Maisie Hill - Period Power: Harness Your Hormones and Get Your Cycle Working For You

To Mum, for sowing the seeds of everything in this book.

And to Christine, for bringing them all to life.

Contents

Thank you to everybody at Bloomsbury: to my editor, Charlotte Croft, when we met I knew that you understood the importance of Period Power and that you would be as dedicated to it as I am. Im incredibly thankful to you and Holly Jarrald for your enthusiasm and hard work, for asking all the questions that needed to be asked, and for not making me cut the forty thousand extra words that ended up in this book. Thank you to Katherine Macpherson and Lizzy Ewer for getting it out there in the world, to Helen Crawford-White for the perfect cover, and to Jasmine Parker for bringing my words to life with your beautiful illustrations.

Thank you to Julia Silk, my fabulous agent, it was you who told me that I had something, who pushed me to crack on when I was in the depths of motherhood and had no idea how to answer your emails let alone write a book, and you who held my hand in so many ways over the past year and put a glass of wine in it too.

I am indebted to Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer for introducing me to the inner seasons of the cycle, for allowing me to use them in this book, and for your part in changing my own experience of my cycle, thank you.

My heartfelt thanks go to Jane Bennett, Layla Saad, Mars Lord, Holly Grigg-Spall, Sarah Gottesdiener, Catarina, Sandra, Natalie, Cass Bliss, and Kenny Jones for allowing me to use your words this book is better for them. Thank you to my clients whove allowed me to use their stories anonymously. Thank you to Dr. Carrie Jones for agreeing to proofread the book and for helping me to sort out the niggles. Thank you to Ash Ambirge for coining The Cycle Strategy, and to Jen Sincero for your goat story.

Thank you to my friends and teachers who have inspired, challenged and educated me: Christine Hall, Hilary Lewin, Rosita Arvigo, Diane Macdonald, Nicole Jardim, Jessica Drummond, Giusi Pezzotta, Jani White, Martin Benwell, Kim Wager, Ian Appleyard, Nicola Goodall, Kicki Hansard, Naomi Absalom, and Michaela Christmann. Thank you to Reina James for your wisdom and gentle guidance, for helping me to know myself and my place in the world. Lisa Lister, for telling me that the world needs my medicine the words that kept me going through it all. Thank you, Jason Stein, for repeatedly telling me to write, and to everyone in the Heart Crew for holding me as I figured it all out. Pippa Wright and Brigid Moss, your early interest and encouragement was what initiated this whole process, thank you. To Sophie Heawood for quoting me. And to my junior school teacher, Mrs Thompson, who told me that I could write and that I should.

Thank you to Amy Redmond and Anna Jones, my most fervent supporters, for your belief in me and this work and your eagerness to shout about it. Thank you to every single woman who has shared their experiences with me, whether its been in my treatment room, the labour ward, on one of my workshops, or on a bus, thank you for that privilege.

To my friends: Holly Barringer, Ainslie McLennan, Charlotte Frische, Sharmin and Fergus Jackson, Anna Batchelor, Samantha Holmes, Andy Allen, and Nikole Lowe. Thank you to the women of Margate for all your encouragement, particularly Gemma Pearson, Catherine Dawson, Anna Fewster, Cynthia Lawrence John, Jenefer Odell, and Rosie Ray. To everyone in The Rabbit Hole, thank you for giving me a place to rage and celebrate, and for all your support as I negotiated work and motherhood. Rebecca Schiller, thank you for showing me that it could be done, for telling me I needed an agent, introducing me to Julia, and for doula-ing me through the deadlines. Thank you to Boe and Henry at Mar Mar, your coffee and croissants fuelled this book and your stunning plants aided the process too. Thank you to Richard and Craig for being such awesome neighbours, for all the moments of peace you gave me, and for feigning interest in vaginas. Thank you to Paula Toogood and everyone at Space for Play for taking such good care of Nelson, this book would not have been possible without you.

Natalie and Christos Georgas, thank you for your generosity and support. Nat, you picked me up when I was collapsing and always knew how to get me going again, you have saved me on an almost daily basis and I am eternally grateful for your friendship.

Octavia Bright, like a sea goddess sent to help me, you arrived in Margate as I started writing and left as I came to the end. When I found myself in turbulent waters, you were there to either smooth them or get me to dig deeper. I hope that as you read this book youll feel the marks of our conversations. Thank you.

Thank you, Mum, for your love and belief in me everything in this book came from you. Sam, there arent enough words to describe what you mean to me, Im proud to call you my brother and my friend and Im grateful for all the ways in which you have helped me and for how you continue to inspire me. Thank you to my son Nelson, your arrival in the world made me want to be better, and so much of this book was written in my head on the many, many occasions when I was up feeding you in the night. And finally, thank you to Paul, for your love and belief in me, for being my safe place, for all the things youve done so that I could achieve my dream, for letting me go to do it and for still being there when it was done. You are my favourite human.

, so if theres a term that youre unsure of, head there for a quick explanation.

In my profession as a womens health specialist I get asked a lot of questions; questions that my clients have had since they were 13 that they still dont have the answers to in their thirties. Questions that usually begin with why, such as:

Why is my period so painful/short/light/long/heavy?

Why are they so frequent/irregular/rare?

Why have they stopped altogether?

Why do I feel so great one week and so bloody awful the next?

Why is my vagina so dry/wet/sensitive?

Why does sex hurt sometimes/all the time?

Why dont I want to have sex?

Why am I so horny?

Why am I so goddamn tired all the time?

Why do I get so bloated that my dress size jumps up by two sizes?

Why do I feel anxious/stressed/depressed?

Why am I so filled with rage?

The answer to all those questions is its your hormones. Apart, that is, from the rage you feel; that rage is because women do the bulk of unpaid work and emotional labour in society, and that shit is exhausting, so its your hormones that are trying to alert you to this gross imbalance.

Hormones rule the lives of all humans not just women. They are the chemical messengers, secreted by the glands in your body, which travel through your bloodstream to their target organs and tissues, giving instruction on processes that need to be carried out in order to regulate your health and behaviour. When you feel hangry (hungry and angry) they tell you that you need to eat something, when youre stressed they get your blood pumping so that you can put up a fight or do a runner, and at the end of the day they let you know that its time to go to bed. They also control your menstrual cycles and cause or contribute towards the variations in energy, mood, sexual desire, and changes to your body and behaviour that you experience as you transition through each menstrual cycle.

In the coming chapters, Im going to give you all you need to make sense of your cycle. Ill offer accessible and practical suggestions through which you can improve your symptoms, and well focus on particular milestones that require an altered approach, such as the teen years, using hormonal birth control, infertility, pregnancy, motherhood and the perimenopausal years. This is The Cycle Strategy, which youll come to know as your secret weapon when it comes to improving your relationships, career and health.