Your Cycle Is More Predictable Than His Testosterone | Sarah Hill

0:01Sarah Hill:This is a Be Well Moment, the most replayed moments from my latest conversation. It's a glimpse into the wider episode, which you can find linked in the show notes below. Because sometimes one small moment is enough to reconnect to living well and being well.

0:22Sarah Ann Macklin:Do you think? I do.

0:24Sarah Hill:Do you think men get period brain? No.

0:26Sarah Ann Macklin:So I think that men get like sex brain and weapon brain and win or loss brain. Like I think that, you know, one of the things about men is because, you know, their primary sex hormone is testosterone and testosterone is dynamic in response to cues in the environment in ways that estrogen and progesterone do not. Right. So estrogen and progesterone is progesterone in particular, like will increase and decrease in response to a stress, for example. But in very small amounts, like the big generation of both estrogen and progesterone are from the ovaries. And it's just all about maturing the follicle, releasing an egg, having the corpus luteum releasing progesterone.

1:12Sarah Ann Macklin:And so that's very predictable and non-reactive, just in that, you know, if you are having a really good day, a really bad day, it's not like your estrogen and progesterone levels are going to be swinging wildly in response to that. And testosterone is dynamic and it responds to cues in the immediate environment in ways that estrogen and progesterone do not. And so men can experience wild swings in testosterone. I mean, one, it's got a circadian rhythm. So testosterone peaks in the morning and then decreases throughout the day and then is lowest in the evening. but it also, you know, men's testosterone production will increase again, you know, if they're around a beautiful woman, if they win a competition, if they lose a competition, it will decrease.

1:56Sarah Ann Macklin:If they're, um, you know, get laid off from their job or something, it will decrease. Um, women's hormones don't respond, you know, our primary sex hormones don't respond that way. Our testosterone responds that way too, right? So testosterone is really responsive. It's, it's like, it listens to what's happening in the environment, like your, your brain. And then it, it tells your endocrine system, like more testosterone when things are going well, and then less testosterone when things are going poorly. And so I think in some ways men, you know, they have to ride this rollercoaster in a little bit of a different way.

2:27Sarah Ann Macklin:And theirs is more erratic in some ways than ours is because ours is cyclical. You know, it's like, I, if you tell me like the, the age of a woman and the first day of her last menstrual cycle, I can tell you with pretty good amount of certainty, like what's happening with her primary sex hormones. And the same is not true for men. You tell me the time of day and you have to give me all sorts of other information about like, all right, has he won or lost anything recently? Or are there any beautiful women in the room? Like, is he in a relationship? Does he have children? Because these are all things that influence testosterone levels.

3:02Sarah Ann Macklin:And so I think that all of us are dynamic and just in different ways. And so I think that one of the best things that we can do for ourselves is just like really wrap our arms around that and begin to understand the different biological influences that shape our experience of being the person that we are and the way that we show up in the world.

3:23Sarah Hill:That's fair.

3:24Sarah Ann Macklin:That's totally fair. That's totally fair. I didn't always know either. Yeah. And I think that there's some version of the story about women's hormones and how they cycle that puts too fine a point on it. Where it's like, oh, how can you be in a bad mood? You're like right near ovulation. And it's like, well, how many times has a man said, oh, you and your period when you're angry? It infuriates me. Yeah, no. Yeah. No, that infuriates me too. And what's so funny about that is like when we're on our periods, our hormones are at their absolute lowest across the cycle. And so then if there is a problem with us when we're on our period it's because we're not hormonal enough you know so so we're depleted exactly so it's like i don't know being being hormonal there's there's a lot there's a lot of benefits

4:14Sarah Hill:to it thank you for listening to this be well moment if it resonated the full conversation is linked in the show notes and i hope it gave you a small pause to take a moment for you and to reconnect to living well and being well. If you loved it, please do leave a review, follow the show or share this maybe with someone you love.