Cycle
The menstrual cycle is a major driving force for women’s health and well-being throughout their reproductive years and well beyond. Even so, researchers have only recently started to take periods into account when designing studies; and in every-day life we are only now beginning to distance ourselves from the stigma associated with menstruation. To reclaim periods as a normal and even empowering experience, new approaches to how we view the menstrual cycle are emerging. For example, likening the phases of the menstrual cycle to the seasons of the year.
Cycle
Far from pleasant—this is how most women would describe their periods—even though menstruation is a completely normal, natural, and more or less regular process. However, menorrhagic menstruation is abnormally heavy bleeding often accompanied by severe cramps.
Cycle
The average menstrual cycle lasts 28 days. Our lives impact our hormones, and therefore our cycles—for example, stress can delay your period. Some variation is to be expected, but bigger fluctuations are reason to investigate.
