The four seasons of your cycle

Most of us were taught that a period is a monthly inconvenience. In reality, your cycle is a slow, four-part rhythm — a kind of internal weather that shapes energy, mood, appetite and skin from one week to the next.

Winter is your menstrual phase: hormones bottom out, energy softens, and your body asks for rest, iron and warmth. Spring follows as estrogen climbs — you'll notice sharper focus, brighter skin, more social pull.

Summer is a short, luminous window around ovulation. Confidence peaks; so does the urge to move, connect and create. Then autumn arrives with the luteal phase — progesterone rises, then falls, and PMS lives in that come-down.

The invitation isn't to fight any of it. It's to notice which season you're in and give your body what that season actually wants.