The first month I missed a period, my default was to furiously buy pregnancy tests, which all came back negative. By month three without any sign of menstruation, I was freaking out. This was 2016, before the conversation about period health and hormones was really present in any mainstream media. I began to research the possible causes and, after some dark results about cancer and infertility, I came across doctors and experts, learning terms such as endocrinologist (a clinician specialising in hormone-related conditions). This was my entry point into the uncharted territory of hormone health. What I didn’t know back then was that this journey would be a long one – but with a happy ending that gave me my body back.
What I learnt from months of scans and consultations was that I was extremely stressed and experiencing burnout. Since my periods stopped, I had gained around 12kg and become a shell of my former self. What I thought was clinical depression turned out to be amenorrhea (pronounced uh-men-o-REE-uh), the medical term for the absence of menstruation, triggered by stress. It was diagnosed after four months without a period, and it was my personal trainer, not a doctor, who suggested that it could be directly linked to stress.
At the time, I was working every hour I possibly could, while also running five kilometres almost daily, or else doing high-impact classes. Cardio when you are burnt out is the worst thing you can do, as it floods your system with more stress hormones. No one had ever told me this.
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In fact, quite the opposite: I had been advised to exercise whenever I felt anxious. At first, I was confused that no doctor had mentioned that amenorrhea could be related to stress. But I soon understood that this was a matter of conditioning. We separate the mental and physical into two categories, when in reality they are intrinsically linked. The brain controls the release of chemicals when we feel emotions such as stress, and the body responds in the best way it knows how to: fight or flight.
Stress can be difficult to address when you’re in the throes of it. We often think of it as just a part of life, especially since you can’t always just pick up and change your situation immediately. Back then, I was running a successful business in the era of the girlboss, which I now like to call the ‘burnout era’. We were told that we could ‘have it all’, and encouraged to push through anything to come out on top.
Now, thankfully, we are realising that success should never come at the cost of your health. We are moving into the era of the ‘zen boss’, and understanding that integrating self-care and rest into our schedules is vital to maximising performance. Certainly, my life now looks dramatically different. I sold my company and moved to the countryside, but that took over five years to implement. In the short term, however, I had to get my cycle back.
I embarked on some important lifestyle changes, rather than attempting immediate, drastic overhauls, including temporarily cutting out cardio, coffee and alcohol, which had the instant effect of reducing my stress levels. I met nutritionist Lola Ross, with whom I later co-founded the hormone tracker Moody Month, who introduced me to nutrients and supplements that could be good for my body, including fibre, omega 3 and antioxidants.
The solutions were not complicated, but the process took over six months and involved a huge amount of self-discovery. I had to get to grips with what was going on before I could begin to address it. Decades of research show that understanding the science behind building healthy habits is crucial for their adoption. This was why we created Moody: to provide a wider view of how we can use hormone tracking to make informed choices about our health.
Had I learnt about the effects of hormones in school, I would have saved myself a great deal of time and energy. Immersing myself in the conversation about hormone health over the past seven years, I am often struck by the importance of some very basic knowledge, such as the fact that each phase of the female monthly hormone cycle comes with changes in mental health, memory, digestion and performance levels.
If we all learned these fundamentals at a young age, we would have a much better grasp of how our bodies work and be able to support our hormonal health to avoid imbalances and burnout. We would trust our bodies, both when they are functioning well and when they are not, and know when to seek support.
A 2023 UK government study showed that only 17% of women felt they had access to enough information on menstrual wellbeing, while only 14% had knowledge about gynaecological cancers and just 9% were informed about menopause. The conversation about hormones is becoming more vocal, but that often comes from a place of frustration or sheer desperation.
We are called crazy and moody, without any understanding of the chemicals that govern our mental and physical health. Up until 1993, the inclusion of women in clinical studies was not required by law. The need for diverse women’s health innovation and research is paramount, but we are having to catch up on decades of exclusion. The rise of female-health technologies is contributing to new scientific developments, as well as providing better resources and access to information. You don’t have to have a PhD to understand the basic functions of your body, but we do need support in advocating for our hormonal health.
Now, we have so many more ways to track our health, with at-home hormone and fertility tests such as Hertility and Proov, both of which were founded by women with the aim of providing a more inclusive approach. I started Moody Month because I want to make accessing your hormone health as easy as checking the weather in the morning. Knowing the basic pillars helps us navigate a new world of female-body literacy.
The Moody Month app is available on IOS and Android. ‘Moody: The Hidden Power of Hormones’ (£10, Vintage) by Amy Thomson is out now.
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