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Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.

The hashtag Luteal phase has become a quick way for women online to talk about that infamous two weeks before their period.

Your luteal phase will psychologically destroy you as a woman.

The bloating, the mood swings, the cravings, the fatigue.

It just sucks. It's worse than the actual period.

Face is puffy, my body's puffy. And this has led some folks online to take up the cycle-sinking method. It was really sort of codified in a book a couple of years ago by a woman named

Alyssa Vitti. She's not a medical doctor, but she's somebody who had bad experiences with her own menstrual cycle.

And what worked for her was calibrating different elements of her life to different phases of the cycle, including the ludial phase.

That is health and science reporter Lindsay Gelman.

She's been following how and why cycle sinking has become such a flashpoint in these spaces online.

This idea that if our body is telling us something, whether that's something is, hey, I'm tired, I could use some extra rest, or, hey, I don't feel like socializing.

I'd like to sort of withdraw.

The idea is that because your hormones and energy

levels are lower in the ludio phase, you should do lower impact exercise like yoga, eat foods

with a lower glycemic index, and even plan social events or work meetings around this time.

Being in tune with one's body feels really attractive.

According to Viti, we've been taught to plan our lives on the 24-hour circadian schedule,

which works well for men, but not for women.

...