Cycle-tracking can help people who menstruate understand their body’s hormonal fluctuations. Explore the different phases of the menstrual cycle to learn how you can maximize each phase, because every moment of your life should be lived to the absolute fullest—or else!
Days 1-5: Menstruation
Your uterine lining is shedding, leading to several days of bleeding, one day where you think you aren’t bleeding anymore, then more surprise bleeding at an inopportune time, such as during jury duty or while sharing an Uber with someone you don’t know very well.
Eat: Iron-rich foods.
Exercise: Yoga, low-impact cardio, murderous cramping.
Rest: Seven to nine hours per night, ten-plus for girl bosses.
Days 6-8: Scheming
As your cycle starts over, your womb makes room for your monthly schemes. You’ll be prone to breakouts (skin, jail), getting roped into gendered bank heists, and concocting Wile E. Coyote traps for neighborhood fauna. Whatever you do, don’t spend all your money on more anvils, which is the leading cause of credit-card debt for people who menstruate.
Eat: Off of your other anvils.
Exercise: Plotting, maneuvering.
Rest: Sleeping with one eye open.
Days 9-12: Classical Beauty
As you exit the Scheming phase you’ll experience an influx of hormones, causing you to become a classical beauty from antiquity. Common symptoms include one curl tumbling over your brow, staring wistfully into the middle distance, and post-Hellenistic thoughts. You may find yourself posing like a statue in public spaces—this is completely normal, and if people don’t like it they can just walk around you.
Eat: A bunch of grapes, dangled from above.
Exercise: Discus, footrace, pentathlon.
Rest: Draped in sumptuous fabrics, with one nipple exposed.
Days 13-15: Telepathy
As the egg travels down the fallopian tube, your consciousness travels down a path to enhanced comprehension, allowing you to read minds. The Telepathy phase can leave one exhausted, especially if you get dog telepathy. (Nobody’s favorite!) This is a great time to meet up with your other menstruating friends to silently solve world hunger, or do insider trading.
Eat: Loud, crunchy foods to drown out the cacophony of voices.
Exercise: Near the bees so you may learn their secrets.
Rest: Unlikely.
Days 16-18: Delusions of Grandeur
As ovulation begins, you inevitably become drunk with power. While it may seem like a great time to run for comptroller or Miss U.S.A, we advise getting off social media and crab-walking everywhere so you can gaze up at the cosmos and remember your relative insignificance. You’ll find yourself craving enormous novelty bottles of champagne, gavels, and the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, but remember to consume these things in moderation.
Eat: Chocolate truffles, caviar, a still-beating heart.
Exercise: Striding down the street in an enormous fur coat.
Rest: Bottomless on a chaise lounge.
Days 19-21: Reality-TV-Show Ideas
At the tail end of ovulation, you’ll be inundated with reality-TV-show ideas. Most people who menstruate experience a flood of high-concept ideas involving hot fools, “the beach” (unspecified), and intercourse-adjacent games. A heating pad placed over both hands can help alleviate the need to call ABC to ask if they’ve ever considered merging “The Bachelor” with “Scooby-Doo.” Avoid confessional spaces like churches, standup-comedy venues, and women’s bathrooms.
Eat: In front of a mirror, weeping, with your makeup running.
Exercise: Your right to e-mail the Bravo C.E.O. Ehab Shehata.
Rest: During commercial breaks.
Days 22-24: Ego Death
Post-ovulation is, of course, one’s monthly ego death. Owing to the unfortunate lack of research on menstrual health, scientists remain unsure as to why this occurs, but they think it’s probably because “ego” and “egg” are pretty similar words. During your ego death, you will lose all sense of self, plunging into a disorienting yet cathartic oneness with the world around you that may leave you emotionally paralyzed and weeping. Also, you might feel a little bloated.
Eat: Sorrow, fear, joy.
Exercise: A spiralling walk into your own subconscious.
Rest: In the freshly dug grave of your soul.
Days 25-28: Luteal Phase
Oh, damn—new egg. New egg’s dropped. The egg has arrived. Egg hates it here. Gotta get this egg out. No more egg. And you’re tired. Probably because of egg.
Eat: Egg.
Exercise: Get egg out.
Rest: Maybe when we’re done dealing with this egg. ♦
