood and energy levels, using the information to guide her social calendar, exercise routine, and work commitments.
For example, “I’ve noticed I have far less social energy at the end of my cycle, during the luteal phase, so I try not to commit to too much during those days,” Robbert says. “That way, I can be more present with the friends I do hang out with, and reserve some of my emotional energy for taking care of myself.”
On the most basic level, this kind of tracking is nothing new, though the methods…
