Transition days: What they are and how they can mess with your cycle
Image: Sindy Sussengut via Unsplash
If you’ve ever found yourself having a day that felt completely off compared to the ones before and after it, a day where you felt you were stumbling in the dark or having an internal wobble where life just felt wrong, chances are that you were having a crossover or transition day.
Transition days are the spaces in the cycle where we move from one phase to the next
They were first recognised by the amazing founders of Red School who say that ‘some women notice them…because they stumble or are disrupted in quite distinct and occasionally intense ways.’
Just like the transitions in the natural world from winter to spring, spring to summer etc, it isn’t always plain sailing. As I write this, we’re in the emergence of spring and, while it’s beautiful and the flowers are blooming, there are days where it feels like we’re getting all seasons in one day. It’s that time of year where you don’t know whether to dress for spring or winter and, even without coronavirus, getting a cold and feeling run down is likely.
Think of a transition/crossover day as a pocket of turbulence that jolts the plane a little before it settles back down into smoothness. I recently described it as wanting to sit at a dining table with everyone else, but finding that your chair is turned the wrong way around. In your mind, you know that all you have to do is turn it the right way, but in reality it feels impossible.
Transitions, by their very nature, aren’t always easy to navigate, whether that’s in nature, life or the cycle.
For some, these days can be uncomfortable, kind of like wearing your knickers inside out but for others, they can be deeply disturbing, especially if there are any issues with mental health or trauma. However, like a lot of things in the menstrual arena, so much can be worked with when you start to get to know your cycle. The more you get to know your cycle and the places where you tend to trip up, the more you can support yourself.
There are four transition day points in the cycle:
Menstruation to pre-ovulation (inner winter to inner spring)
Pre-ovulation to ovulation (inner spring to inner summer)
Ovulation to premenstruation (inner summer to inner autumn)
Premenstruation to menstruation (inner autumn to inner winter)
The exact days of the cycle will vary from person to person. You might have just one day that feels like a transition, or a few.
Here are some tips for navigating crossover days:
Track your cycle
Keeping a record of what’s going on is key in smoothing out the transition day wobbles, because it may well be that you only identify them after the fact. You might know on an intellectual level that you’re not quite in spring and no quite in summer, but in reality, you might not make that connection at the time. The more you track, the more you know! Noting down things like how anxious, insecure, angry, tired or confused you feel throughout your cycle and then looking back on it can give you a wealth of info to use going forward.
Rest, rest, rest
Any period of transition is going to feel much harder when your’e exhausted, whether it’s moving house, travelling, going through a break up or moving through your cycle. Really, if there’s one thing the cycle wants to teach us, it’s about living in alignment with it. Honouring your need for rest as much as possible throughout your cycle will mean that going over those crossover roads won’t feel so bumpy.
Support yourself
You might find through tracking that you have a particular transition day(s) that trips you up constantly. This is an invitation to look at how you’re living in the phase directly before and after that. E.g. if you have a problematic winter to spring, it could be a signal to look at how you’re spending your time bleeding. Are you getting enough rest, eating well, tending to yourself and allowing your body to regenerate?
And with your spring, are you jumping out of the gate and expending all of your energy too quickly? Are you overwhelming yourself with the list of things you have to do? This can be especially true if you do rest well during your bleed, but shove all the work you have to catch up on in your inner spring, instead of spreading them throughout the cycle.
Be kind to yourself
If you know you’re in a transition phase, or that you have one coming up - give yourself grace. Showing yourself compassion and meeting yourself where you are can go just as far in working with your cycle as seed cycling and eating the ;right’ things at the ‘right’ time.
If you're struggling with your cycle and want to see how coaching can help, schedule your free 30min call with me or check out my menstrual cycle coaching space.