Does ovulation need to happen every cycle? A healthy cycle includes a healthy ovulation but sometimes we don’t ovulate. Calee Shea, INHC, HHP, talks about why we do not ovulate and why is may be happening

What is ovulation?

🥚 Ovulation is what happens when an egg “drops” or bursts from its sack and is now ready to be fertilized with sperm to potentially make a baby. The ovulation window is actually not very long, although we give it about 24 hours.

It is when the body releases an egg in preparation for fertilization and then pregnancy. If pregnancy doesn’t occur, we have a period no more than 17 days later

Ovulation is an essential part of the cycle because this is the only way we produce progesterone!

Why does Progesterone matter?

Progesterone is a hormone your body make naturally. Progesterone’s main job is to support a healthy pregnancy, but it also does some other really crucial shit👏

For example, it balances estrogen.

While estrogen has lots of good jobs, too much estrogen can be harmful to the body – possibly leading to heavy periods, hormone imbalance, breast cancer, PMS, sadness, feelings of anxiety, and more.

Progesterone #werks to counteract all of that 👏🏼

It reduces inflammation, helps build muscle, protects our bones, promotes sleep, and calms the nervous system.

🔮✨ But here’s where the real magic happens: progesterone converts to a neurosteroid called allopregnanolone.

Allogpregnanolone helps support our brain health and basically works as an anti-depressant.

Low levels of alloprgnanolone have been linked to anxiety, PMDD, depression, and postpartum depression‼️

You can think of progesterone as this calming, mood-enhancing fabulous little hormone, and without enough of it, we can really feel the effects.

🥚 So how do we make sure we get more progesterone? Well, the body produces progesterone as a result of a healthy ovulation.

What if you don’t ovulate?

Well, when we DON’T ovulate – this is called an anovulatory cycle.

It can be normal to have an occasional anovulatory cycle, but it is a red flag if this is happening regularly

Reasons for anovulatory cycles could be:

• Stress
• Undereating
• Overexercising
• Hormonal imbalances
• Unhealthy weight (underweight or overweight)

Note: If you are on hormonal birth control, you’re likely not having ovulatory cycles. The point of most forms of HBC is to prevent ovulation from happening in the first place. This is one of the issues with HBC’s is that on many of them we do not get to ovulate and tehrefor we are not able to naturally produce progesterone.

How to know if you’re ovulating?

Track your BBT! This is one of the reasons I teach FAM to Hormone Bootcamp members – seeing that we’re ovulating regularly is key to ensuring we’re having healthy cycles.

Save your seat in Hormone Bootcamp Now>> Learn More Here

Want to learn more? Listen to Episode 11 of the Get Cliterate Podcast to learn more about why ovulation is important!

Let’s continue the conversation inside my *SECRET* Facebook Community >> Join the Community!

Want to keep diving into your Hormone Health? Click here to read more from Calee’s Blog!