[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Sexology, a podcast that untangles the science of sex and pleasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, with this week's episode, your host, Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Naseneen Moali.
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back to this Exology podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm your host, Dr. Nazanine Mowali, and today we're diving into one of my favorite topics how to understand your body in a way that actually transforms your pleasure.
[SPEAKER_03]: So many of us move through life disconnected from our own internal rhythms, our hormones, our cycles, our energy and our desire.
[SPEAKER_03]: We feel the shifts, but we never thought how to understand what our body is trying to tell us.
[SPEAKER_03]: What if tracking your help could become one of the most powerful erotic tools you have?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's exactly what today's guests explore in their new book, and the way they bridge science and sexual well-being is nothing short of enlightening.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm joined by Laura of Federico, Psychotherapist and ASAC certified sex and relationship therapists and Morgan Miller certified professional midwife lactation consultant,
[SPEAKER_03]: activists unfounder of her own birth center.
[SPEAKER_03]: But before we jump in, I want to thank our sponsor, Filty Milks Podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: I cannot get enough of how engaging, bold and honest the hostar.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ellen Anzui and Sophie Levine bring this joyfully filthy, deeply refreshing energy to every conversations about sex, aging, confidence and pleasure.
[SPEAKER_03]: What I especially love is the range.
[SPEAKER_03]: you'll hear insights from sexologists, hormone therapy specialists, and world-class sexual health experts.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you'll also get raw personal conversations with filmmakers, authors, sex workers, swingers and more.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Sexology podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am so excited to welcome Laura Federico and Morgan Miller to our show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to our show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for having us.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was just sharing with you to that how useful I found your book.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for sending it to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I gave me an idea as some things I can try,
[SPEAKER_03]: as front hand center and even healthcare providers mind.
[SPEAKER_03]: So can you tell us what inspired you to write this book?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm so glad some of that mind body connection resonated with you because that is really where Morgan and I are coming from.
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_01]: We each are in private practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a sex therapist.
[SPEAKER_01]: Morgan is a midwife and over the years we have seen coming through our doors, over and over and over again, people who do not have this really important information about how their bodies work, about what the hormonal cycle means for them, about how to understand the impact of all different types of hormones,
[SPEAKER_01]: hormone replacement therapy purposes or gender-affirming hormone therapy.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are so many ways that hormones can impact how we feel.
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, I came to CycleTracking personally in a moment of real kind of internal crisis.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was coping with secondary infertility.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have PMDD, which is pre-emensural
[SPEAKER_01]: the combination of the fertility medications and my PMDD and the lack of information about that meant that I was really lost and really unsure of how to best take care of myself and I turned to Morgan, who's not only an amazing midwife, but one of my closest friends for the past 20 years and
[SPEAKER_01]: asked her for help and she taught me about cycle tracking and the process of being able to understand in my own body what those hormones were communicating to feel comfortable with that information and then to make choices for myself was beyond life changing and then I saw that pattern repeated over and over and over again in all of the people walking through my door.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know Morgan has her own
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I really came to
[SPEAKER_02]: this work through my own healthcare experiences in a similar fashion.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am one of many people in the world who have a condition called endometriosis, which for me presents with extremely painful periods, and that started when I was quite young.
[SPEAKER_02]: It took me about 15 years to get a diagnosis for that, and so I was a person in the world having extreme pain regularly, having to go to the ER,
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, very extreme responses and so many, many doctors, but never really got answers, felt dismissed or told that my pain didn't significantly matter or, you know, was told to get on the birth control pill or for just a series of events that left me with more questions than I started out with.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I kind of went out on my own to dig into the answers of,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, what was happening in my body, why that was the experience I was having and figure out what I could do to make myself feel better.
[SPEAKER_02]: I eventually in the process kind of accidentally became a mid-wise.
[SPEAKER_02]: As I was digging into all of that, and that's where I really more formally got into cycle tracking as I...
[SPEAKER_02]: started to get my own diagnosis for endometriosis and understand how I could set up some more supportive measures for my life and how that would feel.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've really devoted a lot of the work that I do professionally from that experience of feeling.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I didn't have enough information.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even the providers that I was working with didn't have enough information, you know, really calling out that systemic injustice that we have where women's bodies are just not being studied.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have enough research providers aren't being trained.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's just the huge gap in what it looks like care for our body.
[SPEAKER_02]: is these days and I've devoted my career to trying to make that not feel as heavy for people and give people tools so that they can feel empowered and feeling control and have that connection back with their body that we were never taught to have.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm grateful that you guys are sharing your personal experiences and develop tools that you were willing to share with other people because they feel it's hard to be a woman or like a little bit older in this day and age because there is this messaging that we all like to focus on productivity, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We have single way of looking at things.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you don't want to be that Renaissance woman that's moody, right, when we're kind of talking about hormones or is this kind of like negative connotation at really, you know, like oh, your woman maybe you're not as strong or your hormones change.
[SPEAKER_03]: Even in therapy sessions, I might be the experience that you guys have, but sometimes I have couples, cisgender, heterosexual couples, and the husband says, oh, she's feeling so, because her period is coming soon, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So, which is very invalidating and not empowering.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, although hormones are very important, I'm going to share my experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: it's just tricky topic to kind of like an explore and talk about.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I appreciate you guys are bringing it up similar with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're talking about Laura.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had my own fertility journey and I always knew like my mom had postpartum psychosis and my sister had really bad postpartum depression and that's why I didn't want to do, I was hesitant to have biological children.
[SPEAKER_03]: And when I went
[SPEAKER_03]: I VF Treatment, oh my god, I feel like someone hijacked my personality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: What's like, go at D.D.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do we know that?
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like a totally different person.
[SPEAKER_03]: And kind of amplified although on regular times, our hormones are not shifting as much.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it can impact our lived experiences.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think he can give people information, it's cycle tracking to understand themselves by their in a way hack their kind of like livestock that would serve
[SPEAKER_03]: Morgan, you talked about endometriosis.
[SPEAKER_03]: He told us for our lessons that they're now familiar with that, what they're starting to tell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Intimitriosis is a condition where, you know, normally when you have a period, you have endometriol cells that are inside your uterus.
[SPEAKER_02]: And those are the things that kind of fluff up every cycle and then turn into that bleeding phase.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what slucks off and you see as bleeding during your period.
[SPEAKER_02]: For people with endometriosis, some of those cells exist in places other than the inside of their uterus.
[SPEAKER_02]: depending on where they are in the body and what that information looks like.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the experience that I've had, which has led to extreme periods since my first period is really.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's relatively common, but it also gets missed diagnosed or like, it doesn't get diagnosed.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why do you think, like, medical provider are missing something that's relatively common?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this speaks to the historical systemic issues that we're still dealing with today.
[SPEAKER_01]: When it comes to bias, when it comes to lack of actual research on menstruating bodies, most of the medical research is done on male bodies and male cells.
[SPEAKER_01]: and even when there is research done on body with the hormonal cycle, it's done during the follicular phase so that we're not actually getting a lot of good information about how the body works and how pain is experienced.
[SPEAKER_01]: So not only is there that historical systemic discrimination, but we're really not taking women's pain seriously.
[SPEAKER_01]: The
[SPEAKER_01]: The hysteria diagnosis unfortunately lives on today right all of the follow from that is still something that we're dealing with and there's this cycle where there's not only a sort of trust issue with patients who are used to going to a provider.
[SPEAKER_01]: not really being seen and heard, but there's also an issue with the providers, not getting enough information themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we see that there's kind of this cycle.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not enough information in how providers are themselves given the information.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not enough done to undo the damage of some of this historical systemic bias.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the patients when they show up because of their lived experience aren't really
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we have a lot of these kind of barriers to real collaborative care so that when there's something where the presentation is pain around something that still has stigma like the menstrual cycle and you can't really see it we're seeing that that kind of confluence of factors means that something like endometriosis is still dismissed at far higher rates than other medical conditions.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that framing of how people are mistrusting the providers and we don't have solid research around this.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's why you think your book is wonderful because I generally feel like no many physicians, people and healthcare providers, they want to support people.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if we give them information and tools, that can help them with the diagnosis.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I know
[SPEAKER_03]: different ways of navigating the information that you can present it to others and understand it yourself.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know from many of our listeners, they're probably curious about, okay, if I want to improve my desire, maybe perhaps let's start with people that they have no health concern, they just want to improve their experience of sexual pleasure.
[SPEAKER_03]: what do you suggest them to track?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love that question and so often when we're talking about something like tracking, we're talking about what doesn't feel good and what we really want to introduce to everyone is that
[SPEAKER_01]: tracking is really this process of listening to your body and the signals that your hormones are sending to.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are your hormones communicating to?
[SPEAKER_01]: And that can be a lot of really, really good stuff too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we're talking about desire, when we're talking about arousal, the first thing that we want to encourage people to do is ask themselves,
[SPEAKER_01]: what are the things that they want to feel more of?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I'm working with people and we're talking about wanting to feel more aroused, wanting to feel more connected, sexually, I'm really asking them, what does that mean for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so some common things that I hear, people want to feel a sense of fantasy,
[SPEAKER_01]: more and so that can be actual thoughts of fantasy that can be acting out fantasy that can be feeling curious about something that can feel like a fantasy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a really great thing to track.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're used to thinking like, okay, we're just talking about like feeling very, very turned on or having sex.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're really expanding that another thing that we often track when it comes to arousal and desire for people is how do you feel when it comes to the idea of closeness?
[SPEAKER_01]: And by that I mean just physical closeness with another person.
[SPEAKER_01]: If there's a part of your cycle where you're noticing that you are not interested in being touched, that's really good information to have.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're noticing that there's a part of your cycle where you're really open to touch, that's a great runway.
[SPEAKER_01]: to a rousal, to desire, to connection.
[SPEAKER_01]: So really thinking about some of these things that are really putting the gas on and how you want to kind of think about those, how you want to track those.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's always the things like noticing changes in lubrication, noticing changes in how your arousal is
[SPEAKER_01]: expressed through felt touch there are times when feeling like a touch feels like it's you know turning you into a feeling of fire and times when touch is just very much not on the table and so really just getting into what are some of the foundational pieces of what arousal and desire mean for you and how do we begin noticing those?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's so important to kind of like focusing on perceived experiences, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that in the book for people that are interested together.
[SPEAKER_03]: You talk about different changes in bodily fluid or carac body temperature.
[SPEAKER_03]: Those are also very valid, but also there is kind of a subjective experience that can be very meaningful if you're tracking it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And for people that they don't know much about hormones,
[SPEAKER_03]: What are some of those absent flows like show kind of based on our hormones?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, for example, you talked about dryness that I know many women complain about.
[SPEAKER_03]: What are some of the internal shifts that could show that this could be the reason they're experiencing dryness?
[SPEAKER_02]: So there are some physical factors that are responsive to the hormonal fluctuations that happen in the menstrual cycle, and that definitely affects body fluid.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the one that most people have familiarity with in our comfortable with is the bleeding phase, because it's very obvious, and you usually have to set up some kind of practical thing around it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But throughout the cycle, there's other hormones that create other body fluids.
[SPEAKER_02]: particularly around ovulation.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a fluid called cervical fluid that presents that's quite slippery and slick and very reminiscent of arousal fluid that people might experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it shows up regardless of scenario.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is there at the space in the cycle.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's a big signifier for people that is often helpful to understand what's happening hormonally in their body.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another thing that's normal around body fluids in the menstrual cycle is that in between phases of bleeding or that cervical fluid that's so slippery, there are sometimes drier areas of the cycle where that tissue is a little bit more dry or there's a little bit more of the normal healthy vaginal cell sluff off, which might show up as like a creamy or lotiony discharge.
[SPEAKER_02]: and that would be totally normal too.
[SPEAKER_02]: So finding out how that shows up in your cycle and how that feels just in that physicality is so helpful and can be so grounding as people start to explore some of, as you were saying, some of those more subjective categories where they're exploring aspects of their sexuality and their lives and what's functioning and happening and putting it in the context of those kind of grounding hormone changes.
[SPEAKER_02]: can be so helpful to understand why the mentality is in place as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And those are things that will change in a lifetime as well where people might experience changes where they may have less of that cervical fluid as they start to enter into perimenopause.
[SPEAKER_02]: and or more of that vaginal dryness just because the levels of estrogen change in our bodies and that has a lot to do with that kind of tissue elasticity.
[SPEAKER_02]: So sometimes when we're exploring things around pain with sex or reduced levels of arousal or desire it might have to do with this hormonal and physical factor that's a physiologic thing rather than a relationship based
[SPEAKER_01]: interpretation of what's going on because a lot of times I see people who are like, oh my God, I'm dry and I wasn't before there must be something wrong with me or there must be something wrong with my relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: But understanding that hormonal shifts can contribute to how that vaginal tissue feels and what that lubrication looks like.
[SPEAKER_01]: is a totally different framework because then it's okay, like how do we add in and find the right type of loop during those times?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we make sure if there's some of that vaginal tissue thinning that we are supporting that through maybe pelvic floor physical therapy or we are communicating what hurts and what doesn't with our partner, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's so many more supportive options, rather than oh my god I'm broken, this relationship is doomed.
[SPEAKER_03]: But you brought up such an important point, though, where I would kind of have the four play piece.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, many times people feel that, oh, my partner is not turning me on, or we don't do an out four play, but sometimes maybe there are, like, depending on where we are in cycle, if I could be kind of like internal, kind of like changes.
[SPEAKER_03]: or it could be relation or it could be both.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's very helpful to have different lenses, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: That's how I think about these are the co-founding factors.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me kind of maybe address parts of it and see if the system changes or not.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's nothing wrong with using loops.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love, I personally love loops.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think it's also helpful to know that, okay, what is happening with my body, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: The agency piece also is very, very important.
[SPEAKER_03]: You talk about in different stages, more than that body change, or body changes, and that's just part of being human.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm so glad now there are more.
[SPEAKER_03]: Information, more education about Permanent Apostle Gears.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're talking about these experiences.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we had the episodes recently that, for example, one of our listeners talk about how she's been learning more sex, actually, in Permanent Apostles.
[SPEAKER_03]: We talked about how our psychological things, life changes, can impact our hormones.
[SPEAKER_03]: But for people in Permanent Apostles,
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you tell us what can, what do you recommend them to try and how hormonal psychological and relational strategies impacting that face?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I love cycle tracking for pairing menopause.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like it's one of the more helpful things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially when you've lived your life however long at this point and you've gotten kind of comfortable with what your cycles look like and suddenly they shift.
[SPEAKER_02]: It can feel really disruptive to understand like am I even in my own body?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even know if I recognize my body anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: And cycle tracking can be really anchoring through that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of those more common physical symptoms that people will describe with hairy menopause, like the temperature regulation, those like lovely hot flashes or night sweats that people experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are great things to track.
[SPEAKER_02]: They do correlate to estrogen.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just tells us how that hormone is changing in our body and progesterone as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think
[SPEAKER_02]: the other things that we were chatting about before around vaginal sensations can definitely be something worthwhile for tracking.
[SPEAKER_02]: If someone begins to experience pain with inner course or pain with any sort of touch in that area, that's really powerful to see how it's correlating to your hormones as they're changing.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of talk of Perry menopause that like what happens with your menstrual cycles, it just goes bananas.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like berserk and you can't project
[SPEAKER_02]: But for a lot of people, there are some general themes that do happen around cycles often, shortening just a little bit from what they were earlier in your life and then they start to link then a little bit later.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you start to look at more than just the bleeding phase and look at some of these other factors of how it feels to be in our bodies, you can see more of the nuance of each of those cycles and really figure out what's working for you in your life
[SPEAKER_02]: in particular the levels of estrogen and progesterone in our bodies really start to decrease and that can feel really dramatic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a big fan of tracking more than just those pain points but also tracking things that feel good in your body.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we can often find that when this estrogen and progesterone starts to dip in other ways, it's incredibly responsive to how we live
[SPEAKER_02]: If things are working or if things are not working for you, if there's different patterns in your life that could use some shifts, it's kind of this this moment that I feel like it can be really empower and for people if we let it where your ability to put up with.
[SPEAKER_02]: nonsense, diminishes a little bit, and you're a little bit more sensitive to say, you know what this doesn't work for me, and it shows up physically in our body with how some of these hormonal factors show up.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of it has to do with how cortisol interplays with progesterone, and it just has this heightened sensitivity and response to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it means that when you start tracking things beyond just the pain points and track when things are feeling good as well, you can really start to
[SPEAKER_02]: how to feel your best through that transition.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's awesome, really empowering for people in the same way you were just saying, there's maybe a client that's like, I was shocked that my desire and sex went through the roof through a carrying manopause.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hadn't been expecting that at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that can be really common for people as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: that is so helpful to know that I could call them in a way unveiling like what's happening underneath a colleague that I love she said that like you know I after the report they really learned that I don't like my husband.
[SPEAKER_03]: But look, now we're going at the ocean.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're in playflow.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now we're going through the wars.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just like, open my eyes.
[SPEAKER_03]: For majority of people, that's not the case, but it could give you insight and how things are working or not working.
[SPEAKER_03]: What other thing that I hear whenever I tend menopause permenopause talks, people say that focus on addressing a specific symptoms that bothers you.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think tracking can help you with that, for example, if like my issue is sleep issues or mood issues, kind of now I'm tackling that as an strategy instead of feeling that, oh my god, my body is disintegrating and I'm feeling this in power.
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing at a time or just a few things at a time is really helpful.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really helpful to track along with those things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's say it's sleep or insomnia or disruptive sleep, whatever that presents like for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whatever modality it is that you're adding in for support, it's so powerful to see what's actually working or not.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, sometimes people are experimenting with hormonal therapies, sometimes they're experimenting with acupuncture or with dietary changes or, you know, sleeping at a different time of day.
[SPEAKER_02]: All of these different factors and that's hard to know if you're just like,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, drawing spaghetti at the wall, which one is working, but that's where tracking can be really helpful to find out is this modality the thing that is giving me the results that I want is my body really responsive to it in the way that I'm hoping for it to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're right, and I think, for example, even with exercise, so I know many, many women struggle with self-imegitions during this season, and they say we try increasing what we use to do when we're not seeing results.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think, with tracking information, you can see, okay, in this season, assessing what's working and what's not working.
[SPEAKER_01]: absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say that Morgan and I are about as steeped in cycle tracking as you could be we're saturated in this at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: And still for me, when I do my tracking, when I look back on my last cycle, what I thought was happening in my kind of like,
[SPEAKER_01]: mind's narrative and what I actually see on paper is always wildly different.
[SPEAKER_01]: The way that we feel when we are just kind of keeping track ourselves is not really as reliable as seeing it on paper and sometimes that can change everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see this all the time with my clients.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we're tracking some of the positive experiences and not just the negatives, I can see a total change in how they
[SPEAKER_01]: simply by spending the time to every day notice, when was I feeling comfort?
[SPEAKER_01]: When was I feeling safe?
[SPEAKER_01]: When was I feeling good?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or were talking about sex?
[SPEAKER_01]: When was I feeling desire?
[SPEAKER_01]: When was I having that fantasy?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the story that we often tell ourselves is, oh my god, I didn't have a single fantasy.
[SPEAKER_01]: entire last month.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am in a really bad place.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when we turn and see, we're like, oh my god, I saw half of the month, I had fantasies.
[SPEAKER_01]: I worked out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was fantasizing that day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the totally changes the way that we see ourselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think Perry meant a pause.
[SPEAKER_01]: is a really good example of that because there are so many negative messages that we are receiving about how bad this transition is going to make us feel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we are looking at it differently and empowering ourselves to actually take note of what's going on in our bodies, that can change the entire course of that time for us.
[SPEAKER_03]: I agree with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think as someone that's like, I, I met times get kind of hooked in the story.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have to be productive all the time and I get surprised with noticing internal experiences, like how it impacts my mood.
[SPEAKER_03]: and even kind of with someone that's having the family history of hormonal sensitivity, as sometimes talk about PMDD right before my period.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like, oh my God, why world is just so one safe.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, world is there are times of, but it's unsafe, I get it, but like you get high percent sensitivity to that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's very interesting that with your gathering information, then it can give you a sense of more of an empowerment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I bet our listeners are very curious about your book.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you tell us a little bit about what they can find in the book and where can they get it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we designed this book to be useful to a provider, to be useful to.
[SPEAKER_01]: any single person who is experiencing a hormonal cycle and we designed it to be a very easy, lovely, mindful, daily experience of less than a few minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we walk you through everything to know that your sex ad did not teach you about how hormones show up in your body and all the ways that you can track them.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is really from a place of real care that Morgan and I created this, the feeling that there's information that we do not have and it's so important that we have it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We truly believe that we can't make good decisions for ourselves if we don't actually have information about what's happening in our bodies to be able to inform those decisions.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we want everyone to have access to that information.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so in the book, there's also over a year's worth of charts so that you can be tracking your cycles.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've set it up in a really beautiful way so that as Laura said, it's so easy and simple.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't actually functionally take you very much time every day to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can keep it on your bedside table or carry it on your purse whenever it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And do some quick little notes there, but what's really great about the tracking charts is that after each chart there's another form that shows you exactly how to break down the information and see the patterns and understand is this thing I was tracking hormonally related or is it maybe life related maybe it has more to do with my job at less to do with my hormones.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a total breakdown so that you can decipher that information, see what the patterns are, and choose what you want to do with that information.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you want to follow up with your therapist about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you want to follow up with your primary care provider.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you want to get a prescription based on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a guide also in the book on how do you take this information and take it to other support system, so that you can get the care that you need it and ultimately you might decide, hey, all I needed was this understanding and now I have grounding and I get it and I feel good in my body with this knowledge is totally up to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We also put this information in a book for a very specific reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that a lot of people are using apps to track at least the bleeding phase of their cycle and in the spirit of wanting to provide information to people and wanting to provide safe pathways to that information, we
[SPEAKER_01]: really looked at how apps are functioning and if they're working for people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what we learned in the process of researching is that many apps are using predictive algorithms that are actually not very effective at accurately predicting the phases of the cycle.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the current statistic based on the research that's out there is that these apps are
[SPEAKER_01]: 20% effective at accurately predicting ovulation.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a really big deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Morgan and I both see people in our practices who have been operating and making life choices often around fertility based on faulty data.
[SPEAKER_01]: So something that we see is people who have been using their apps to time in our course for pregnancy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we see that people are saying, I've been trying,
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've been timing it and here's my app and pretty quickly we're able to see that that app is actually not giving them the accurate information and they've been missed timing all of that sort of past attempts at conception and it's really heartbreaking and
[SPEAKER_01]: We as providers feel really frustrated that that's the experience that a lot of people are having.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in order to take a step outside of that predictive algorithm and to really just be able to get data based on your individual body and what's going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that even within a fairly regular cycle, ovulation can happen at different days.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really normal based on a lot of different factors.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we want people to have really, really good information about what's going on in their body.
[SPEAKER_01]: pen and paper even though it's like very retro.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going totally analog here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We felt it was one of the best ways to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're also drawing a lot of mindfulness based techniques here in the ways in which we're really trying to make it easy for people to listen to their bodies and there's something actually really lovely about like writing something down like physically that we've noticed a lot of people really enjoy.
[SPEAKER_03]: incredible and I enjoyed reading the book, I enjoyed learning about the holistic approach when it comes to different seasons of life because I know in the book you have different seasons, different things that you want to focus on even if you don't want to get pregnant, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: To kind of like, what are some of the strategies that you can use and what how successful it is?
[SPEAKER_03]: I recommend people to get the book.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if they want to learn more about you guys, where can they find you?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you can find us on social media at the cyclebook.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is also the same for our website, thecyclebook.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's information about how to get in touch with Laura and I and our respective private practices as well through the website.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we are very much in love with talking people about their cycles.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can shoot us an email, you can DM us on Instagram, we'd love to hear about it all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can get the book anywhere, books are sold, hit up your local indie bookstore.
[SPEAKER_03]: amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think I saw it on an ASAC conference for you guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, included in the book store.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's like, oh, I got this book.
[SPEAKER_03]: So thank you for all the wonderful work that you're doing around grieving awareness around this book and all the wonderful work that you're doing over all two improving people's life and their help.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hopefully we can have you in our future episode.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for joining us today.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have to say I've been recommending Laura and Morgan's book non-stop.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's such a thoughtful empowering resource, and I've specially been loving the chapter on understanding period menopause and the full spectrum of symptoms that can show up during the transition.
[SPEAKER_03]: Their ability to break down complex hormonal shift in a way that feels validating
[SPEAKER_03]: If today's conversation sparked something in you, whether you curious to track your desire or you want to be more intentional about your body or your navigating desire changes, you're not alone and there are tools that can help.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you're wanting to take the next step in understanding your own desire,
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a free resource for you, a women's guide to revving sex stride.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's my free book that will help you to improve desire with science back compassionate strategies.
[SPEAKER_03]: The link is in the show knows and is completely free.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for listening, thank you for caring about sexual well-being, and I'll see you in the next episode of The Sexology Podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for listening to 6-Soliciate podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: For more great content, visit www.6-Soliciatepodcast.com.
[SPEAKER_03]: Please be advised that information presented on this podcast is not a substitute for seeking help from a licensed mental health provider.