Hormones & Your Cycle

Meet the Four Hormones Guiding Your Cycle

Your hormones don't just influence your period or ovulation — they shape how you feel, think, connect, and move through the world. Estrogen, progesterone, LH, and FSH are the four key messengers that rise and fall throughout your cycle, each playing a different role in your body’s natural rhythm. Learning how they work ( and what they feel like when they’re in our out of balance) helps you make sense of your energy, mood shifts, cervical fluid changes, and fertility patterns. This isn’t about controlling your hormones — it’s about understanding the language they speak.

The Four Hormones Behind Your Cycle

These are the chemical messengers shaping your rhythm — each with a role, a purpose, and a feeling in the body.

🌸 Estrogen

Estrogen helps thicken your uterine lining, build cervical fluid, and spark follicle growth. It's highest leading up to ovulation.

What it feels like: Higher energy, clearer skin, mental sharpness, increased desire to socialize or move.

Support it with: Healthy fats, gentle strength training, flaxseed, liver support, daily movement, and reducing xenoestrogens (plastics, fragrance).

🕊️ Progesterone

Progesterone dominates the second half of your cycle — it stabilizes your mood, supports implantation, and promotes restful sleep.

What it feels like: Calm, slow, dreamy, inward. You may feel more sensitive or need more rest.

Support it with: Magnesium, B6, zinc, warm grounding foods, healthy carbs, and stress reduction (this hormone is easily impacted by cortisol).

🔥 LH (Luteinizing Hormone)

LH surges just before ovulation and helps trigger the release of the egg.

What it feels like: Subtle pelvic twinges or ovulation cramps, increased libido, egg-white cervical fluid.

Support it with: Enough sleep, adequate protein, and regulating insulin levels. Blood sugar imbalances can impact the strength of your LH surge.

🌱 FSH (Follicle-Stimulating Hormone)

FSH helps stimulate your ovarian follicles — it’s the hormone that encourages eggs to grow and mature each month.

What it feels like: You won’t "feel" FSH directly, but it’s working quietly during your early cycle (menstrual and follicular phases).

Support it with: Iron-rich foods, blood-building herbs, low-impact movement, and rest in early cycle. Chronic depletion or under-eating can suppress FSH levels.

How Do I Know If My Hormones Are Out of Sync?

You don’t need lab work to begin noticing your body’s cues. Here are common patterns I support clients with.

🩸 Long cycles (35+ days)

This could mean ovulation is delayed — or not happening. Estrogen may be rising slowly, or your body may be under more stress than it can safely ovulate through.

😮‍💨 Mid-cycle spotting or breast tenderness

This may point to estrogen dominance or a progesterone drop. It’s not always “bad” — but it’s worth tracking to see if it aligns with other symptoms.

🌘 Waking up between 2–4 a.m.

This often ties to blood sugar dips or low progesterone. Gentle evening carbs, magnesium, and early stress support can help reset this over time.

🔥 Irritability, bloating, or anxiety before your period

Your progesterone may not be rising enough — or is dropping too quickly. The goal isn’t to suppress these signs, but to nourish the pathways that make progesterone possible.

Tiny Daily Things That Support Hormonal Health

You don’t need to overhaul your life. Hormones respond to consistency, softness, and rhythm.

  • Start the day with protein within 90 minutes of waking
  • Switch from plastic to glass water bottles + storage
  • Go for a 10-minute post-meal walk to support insulin
  • Say no without over-explaining (cortisol thanks you)
  • Incorporate ground flax or chia in the follicular phase
  • Swap blue light at night for soft amber lighting
  • Learn your fertile signs — not just your app’s predictions