Should You Be Living According To Your Period?

Which is the best week of your cycle to book that date? And when will you smash your work deadlines? Radhika Sanini goes with her flow to find out

- Radhika Sanghani

Periods. We’ve always had them, but we’ve never been more aware of them - in a good way. From the heightened awareness around period poverty to breaking down taboos in everything from blood-stained images on Insta to visible tampon strings in adverts, the shifting perspective means women aren’t trying to hide their flow anymore. It no longer feels like we’re living life despite periods, but actually embracing our natural cycles and maybe even looking for new ways to make them work for us. This is the latest evolution in our interest in self-development and the idea comes with all the gear. There are books such as Emma Barnett’s, Period, bleed-proof underwear by brands such as Wuka and Thinx, cramps buster machine, Livia and even NextGen Jane, a device that can spot endometriosis. There’s also a huge list of tracking apps: Natural Cycles, Flow Health, Eve and Laura Weir’s, Moody Month. Most are like Clue, a doctor-recommended app with over eight million users, that tracks your mood, energy and cramps, or Period Diary, an app that records over 50 symptoms, which sync with your phone’s calendar. Useful if you want to keep track of your womb’s lining. However, the lucrative nature of this growing industry is leading many to believe that tracking your period and changing your schedule around it may be more of a marketing ploy than a good health exercise. Experts have pointed out the differences between each woman’s flow may make general advice redundant, and let’s not forget a large number of women in South Africa are using pharmaceutical birth control and therefore living without a natural cycle.