If you have ever wondered why some weeks you feel sharp and capable,
And other weeks the same task nearly feels impossible,
With nothing dramatically really changing,
This is the mechanism behind it.
Your hormonal cycle shifts your baseline capacity for focus,
Patience and regulation across the month.
Estrogen tends to support dopamine transmission,
Having weeks with higher estrogen tend to bring you sharper focus,
Better patience,
And more cognitive flexibility,
Genuinely during the first half of your cycle.
Progesterone works differently.
Progesterone is associated with more calming,
Sometimes numbing,
More brain fog,
Lower word access,
Less sharpness.
None of this is a mystery,
And none of it is a character inconsistency.
This is chemistry.
And it changes every day of the month.
If you have labeled your harder weeks,
Generally towards the latter part of your cycle,
As laziness,
I want to offer you something a little bit more gentle.
You may simply have been operating with less chemical support than the two weeks prior.
I started noticing this many years ago when I started tracking my sleep and my cycle with an Oura ring,
A Whoop,
And also with the Apple Watch.
And what I noticed was that my lazy weeks lined up almost exactly with the same phase every single month.
And once I saw and understood this pattern,
I stopped using the word lazy because that wasn't accurate anymore.
So what changes once you know this?
You stop expecting a flat,
Identical performance every single day of the month.
And you start the higher demanding tasks towards the start of your cycle and you start protecting the lower capacity weeks towards the end of your cycle.
