Hello everyone. Today’s article is a little bit different. Instead of discussing the essence of femininity, I’m giving you ten HEALTHY HABITS that I think will drastically improve your life. I promised you that I deliver not only feminine content sent, but also just lost female education overall. And I seldom hear anyone discuss what I’m about to say, even though it’s all pretty important stuff for HEALTHY HABITS.

So let’s get started with HEALTHY HABITS. And by the way, this is not medical advice, this is just educational. But it is backed by empirical research.

Understand Your Feminine Biological Clock

My mother is a few decades older than me and she did not know this information about HEALTHY HABITS until I told her this week about it and she really wishes she had known sooner.

If you already track and understand the before phases of the menstrual cycle for HEALTHY HABITS, then please feel free to skip the next chapter. But if you don’t, I highly recommend that you begin. You will find effortless, consistent, motivated, and results when you live in accordance with your feminine biological clock. Sadly, we have been essentially guided, marketed, and educated to follow the 24 hours cycle of the male body, which has caused an internal conflict for a lot of us. And we beat ourselves up for our lack of stringent consistency.

But our natural biological clock is not consistent. It undergoes so many fluctuations throughout the month you would never expect the moon to rise and set each day the same as the sun. Yet that is what we’re taught and widely expected to do. Just like the moon. Cyclical women are not designed to show up fully every single day.

We wax and wane throughout our four distinct phases each month and therefore our nutrition, fitness, and self-care should be adjusted to each phase. Additionally, the menstrual cycle has sort of been implicitly demonized. There are actually articles online that you can find about stopping your period or stopping your ovulation and about HEALTHY HABITS.

And so many of us have been sold this idea that long-term menstrual suppression via birth control is completely benign. And thus we’ve been taught to believe that having a consistent menstrual cycle is not necessary for your overall health.

But how strange of a concept is it though, to completely stop a natural bodily process, not just for a month, but for years? It is such a bizarre concept and yet widely held as normal. We are failing women by acting like our menstrual cycle is not necessary.

This then makes women think that it’s not only unbeneficial to have a consistent menstrual cycle, but that it’s unbearable to even be aware of your menstrual cycle. To understand the hormonal changes that naturally occur in the female body during the menstrual phase, the focal phase, the ovulatory phase, and your luteal phase.

And use your understanding of your menstrual cycle to your advantage so that you know why. You may feel more tired, more energetic, more frisky, less frisky, more easily annoyed, etc.

Tracking and understanding your menstrual cycle can drastically transform your life because being aware of your hormonal fluctuations and what that means for your energy levels, your mood, your libido, your nutritional needs, your exercise needs, etc. And means you can take care of yourself categorically better. I mean, it can legitimately transform how you take care of yourself.

I highly recommend you take notes of these HEALTHY HABITS because this is really important information that I did not know until I was 22 years old, years after getting my first period. And when I finally did begin to check my cycle and implement the necessary changes and accommodations, my life was so positively impacted by HEALTHY HABITS.

Menstrual Phase

So your menstrual cycle begins with the first day of your period and ends when your next period begins. So the menstrual cycle begins with the menstrual phase, which is roughly day one through five of your cycle. Here is when you get your period when you bleed, and the process of menstruation is actually pretty tough on your body.

Your energy levels and hormones are at their lowest, and a lot of women think that during your period your hormones are raging, but they’re actually pretty low and that’s what’s causing you to feel really drained during your period and what causes you to sort of lose your cool.

Your body during your menstrual phase most likely needs more rest than usual. So please don’t feel guilty for prioritizing rest and replenishment during this time. You are not weak or lazy for doing this at all. In fact, increasing rest during your menstrual phase increases your energy levels for the rest of the month and helps you recover and replenish your body for the busy month ahead.

In terms of exercise during your menstrual phase, if you are doing a very great workout because your hormones are at their lowest, the only thing that may be getting you through your intense workout is Cortisol, the stress hormone. So instead of getting all of those amazing benefits from your workout, you very well may lose rather than gain muscle mass and massive amounts of Cortisol are leaked into your body, which can just wreak havoc.

So instead, doing gentle exercise is much better, or perhaps just prioritize rest if you really feel in need of it. In terms of nutrition, this is a good time to remineralize and replenish your body. And while I completely think that indulging in your cravings a little bit is not a bad thing, you do want to pack in mostly nutrient-dense foods to properly replenish your body.

And eating a lot of processed carbs and sugar like chips, ice cream, etc, very well may make you feel more drained and may exacerbate your PMS. So I highly suggest nutrient-dense eating that can support the energy-intensive process of menstruation. Also, because of the blood loss during your menstrual phase, it’s crucial to get iron-rich foods like beans, kelp, pumpkin seeds, oats, dark leafy greens, and also grass-fed meat, eggs, and salmon.

It’s also important to ensure your intake of vitamin C is efficient because this enables iron to be absorbed into your body more easily. So eating vitamin C-rich foods like citrus is also highly suggested, also, if possible, including some cooked fermented, sprouted or activated foods are great HEALTHY HABITS because they may be easier to digest because some of the breaking processes have already begun and this may make digestion easier.

Warm broths and miso soups are also great and comforting and can help to soothe your uterus. And lastly, liquid aminos and sea salt can help to restore electrolytes and minerals. And I also recommend eating hydrating foods like watermelon, grapes, and cucumber, which can help to reduce Bloating.

Follicular Phase

Roughly day six to twelve is your follicular phase. Follicles are the sacks in your ovaries that contain eggs.

This part of your cycle includes the maturation of the ovarian follicles to prepare for one of them to release during ovulation. Here, your energy and estrogen are rising and you may feel more optimistic, creative, and excited to take on new things, dive into new tasks, and plan for the month ahead. You may experience difficulty focusing on more tedious or mundane tasks because of your proclivity to feel more creative during this phase, so you may find it more enjoyable to multitask during the follicular phase.

Perhaps try to save some of the tasks that you may not be able to focus on right now for your luteal phase, which we’ll get into more soon. Your creativity and motivation for new things may eventually start to wane as you transition out of this phase, but when it does, I suggest not quitting or throwing those projects away.

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Instead, take a break and rest, and remind yourself that your creativity and motivation will cycle back around. I used to do this a lot. I would wake up feeling inspired and creative and start to tackle a new project, and then a couple of days later I’d feel so uninterested in it and just give up on it. But little did I know that motivation and creativity would soon be back. I really wish I had known that sooner so I would understand why I felt more and less motivated and creative out of the blue.

In terms of exercise, consider this phase your warm-up phase for HEALTHY HABITS. I suggest gradually increasing the length and intensity of your workouts as you’re near ovulation, but listen to your body as estrogen rises at a different rate for each of us. In terms of nutrition here during your follicular phase, it’s definitely still important to eat your minerals and iron because of the loss of minerals and iron during your period.

But if you still feel really tired during this phase of your cycle, it could be due to not resting enough during your period, or not properly fueling yourself because you lose so much iron during your period. And iron oxidizes your tissues.

It makes sense to feel fatigued during the beginning of this phase. So yeah, continuing to eat iron-rich foods like meat, dark leafy greens, and beans, for instance, could help to mitigate that feeling of fatigue. Also, the rising estrogen in your body may make you feel less hungry since estrogen is an appetite-suppressing hormone. So you may gravitate towards lighter meals during your follicular phase.

Ovulatory Phase

Roughly, days 13 to 15 of your cycle are your ovulatory phase.

It begins three to four days before you ovulate, and most women ovulate on or around day 14 of their cycle. Here your estrogen, testosterone, mood, energy, and libido are at their peak, even though this is the shortest phase. So you may want to plan a trip somewhere new and exciting and work on some hard tasks that require some extra energy.

Some less-than-desirable indicators that you’re in your ovulatory phase may include breast tenderness, headaches, and cramping. And you very well may feel some pain on either side of your abdomen when your egg is released from your ovaries.

But this should not be a lot of pain here. In terms of exercise, your strength, capacity, and recoverability are heightened. Feel free to push yourself to your limits and set records. Do something hard and sweat. High-intensity interval training might be really enjoyable during this phase.

For nutrition, the recommended ovulatory phase foods are packed with fiber to detoxify increased hormones like fruit, beans, avocado, oats, fruits and dark vegetables like carrots, beets, and broccoli foods with anti-inflammatory properties that can prepare and support your body through ovulation. Since ovulation is an inflammatory process like nuts, fatty fish, and juicy fruits, and a good amount of proteins and fats to help sustain your now increasing energy.

Luteal Phase

Day roughly 16 to 28 of your cycle is your luteal phase, which begins after ovulation and continues until you begin your next period. Junior Luteal Phase Progesterone produced by the corpus Luteum the empty follicle left in the ovary after an egg has been released helps to thicken the womb lining in preparation to receive a fertilized egg. If the egg is fertilized by the sperm, it will attach itself to the lining of the womb.

If conception does not happen, though, the corporate fluidium will shrink and die and progesterone levels drop, causing the thickened womb lining to shed, which is when your next bleed begins. Here, your energy levels will begin to drop and PMEs may begin to rear their ugly head, but I suggest not fighting it. Now is the time to be more gentle with yourself and perhaps prioritize recovery and self-care for HEALTHY HABITS.

You’re more sensitive to cortisol during this phase, the stress hormone, and you have higher levels of progesterone, which is your chill hormone. So I suggest doing some organization that brings some cohesion into your life, wrapping up loose ends and gradually less energy-intensive tasks.

In terms of exercise, think of this phase as your cooldown phase gradually begin to decrease the intensity of your workouts. This phase is pretty long and the decline should be pretty gradual. Perhaps the beginning of your luteal phase looks like a really high-intensity workout, and towards the end looks like more of a low-impact home workout or nice walks outside.

For nutrition, the luteal phase is a good time to steer clear of foods that trigger PMS and period cramps like salty foods, alcohol, caffeine, and added sugar. During the luteal phase, progesterone also starts to rise up, preparing your body for your next period, and it’s thought that eating foods that produce serotonin will help most during this time, like quinoa and buckwheat.

It’s also useful to add more healthy fats to your diet to try to include things like avocados, nuts, and fish where possible for HEALTHY HABITS. It’s also understood that eating magnesium-rich foods can help fight the fatigue and the libido associated with this phase in your cycle, so eat things like dark chocolate, pumpkin seeds, and spinach.

Please keep in mind that the days I share are average. Every woman has a different cycle and phase length, but simply trying to keep track as best you can and picking necessary accommodations for the changes in your hormones will most likely make you feel so much better throughout the month.

Stretch For 5-10 Minutes Daily

Next for HEALTHY HABITS, I highly recommend a stretch at night and in the morning for just five to ten minutes.

I typically stretch in the morning after I work out and at night before I get in bed. And how you feel after you stretch, at least for me, is almost indescribable. There’s this almost vibration throughout your body. There’s this deep sense of relief and relaxation and it helps to either get you started on the right foot in the morning by grounding yourself and feeling more at ease and peaceful and helps to promote relaxation and deep sleep at night. I feel so much less neurotic after I stretch.

It’s one of the only times throughout the day when my mind is silent.

Make One Room Beautiful

Make one room in your home as beautiful as you can. If you’re a Jordan Peterson fan, this may not be a new concept for you, but from his book Twelve More Rules for Life, there’s this quote if you learn to make something in your life wonderful, just one thing, then you have established a relationship with beauty. And from there you can begin to expand that relationship out into other elements of your life and the world. Man shall not live by bread alone.

And that is exactly true. We live by beauty, and the beautiful is as useful as the useful. And although I’m not entirely sure that beauty is subjective, it is personal. Every person has their own personal taste. So there’s no one way to beautify your room, whether it’s with plants or art or books or a collection of music boxes, for instance.

Do it your way. But I highly recommend having an emphasis on beauty in your life. And beautifying your room is a perfect place to start for HEALTHY HABITS.

Pure Cotton Underwear

Pure cotton or mobile underwear. No one told me for so long that you should not wear polyester underwear. Wearing polyester underwear is not a HEALTHY HABITS.

Most popular underwear that is sold in stores is not breathable and your vagina needs to be able to breathe. It is a mucous membrane and lining it with plastic, which is what polyester is, will not be fruitful, it will be bread full. I highly recommend only buying underwear that’s made of breathable fabrics, like pure cotton. The underwear modal is also good. It’s better than polyester, but it’s not quite as breathable.

As cotton, it is stretchier and softer. So that’s really up to you for your HEALTHY HABITS. But really, just try to stay away from polyester, acrylic, nylon, and spandex. Please don’t line your vagina with plastic.

Organic Menstrual Products

Organic menstrual products do you know that currently pads and tampons are regulated by the FDA, which classifies them as medical devices, which means that manufacturers are not required to disclose ingredients on their packaging?

Even manufacturers who know what harmful ingredients are in their menstrual products have no obligation to share that information with you for HEALTHY HABITS. A research team from New York University actually measured the concentrations of several EDCs in menstrual products and found that 90% of menstrual products contained measurable concentrations of one type of EDC, known as phthalates, which are commonly used in production to make plastics more flexible.

And the highest levels were found in penny liners, pads, and tampons. EDCs encompass a large group of compounds that could interfere with our hormones and cause harm throughout the body. Now, there is limited information about how thali exposure can affect human health for HEALTHY HABITS. Still, some studies do suggest it’s linked to recurrent pregnancy loss, disruptions to puberty, and conversely, affects hormone levels and thyroid function.

So if you use conventional menstrual products, they very well may contain endocrine disrupting chemicals or ADCs, and you may be directly exposing your reproductive system to a large group of compounds that can interfere with your hormones and cause harm. Conventional cotton has entered the title of being the dirtiest crop on Earth since it consumes 16% of the world’s insecticides and requires 2 billion in pesticides each year.

And when people treat crops with synthetic agrochemicals, they have to wear masks to protect them from the chemicals that they’re using. And then after the cotton is harvested and processed into menstrual products, we shove that heavily treated cotton right up into our vagina or surround your vagina with it directly for up to a week. I would not recommend that for HEALTHY HABITS.

So I would highly recommend using organic penny liners, tampons, or pads, whatever you use during your period for HEALTHY HABITS.

Dry Brushing

If you have not heard of dry brushing for HEALTHY HABITS, it is a daily body massage with a dry, stiff-bristled brush like this one. And it has been overhyped in some ways. Like, some people say that it can help with digestion or help the appearance of cellulite, which I’m not sure is true. But according to a medical doctor, it does have some benefits for HEALTHY HABITS, like detoxifying the skin by unclogging pores, increasing blood circulation, and promoting lymph flow and drainage.

It can help to promote muscle recovery, it stimulates the nervous system and it gives your skin a more radiant glow. And it is gentler than scrubbing your skin in the shower since brushing your skin while it’s dry allows you to exfoliate and increase blood circulation without rubbing it off moisture in the way hot water in your shower can.

And maintenance is really easy for HEALTHY HABITS. I just clean it once a week with Dr. Bronner’s castile soap and hang it up to dry, and it is good to go. So I do highly recommend the dry brush for HEALTHY HABITS.

Body Hair Removal

Making an informed decision about body hair removal is HEALTHY HABITS. Being in the feminine trad sphere of sorts, where there’s a lot of emphasis on tradition and femininity, I am aware that a lot of traditional and feminine women hold to the idea that body hair removal is feminine and that women should generally remove their body hair for HEALTHY HABITS.

And I understand that letting your hair grow can be a sort of progressive, radical, feminist statement. But truly, if you believe in God and believe that women were made intentionally and gloriously by God, and thus she was intentionally created with body hair, then body hair is not inherently unfeminine at all.

I, of course, understand that men are hairier, so that’s the odd reason why people think that body hair in general is not feminine for HEALTHY HABITS. But that is not true. Personally, I was in the modeling industry for seven years, and we were expected to come completely groomed from head to toe and hairless from basically the eyes down. And I did do a lot of waxing throughout those years. So I don’t grow a lot of body hair anymore, and I do shade maybe once a month because I’m so used to it for HEALTHY HABITS.

But overall, it’s really not a big deal to me anymore for HEALTHY HABITS. And luckily, my husband does not care about body hair at all. So ultimately, if you want to remove your body hair because that’s your preference to feel smooth or it’s your husband’s preference, that’s absolutely your prerogative for HEALTHY HABITS. But if you don’t want to remove your body hair, that does not make you any less of a feminine woman whatsoever. Each choice actually can be an outworking of your own feminine essence.

You could be shaving because you enjoy being the less hairy sex, and you enjoy that contrast, or you could be embracing your body hair because that’s how God created you as a woman. So either choice, of course, should not be judged whatsoever for HEALTHY HABITS.

I would just hate to think that women out there feel less beautiful or think they’re less feminine or made to feel that way just because they have body hair. I promise you, you are no less beautiful or less feminine whatsoever for your choice to either remove body hair or not as well as this.

Of course, keeping a certain amount of pubic hair is actually beneficial for your vagina. It does have a purpose and it lessens friction during sex and prevents the transmission of bacteria and other pathogens. So being clean-shaven or cleanly wax not only hurts or can cause irritation, but you could be missing out on the benefits of pubic hair for HEALTHY HABITS.

Embracing Boredom

How many of us are basically wired to our technology? Entertainment is supposed to be occasional leisure, but we’ve made it into a lifestyle. So many people are constantly stimulated by notifications, emails, texts, and entertainment like podcasts, audiobooks, music, Netflix, etc. Etc.

But never allowing yourself to be present and embrace the boredom that may come along with allowing certain parts of life to just exist by themselves is a huge mistake, and it’s very well. It takes a toll on your mental health for HEALTHY HABITS. Your compulsion to constantly be stimulated or entertained will sedate you at best or destroy you at worst.

Distraction V entertainment is one of the enemies made methods for keeping our minds asleep, our hearts numb, and our hands preoccupied with the wrong things. It is in boredom that we can find rest, peace, and solitude with God.

It is in boredom that creativity is inspired. It’s with the embracement of boredom that we are then able to make seemingly tiny moments magnificent, like the purr of a cat, the feeling of your baby kicking in your tummy, greeting your husband after a long day, etc. We’re able to find that magic significance and magnificence in the smaller expected areas of life, because we’re not constantly numbed by constant stimulation from music, audiobooks, podcasts, shows, etc.

By embracing boredom, I don’t mean you should practice it by sitting in the middle of an empty room alone. What I mean is to leave the more seemingly mundane parts of life alone without infusing them with extra entertainment for HEALTHY HABITS.

So perhaps going on a walk without your phone, driving without music, folding your laundry without Netflix, or doing the dishes without an audiobook are HEALTHY HABITS. At first, maybe really boring and uncomfortable. But if you’re that uncomfortable with just letting certain parts of life exist without extra stimulation, then I’d say that’s a huge sign that you need to do this for HEALTHY HABITS. You may find yourself overthinking things a lot less.

You very well may feel less anxious, and less neurotic, and you’ll be a lot more present, which will help you connect more with God, your community, and your loved ones with HEALTHY HABITS. You’ll also be a lot more self-aware, which will make you more intentional with your behavior, your words, your choices, etc.

Drink filtered And Remineralize Water

Drink filtered water and remineralize your water every year it seems as though more and more studies are coming out about the contaminants in our drinking water, and yet very little action is taken. But even if there is progress made on this, it will take years to see it have an effect on our drinking water.

Over 42000 sources of contamination in our drinking water is present in the US. One report found PFAS in almost every sample of water tested, and these forever chemicals are linked to reproductive and developmental issues, cancer, high cholesterol, and more. And have you all even seen what tap water pipes look like?

What you can do now is filter your water for HEALTHY HABITS. Also, I suggest considering getting a water filter for your shower, because your skin is very porous and you could be potentially absorbing some unwanted contaminants through your shower water. I use the Cluey filtered water filter myself for drinking and the Aqua Bliss shower filter.

I also recommend remineralizing your water to make up for any beneficial minerals your water may have lost during the filtering process for HEALTHY HABITS. You can easily remineralize your water with mineral drops or with pure sea salt.

Hormonal Birth Control

Lastly for HEALTHY HABITS, make an informed decision about birth control. Now, this is less of a healthy habit and more of a lifestyle choice, not only for the body but how much it has negatively impacted society as a whole for HEALTHY HABITS. I first read about the truth about birth control in the book Adam and Eve After the Pill. Very important stuff.

I’m not sure if you can see it, but it’s very important stuff for HEALTHY HABITS, a very important book, and I recommend everyone to read it. But just as an overview of the advancement of reproductive freedom, many did not consider the long-term risks of telling women that they don’t need to have a period.

I would have loved to know before I went on hormonal birth control for five years with a hormonal IUD that I could fix my frequent periods, my heavy periods, and my intense cramping, without completely shutting down my system. I did not have a menstrual cycle for five entire years. I was not taught the mechanisms that cause heavy bleeding, cyst formation, etc.

Instead, they advised me to shut down my systems and that the symptoms would stop again. We are failing women by acting like their menstrual cycle is not necessary. According to Elizabeth Kissling, a Ph.D., long-term mental suppression via birth control is the largest uncontrolled medical experiment in history for HEALTHY HABITS.

We are teaching women that a natural function of their body is either not good for them or not needed and that if a woman has issues relating to her reproductive system, like to heavy periods, no periods, intense cramping, etc, we should shut down her cycle with birth control instead of treating the underlying imbalance that’s causing the symptoms in the first place. The first question should be why is this woman having such heavy periods?

Or why is she having no period instead of how do I shut down her system with synthetic hormones, thereby not treating the root cause? We’re putting the risks of chronic health issues on women by handing out birth control pills and IUDs as if there are no long-term effects of menstrual suppression.

It has become acceptable to avoid a menstrual cycle just because of the inconvenience that’s not a HEALTHY HABITS at all. But in doing so, we are ignoring the fact that the menstrual cycle is an important indicator of health for women. Hormonal birth control throws off your natural biological clock because it obviously changes your hormonal matrix with synthetic hormones.

And not only that, but it can affect your body’s absorption and utilization of nutrients. It can cause depression. It can literally change what kind of man you’re attracted to. So I am not telling you to make a certain choice about your hormonal birth control for HEALTHY HABITS.

But I will not ever go on hormonal birth control ever again with what I now know about it for HEALTHY HABITS. And I wish I had gotten this information before I got the IUD. so that I could have made an informed decision for HEALTHY HABITS. I recommend the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility for some methods about how you can avoid pregnancy naturally without shutting down your system. Well, that is about it for HEALTHY HABITS. May God bless you with HEALTHY HABITS.