Not because we are afraid of being seen. But because being seen means being measured. It means putting something out into the world and finding out whether it was worth it.

That fear of falling short in plain view is what kept me quiet for a long time.

I come across health stories constantly. On TikTok, on here, across every platform and I always stop. I pause because of the vulnerability coming off my screen. The way someone can take an experience explained to them in a cold clinical room and translate it into something warm, relatable, and welcoming is so captivating. It almost feels like someone whispering across the screen “hey, me too.”

That feeling requires exposure. And exposure requires courage I was still building.

I launched this page seven months ago as a way to get my voice out there, but it has stayed largely faceless. My name is tucked into my bio, practically hidden if you do not go looking for it. Part of me called it a slow reveal. But honestly a part of me still believed my own health journey was not big enough to talk about.

It is. And so is yours.

The word that silenced me

For the longest time I have had horrible pain during the first days of my period. I have ended up in the emergency room for long hours multiple times because of it. The standard gauntlet followed every time, ultrasounds, blood tests, check-ups. And every single time, the results said the same thing.

Normal.

Even though I know how common misdiagnoses and structural delays are, I still internalised that word. I assumed that if my labs were normal, speaking up about my pain was not important. So I just modified my life instead. Constantly worrying about going on trips near my period. Calculating timelines. Stressing over the fact that the intensity of my pain is a complete surprise every single month.

But hiding it does not protect anyone. When we internalise normal, we leave everyone else to fall through the cracks too.

If this is the kind of conversation you want more of, The Grove publishes every Sunday. 🌸

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The woman on the other side of the screen

I recently saw a clip going viral of a speech Angelina Jolie gave years ago. She talked about how across the world there is a woman just like her with the same desires, the same work ethic, the same love for her family. Only she sits in a refugee camp. She has no voice. She has to worry about things we take for granted, like safety and survival.

It was honestly heartbreaking to hear.

Because there is a woman across the world right now experiencing the exact same blinding pain I described. The exact same confusion about her own body. But she does not have the same tools, the same resources, or the same access to information that I do.

The internet is a strange and overwhelming place. But its reach is undeniable. If I have access to information, research, and even just the language to describe what I am feeling because of where I happen to live, that is not something I take lightly. A single post from a friendly face can reach a screen thousands of miles away and give that exact same warmth that me too can give to someone who has been left completely in the dark by her environment.

What we share can ripple out in ways we will never fully see. I cannot help but hope that what I write here reaches someone, whether that is one person or five.

I am trying to step out from behind the curtain. Do you see me? Because I am trying to see you too.

Before I go your weekly update on what is actually happening in women’s health.

What is going on?

A weekly close-out where I share something happening in women’s health in terms of research, funding, and policy. A small way to stay informed together.

PFAS (known as forever chemicals) are synthetic chemicals that do not break down in the environment or in the body. They accumulate over time. New research published in April 2026 by an official journal of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, found that PFAS can cross critical physiological barriers and build up directly in female reproductive tissues, linking exposure to reduced fertility, preeclampsia, and preterm birth.

The vaginal tissue is one of the most absorbent areas of the body, significantly more so than regular skin. Conventional pads, tampons, and some period underwear brands have been found to contain PFAS in their absorbent layers. That means what touches you there monthly for decades is not a small or irrelevant exposure. It is direct, repeated contact in one of your most hormonally sensitive areas.

This is not about panic. It is about knowing what is worth paying attention to.

Xoxo The Grove 🌸

Previously On The Grove

What I mean is that with health struggles there is a sense of isolation that is created, but also loneliness can intensify these struggles.

I say this because I notice so many people navigating their health in silence. I have also noticed that this burden is not evenly distributed; some communities carry it much more heavily than others. Speaking from the perspective of a second-generation woman, this was not the dynamic in my own household, and I am grateful for that. However, I have seen it vividly in others, where discussing a health condition or chronic pain among women is treated almost like a whisper. Something to be kept behind closed doors.

Within immigrant communities specifically the relationship between health and isolation is so intensified. Pain, when it comes to health, almost becomes a matter of privacy.

First and second generation women carry this immense pressure to appear resilient, unbreakable, strong for everyone else. And that pressure pushes real symptoms (physical, mental, etc,) deep into the dark. A health concern quietly becomes a private secret instead. I think that privacy is one thing, but isolating to that extent under the pretences of resilience is unnecessary and harmful. It just makes your health journey a lot lonelier and scarier.

This is not to say “tell everyone everything”, but to encourage people to consider sharing with a few and let some people in.

If this is the kind of conversation you want more of, The Grove publishes every Sunday. 🌸

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What does community actually bring

There is such a grand value of community in all aspects of life. We talk about networking in the workforce, making friends in school, so why does health get left out of that conversation? I think it deserves the same kind of connection.

Maybe it is just how we are built. We are social creatures. From an evolutionary standpoint our survival depended on the tribe. I remember learning in school that the same reason humans get so many viruses is the same reason we thrive, because we interact, we travel, we connect. We were never meant to do this alone.

So why do we isolate ourselves when we are hurting.

I think we default to talking about health only on a massive scale, public health campaigns, awareness months, big population level conversations. Important, yes. But I think we forget health is just as much a conversation for the small, private communities we choose for ourselves. The few people we actually let in.

To me, community brings: Comfort, Support, Shared experience, Resources, Options, Confidence, Direction, and Growth.

With a community I think we reduce the loneliness. We reduce the scarcity. We reduce the exhausting need to individually figure everything out on our own. That community (beyond your household) could be four people. It could be two. It could be ten. It does not even mean you need to be super close. It just means you have someone to ask questions to, to relate to, to understand.

What if someone out there has the exact same condition or concern as you, and they have a resource that saved them. If you never interact with that person, you will never know, will you? But if you do, then guess what? Their resource is now yours. That doctor, that knowledge, that peace and rest will support something you never knew you were holding all on your own, simply because you were just used to being in scarcity.

If you want a lighter example of how stark the contrast is between a cold environment and a supportive village, look at Love Island. I have been an OG watcher way before the USA version ever existed, and one thing I loved beyond the romance was the friendships. That tight knit community you see because they are all sharing a wild experience. They have each other in there, and hopefully they support each other outside of it too.

And I know this year particularly has a lot of varying opinions, but I will say I do prefer this season over the prior one. Not because of the individuals, but because I see actual friendships this year. I felt a real coldness amongst the girls and boys separately last year, and that made the show lose its spark, the show felt concerning on a mental health level and not as enjoyable as it used to be.

Bringing this back to women’s health

Community is a key part of our lives, woven into everything. Yet in women’s health, where the conversations are finally starting to grow, spaces for connection still remain incredibly sparse, and historical research gaps leave so many of us searching in the dark.

Which is why I find spaces like Substack so great. You will find women’s health pages here discussing their experiences, giving their advice and opinions, leaving it for you to decipher what you should take. But finding those right people can be so hard.

I want this space to be a place where people talk in my comments, find each other, and share resources. One of my goals on this platform is to be a sort of fuse for a community to grow. To help develop a grove (wink wink) that people can come to. Not for a direct, rigid do this and that manual, but for thoughts, real experiences, and who knows what else to come :)

Before I go… a quick update on what is happening in women’s health this week.

What’s going on?

A weekly close-out where I share something happening in women’s health in terms of research, funding, policy. A small way to stay informed together.

ARPA-H (Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health), is a federal agency that funds bold, high risk research aimed at major health breakthroughs. In 2024 they launched the Sprint for Women's Health, a $113 million initiative specifically funding projects in conditions that have been historically overlooked.

One worth knowing : Gravidas Diagnostics received funding to develop a point of care test for preeclampsia, something that currently requires expensive lab based testing and complicates 5 to 7% of pregnancies worldwide. Their goal is a test simple enough for a mother to use at home for early detection, instead of relying entirely on hospital infrastructure.

I thought this was cool because it is a small example of a much bigger shift, funding finally being directed toward making women’s health tools accessible outside of a sterile clinical environment, not just inside one. That’s all for this week!! Subscribe and stay tuned for what’s to come!!

Xoxo The Grove 🌸

Previously On The Grove

These questions started following me around recently after I kept seeing conversations circulating about what empowerment in women’s health actually looks like. And a particular paper pulled them into focus.

The Illusion of Empowerment: Commercialising Women’s Health in the Digital Age — published in Health Promotion International by researchers at the University of Sydney has an interesting perspective. One that I think deserves more nuance than it is getting in the conversations I have been seeing around it.

What the paper actually says

The researchers looked at four of femtech’s fastest growing categories : cycle tracking apps, direct to consumer hormone testing, menopause products, and elective egg freezing. Across all four the same pattern appeared. Unmet clinical need being repackaged as personal empowerment, with evidence lagging well behind the marketing.

Their argument is that when empowerment gets equated with buying something, fixing the actual system stops feeling urgent. Women who can afford to optimise do. Women who cannot remain underserved. And policymakers look at a booming market and conclude the gap is closing when it is not.

Their definition of true empowerment is worth quoting directly : adequately funded research, equitable access to high-value care, accountability for data governance, transparent regulation of digital tools, and both top-down policy regulation and industry self-regulation of misleading social media promotion.

I think they are right about a lot of this. The biggest structural changes in women’s health will come from more funding, more research, and changes in policy. That part is not up for debate.

But the paper misses something…

Where does the rest of us fit

The paper focuses almost entirely on systems. Policy. Funding. Regulation. And yes those things matter enormously. But the way this paper circulates online opens conversation that make it seem like every tool, every app, every social media post about their health is just a commercial trap. And I do not think that is a useful place to land.

Because where does the average person fit in this conversation in closing the gap, in empowering women in their health journey. The woman who is not in policy or healthcare or investment. The woman who has kids and a full time job and has never had time to put herself first. The woman who found out what a luteal phase was from a TikTok at midnight.

Can she contribute to closing the gap. Does she have time. Is health even on her radar yet.

I think about this a lot. Because that woman is most of us. And the paper offers her no place to land.

What is free is understanding. A social media post explaining PMOS matters. A period tracking app telling someone for the first time that their cycle is irregular matters. A conversation in a comment section between two women who have never met but are navigating the exact same thing also matters.

Is that empowerment being commercialised. At times yes. But it is also sometimes genuinely the first time a woman has been given the language to describe something she has been living with for years.

This is where the value of discernment should be pushed. In my last article I spoke on how to be selective with the tools and services you bring in. I wrote that in hopes that it will help people navigate this overwhelming market without overconsumption.

The community of women that has been built on these platforms, the knowledge shared, the conversations had, the women who finally felt seen because of something they read online, that should not be dismissed. The way this conversation tends to circulate online opens room for a cynicism that goes further than the paper itself intends. And I think that is worth naming. The goal is not to stop engaging. It is to engage with more discernment.

If this is the kind of conversation you want more of The Grove publishes every Sunday. 🌸

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Understanding your social environment

Understanding your body is one part. But there is another layer that does not get talked about enough.

Understanding what is actually happening in women’s health in terms of the research being published, the funding being cut, the policies changing is just as important.

The paper argues the gap will mainly close through structural change. I think they are right. But the women who will push back loudest against that are the ones who already understand why it matters. And they understand why it matters because someone explained it to them in a language they could access.

That is where the two things connect.

Understanding your environment meaning, knowing what is being funded, what is being cut, what is changing in research and policy is how individual awareness becomes collective advocacy.

Words without meaning are noise. But words with context become something you can actually act on.

So this is my call out … Do not only focus on understanding your own body. Stay informed about what is happening in the world around it. That combination is what turns personal health literacy into something bigger than yourself.

What’s going on?

To build real acumen we have to look at the actual environment we exist in. I want to start ending every article with exactly that, real updates on research, policy, and funding so we stay informed together. I am learning too so we will figure this out as we go.

The Macro Reality: A comprehensive report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine highlights that tracking true investment in women's health remains a massive institutional hurdle. Deep structural gaps persist because medical models have historically failed to adequately analyse sex and gender differences at the root level. The male body was treated as the default. The female body was the exception. That framing shaped decades of research and we are still untangling it.

The Advocacy Movement: Global advocacy organisations like GENDRO are actively pushing to mandate sex specific data tracking in medical research. GENDRO is currently spearheading the SAGER@10 campaign. SAGER stands for Sex and Gender Equity in Research, which lobbies policymakers to implement gender responsive budgets and transform how clinical trials are run. The goal is to stop treating women’s health as a niche variable and start treating it as a baseline requirement.

It is not fast. But knowing it exists and who is pushing for it matters.

This paper offered something valuable, a moment of reflection on how I can contribute to closing the gaps in the ways available to me. Learn about what is happening in my social environment. Share what I find. Build the kind of informed community that creates pressure from the ground up.

I will keep sharing what I learn. We will keep figuring it out together.

Xoxo The Grove🌸

Previously On The Grove …

That question has been following me around lately. Especially after Oura announced it is now a healthcare company. Which I genuinely think is cool, but it opened something up for me.

If the market is finally starting paying attention to us how do I move through it without defaulting to mindless overconsumption. How do I figure out what actually holds value for my specific biology without pulling out my credit card for every shiny new thing that lands in my feed.

This is the framework I have been building for myself. And I think it applies anywhere.

Figure out your non negotiables

Before you look at a single product or company there are three questions worth sitting with first.

What do you already like. You have more data than you think. Everything you have already tried and either loved or disliked is information. Find the pattern. What did the things that worked have in common. What did the things that did not work share. That pattern tells you more about your non negotiables than any product description ever will.

• For me, I know I respond well to tools that give me data I can actually read and act on. Not vague predictions. Real numbers I can track over time. That narrows my list significantly before I even start researching.

What do you actually need. Not 100 things. Three. What is the specific problem you are trying to solve right now. What is the base level thing a product needs to do for you before anything else matters. Keep it that tight. Everything else is a bonus not a requirement.

• I want to reduce my menstrual pains. That is the base. Everything on my list gets evaluated against that first.

What are your values. Some principles are non negotiable regardless of how good a product sounds. Figure out if the company releasing it actually meets your standard before you go any further.

• For period products, I look for certifications verifying it is purely cotton. I look at whether it is founder owned versus a legacy brand. I look at their transparency around ingredients ( I look for certs). I have been seeing too much discourse about non cotton products containing chemicals that through prolonged skin contact in an open and absorbent area may be responsible for worsening period pain and long term effects. Some bigger brands have law suits for carcinogens in their products. That matters to me and it informs every purchase decision I make in this category.

Your values will be different. But knowing them before you start shopping saves you a lot of money and a lot of regret.

If this is the kind of conversation you want more of. The Grove publishes every Sunday. subscribe so you never miss it. 🌸

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Community and research

Once you know your non negotiables the next step is not a purchase. It is research.

Look at real opinions from real people. Not sponsored content. Not brand pages. Actual community conversations from people navigating the same things you are. There may not be someone in your close circle who has the exact same concern. But I guarantee there is someone out there who has already been through what you are trying to figure out and has left a comment about it somewhere.

Community is one of the most underrated research tools available to us. A shared experience from someone you have never met can tell you more about whether a product actually works than any clinical claim on a website.

Supplement your wants with that research. Now that you know what you need and what your values are you can start narrowing and looking at the specific details that matter.

Build your own list and share it

Here is something I started doing that has genuinely helped me cut through the noise.

I keep lists. Not shopping lists. Watch lists.

The idea is simple. Create categories based on what you are looking for : pad brands, supplements, wearable devices, apps, whatever is relevant to your health right now. Within each category you have two types of entries. Things you want to get. And things you are just watching.

The watching list is the important one. It is how you stay informed without overconsuming. You follow a company, you notice what they are building, you pay attention to how their research develops over time. Maybe it ends up being exactly what you need six months from now. Maybe it helps someone else in your community who has different needs. You share your list and that shared knowledge becomes its own form of community research.

Your list will change. Something that looked interesting might not match your non negotiables once you dig deeper. Cut it. Something new launches that fits perfectly. Add it. It is a living document not a commitment.

This is my current health tech watch list. I am not suggesting you use any of these. I am just showing you mine because sharing is the whole point.

Eli Health : daily saliva based testing tracking precise cortisol and progesterone patterns translated directly to your phone. On my watch list because the cortisol and cycle connection is something I want to understand better over time.

Mira : an at home analyser giving actual numerical hormone scores for LH, E3G, and PdG from urine test wands. Real numbers not predictions. Watching this for its ovulation tracking specifically.

Oura : smart ring tracking sleep stages, body temperature, and heart rate variability to flag biological shifts before you feel them. The healthcare company announcement made me pay closer attention to where they are heading.

Clue : science backed, privacy first cycle tracking. This is the one I actually use and genuinely love. It has built the most accurate picture of my cycle I have ever had.

Neuraura : a non invasive wearable called LoOoP designed to manage PMOS symptoms through targeted nerve stimulation. What makes them stand out is their cycle tracking app built specifically for people with PMOS. Most cycle trackers use a baseline that was never built around you. This one does. It also includes research based language to help you communicate your symptoms clearly to your doctor. The most thoughtful approach I have seen in this space. Watching closely.

One list. Five companies. One I use. Four I am watching. That is how the system works.

Paying attention is the skill

The market flooding with options is not a bad thing. We have been starved of them for too long. But flooding does not mean buying. It means paying attention with intention.

Know your non negotiables. Trust your community. Do your research before your wallet gets involved. And give yourself permission to be in stand by mode. Watching a company develop, following their research, noticing what they are building — that is a completely valid and intelligent way to engage with a space that is finally paying attention to us.

You do not have to consume everything that arrives. You just have to pay attention to the right things.

Over to you… how do you personally filter through the noise to figure out if a new health tool actually holds value for you? What are your non negotiables in this space or are you in stand by mode too. Let us talk in the comments. 🌸

Xoxo The Grove

Previously on The Grove …

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Too old to start now. Too young to take it seriously yet.

Two completely different stages of life. The exact same result. Nothing changes.

And somewhere underneath both of those conversations is the same belief that you are not worth the time right now.

I noticed this contradiction recently and could not stop thinking about it. When we are young we say “what is the point of focusing on this now, I have time”. When we are older we say “what is the point of starting now, it is too late”. And I just cannot help but think how contradicting those two conversations are but how similar the root cause is.

And nowhere is this more visible than in women’s health.

I see it on social media. I see it in the people around me. I see it in myself. And I see it reflected in the companies and systems that are supposed to be building resources for us who consistently wait until a woman is in crisis before they decide she is worth the investment.

The structural timeline delay is not just in our heads. It is woven directly into the systems that are supposed to take care of us.

The system only shows up at the breakdown

This came into sharp focus for me a while back when I read that Manulife, a Canadian health insurance company, partnered with Maven Clinic to launch a comprehensive women’s and family health platform. Their midlife health program covers virtual access to OB-GYNs, mental health providers, and hormone therapy navigation for perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause.

And my first reaction was finally. Genuinely. I am glad this exists.

But my second reaction was …. Where has everyone else been.

Perimenopause is not a new phenomenon. Menopause is not a new phenomenon. Women navigating these transitions in silence, struggling without structured support, being told this is just something you endure because you are older now, none of this is new. And yet structured corporate support is something that is just starting.

As a 25-year-old, what does a midlife care package have to do with me. Everything. Cause here is the thing about time … Eventually I will be in midlife and this will affect me. But more than that, why are we waiting until a corporate milestone or a medical crisis at 45 to finally grant women the resources to understand their own bodies.

The system only deems us worth the time once the breakdown has already happened. And that says everything about how we have been valued.

You are worth the time at any age

So many women who are going through midlife health issues are struggling quietly right now. Speaking about it as something you just endure. Something that happens because you are older and this is simply what that looks like.

I am refusing that for you. And for future me.

At any age you can learn. At any age you can want to better your health. Go to the gym. Start a class. Do the research. Speak to your friends about it. Start tracking what is happening in your body before someone else decides when you are allowed to care about it.

Our lives are not bound by a timeline someone else invented. Not by age. Not by a corporate milestone. Not by a system that waits for the crisis.

If this is the kind of conversation you want more of, Garden Society publishes every Sunday. Subscribe so you do not miss the next one.

You deserve the information now. Not when the breakdown comes.

Reclaim the time before someone else decides when you are allowed to have it.

Xoxo GS 🌸

Previously on Garden Society

Right now we are welcoming in summer and with it I think we all feel that shift in energy as well. Just like the seasons shift our internal feelings, moods, and energy shift too with our cycle. We know somewhere in the back of our minds that when our period comes around our energy drops and our mood changes. But I think that fluctuation has become so normalised that we do not even think about it anymore. It just happens. It is expected.

And what that does is completely erase the mental awareness we should have around our cyclical health.

It needs to be talked about so much more than it is.

What I only just learned…

I recently came across a term on Substack that I genuinely had not encountered in any depth before. PMDD. Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder.

Here is what the data actually says. PMDD is not just severe PMS. It is a serious neuroendocrine condition affecting roughly 3% to 8% of women. It causes debilitating emotional and physical symptoms including intense anxiety, clinical depression, and extreme fatigue that hit hard during the luteal phase and then disappear almost immediately once bleeding begins. Because medical research has historically treated female hormonal shifts as a baseline inconvenience it takes years to get an accurate diagnosis. Millions of women are routinely misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder or told their symptoms are just normal period moodiness leaving them completely isolated in something that has a name, has research behind it, and deserves actual treatment.

I am running a health conscious platform and I only learned about the actual depth of PMDD because I started this platform. That says everything about how far under the radar this condition still sits.

We are conditioned to think it is okay to just suffer through these massive emotional waves every single month. We do not acknowledge it as a real problem because the medical system rarely cares to mention it. And so it becomes another thing you write off as your own personal failure.

I do not want you to write it off anymore.

The part I think some of you already know

Here is what I think is actually happening for a lot of women reading this. You already know something is not right. You feel it every month. But you have become so accustomed to sitting inside that emotional state that it has started to feel like just the way you are. And somewhere in that loop your brain has convinced you that you are already doing something about it. That thinking about it counts. That the appointment you mentally scheduled three weeks ago is basically the same as making it.

It is not. And I think that distinction is one of the most important things I can say in this article.

Because the trap is not just hormonal. It is cognitive. And understanding that changes everything about how you approach getting help.

The stuck loop

I saw a TikTok by (@lindsiann) recently that had nothing to do with women’s health at all. The creator was talking about ambition and the mental loop of feeling stuck when trying to move forward on your goals. But it hit me that the way we talk about our health and specifically the way we talk ourselves out of seeking help behaves exactly the same way.

She introduced a neurological concept called the Default Mode Network. It is the brain circuit that activates when you are not focused on a specific task. Where your brain goes to wander, replay memories, and process emotions. In a healthy state it cycles in and out smoothly. But in a stuck brain it gets trapped on and just runs on its own steam.

Here is where the trap happens. You sit there spinning and your brain tricks you into thinking that planning the action is the same thing as taking it. You tell yourself next week I am absolutely going to reach out to a doctor about this. And the week passes and nothing happens. Not because you do not care. Because the thinking felt like work. And so your brain filed it as done.

Some of you may have had that exact thought about getting support for PMDD or for symptoms that feel more severe than what you are being told is normal. You have thought about the appointment. You have rehearsed the conversation. You have googled the right questions. And you are still in the same place you were six months ago.

That is not a character flaw. That is a cognitive loop. And the hormonal cycle can make it worse because just like your emotions get trapped in a cyclical pattern your lack of action can get trapped in one too.

What to do when you cannot bring yourself to make the call

I am not going to tell you to just go make an appointment. Because I know how the stuck loop works and that advice alone has never helped anyone move.

Instead just focus on breaking the immediate loop.

Talk to someone you trust about what you are experiencing. Not to fix it. Just to say it out loud. Saying something out loud interrupts the circuit in a way that thinking about it never will.

If you are spinning in a dark emotional state physically change your environment. A short walk. A different room. Anything that gives your brain a new input to process instead of the same loop.

Find other women who speak openly about their experience with PMDD. Sometimes just reading someone else’s words, seeing that your experience has a name and that someone else has lived it, is enough to finally make the call.

Isolation enhances the loop. Connection breaks it.

I will link some articles below from women who have written about their own journeys with PMDD. You are not alone in this and you never were. 🌸123

Xoxo GS

Previously on Garden Society

This week I am still sitting with the social environment that Women’s Health exists in. How we position ourselves within it, how we contribute to it, and how that positioning over time and collectively leads to something much bigger.

Bear with me because I want to start somewhere unexpected.

Dostoevsky And The Good Patient

Have you guys ever read Dostoevsky? I know of his work but have I ever actually read anything by him, no. Am I going to use him in the context of women’s health …. Obviously.

I came across an article here this week that spoke on his novella A Gentle Creature and the author of the article coined something that I genuinely could not stop thinking about “laying yourself at the altar of gentleness.” In the story the protagonist collapses under the immense psychological weight of her own compliance and internalised isolation. Dostoevsky was showing his readers that surviving a suffocating environment by making yourself small and swallowing your anger will eventually break a person. Not bend. Break.

And I thought, how many women do exactly this in a medical space.

We suppress the self-protective instinct, the anger, the frustration, the deep knowing that something is not right just to remain easy. Pleasant. The good patient.

I have done it myself. Dismissed. Told to take birth control and to simply take painkillers and told that what I was experiencing was just a normal part of having a period. My labs came back normal. So I thought, what do I know compared to a doctor? I said nothing. I stayed compliant.

But I intuitively knew something was off. And suppressing that knowing, internalising that unspent stress just to keep the appointment moving takes a real toll. On your nervous system. On your immune system. On your trust in yourself.

We do not talk enough about what that costs women over time.

See? I can make Dostoevsky speak on women’s health. Who would have thought.

The OB-GYN Admission And What It Tells Us

Then I read another article that stopped me completely. A piece discussing how board certified OB-GYNs with decades of clinical practice are openly admitting they had to learn about the direct link between estrogen and the immune system from women on the internet.

Let that sit for a second.

Because it tells us three things that matter enormously:

• We are not looking at a minor research gap. We are looking at an incomplete medical model.

• We know more about our own bodies than we have been given credit for.

• The power of women sharing knowledge with each other is more significant than most institutions want to acknowledge.

For years women have been handed SSRIs or told that their cyclical bloating, migraines, and 4am anxiety were just perimenopause or just stress. To see the science finally confirm what so many women have intuitively known (that estrogen accelerates immune function and progesterone acts as the brake) is not just interesting. It is validating in a way that is hard to put into words.

The Absence of Sickness Is Not Enough

And yet. Even with everything that is shifting, even with the conversations happening on platforms like this one, most women are still not here. Most women are still getting their information from a 15 minute appointment that was never designed to investigate. Most women still believe that the absence of obvious illness means they are healthy.

I want to push back on that gently but directly.

The absence of sickness is not the same as optimal health. It is what the system told you to settle for. And most of us accepted that without realising we had been offered something far smaller than what we deserved.

Think Bigger. Want More

Self advocacy is not about picking a fight with your doctor. It is about not backing down on your own care. It is about walking in with your tracked symptoms and your questions and your refusal to leave without answers. It is about understanding that your lived experience is data, not anecdote, not hysteria, not overthinking.

Knowledge is not fear mongering. It is freedom.

Caring for your body does not have an age limit. And information does not become invalid just because it did not come from a medical institution. It means you do your research. You cross reference. You bring what you find to the people qualified to help you investigate it.

Being the easy patient is not required of you.

Think bigger. Want more for yourself.

That is all for this week. 🌸

Xoxo GS

Previously on Garden Society

I have been wanting to write this one for a while. And I want to be upfront. This one is a gentle call out. To some of you. And honestly to the version of me that existed not that long ago.

If you have been following Garden Society you know that closing the women’s health gap is the whole point of this space. The gap in research, in funding, in clinical attention. But today I want to talk about a different kind of gap. The social one. The one that lives in how we talk about our own bodies.

Because I see it every single day.

I wish I did not have a period. Men only have to deal with such a simple cycle. Why do we have four phases. I cannot wait for menopause so this can finally stop.

I see these on TikTok, on Substack, in person. And I get it. I genuinely do. I have dealt with really heavy painful periods and I understand why the anticipation of your cycle feels like something to dread. I understand why it feels complicated and exhausting and like too much.

But I want to offer you a reframe. Because I think the way we talk about our own cycles is part of the problem and I think most of us never even noticed we were doing it.

The language you were never taught

Think about someone trying to learn a new language as an adult. To them it sounds impossibly fast. The words blur together. The tones are confusing. The same sound can mean completely different things depending on context they do not have yet. It feels overwhelming.

But to a native speaker? It flows. It is effortless. Not because the language is simple, it is not. But because they grew up inside it. The cadences, the breaks, the tones. They were absorbed before anyone had to consciously learn them.

There is actually a reason children pick up languages more easily than adults. Researchers call it the critical period hypothesis; a window of neuroplasticity where the brain is especially receptive to language acquisition. As we get older that window narrows and new languages require much more deliberate effort.

Apply that same concept to women’s health.

We were never taught the language of our own bodies. Not in school. Not at home. Not in any systemic way. The most the average person learns is that puberty happens, periods come, pregnancy is possible, and hormones are involved. That is the entire curriculum.

So when women start discovering that there are four cycle phases, that hormones shift weekly, that energy and mood and skin and digestion are all connected to where you are in your cycle, it feels like information overload. It feels complicated. It feels like too much.

But that is not because your body is too complicated. It is because you were handed a dictionary with half the pages missing and then told you were bad at reading.

The complexity was manufactured

Here is something I think about constantly. Men have hormones too. Testosterone follows a daily rhythm, rising in the morning, declining through the day. Hormones are regulated by neurons. They control mood, metabolism, immune function, cognition, pain response. All of it. In everyone.

But we do not describe men as hormonal. We do not frame their biology as a complexity. We built medicine around their rhythm and called it the standard. We studied their hormones and called it science. And then we left women’s cycles largely unstudied, undertaught, and underfunded and called women complicated.

We were never the complexity. We were just the part that was never explained.

And somewhere along the way - understandably, completely understandably - some of us internalized that framing. Started wishing our bodies worked differently. Started treating our cycles as inconveniences rather than information. Started speaking about our own biology the way the system taught us to.

I am not saying this to judge anyone. I am saying it because I was there too. And the reframe changed everything for me.

What happens when you learn the language

The pain is still real. The confusion is still valid. I am not asking anyone to love their period or pretend it is easy. That would be dishonest.

But the more we talk about this - the more we share what we are learning, the more we compare notes, the more we build the vocabulary together - the more those cadences start to make sense. The tones become familiar. The patterns become readable.

You are not dramatic. You are not hormonal in the dismissive way that word gets used. You are a woman learning a language she was never taught and doing it in real time with incomplete resources and often no one around her who was taught it either.

That is not weakness. That is extraordinary.

So connect. Share. Learn. Find someone on this platform or in your life who is asking the same questions. Build the community that should have existed long before any of us needed it.

That is what Garden Society is here for. 🌸

Xoxo GS

Previously on Garden Society

Okay real talk. For the longest time I thought vitamins were a marketing scheme.

Not fully. But kind of.

Here is my honest thought process : I took the vitamins, I felt nothing different, I kept buying them out of habit, and I never truly believed they were doing anything. The gummy bear ones that tasted like candy. The chalky vitamin C ones. The multivitamins my mum insisted on. I took them. I moved on. Nothing changed.

So I concluded, this is just pharmaceutical companies telling us we need something we do not actually need. The same way food companies convinced us we needed three specific meals a day. That vibe.

And then I got my blood work done.

Extremely low vitamin D. Not slightly low. Extremely. And suddenly I was down a rabbit hole I genuinely did not expect to find myself in.

Because here is the thing. I eat relatively well. Whole foods, not perfect, but not terrible either. So why was I so deficient? And more importantly what else was I missing that I did not know about?

That question led me to everything I am sharing today.

First : Why Food Alone Is Sometimes Not Enough

I want to be clear about something before we get into supplements. You cannot out supplement a bad diet. Food first, always. I covered what to eat across your cycle in my nourish article (link below) and that foundation matters more than anything in a bottle.

But here is what I learned. Even when you are eating well, certain deficiencies are genuinely hard to correct through food alone. Vitamin D is a prime example of this. Very few foods contain meaningful amounts and most of us are not getting enough sun exposure either. Magnesium is another. The modern diet is significantly lower in magnesium than it was even 50 years ago because of soil depletion.

So supplements are not a replacement. They are support. And when you find the right ones in the right form they actually do something.

The key word being right form. Because I also learned that a lot of what is on the shelves is genuinely not worth your money. And that is what I want to help you navigate.

The Inflammation Connection I Could Not Stop Thinking About

While I was going down this rabbit hole trying to figure out why my vitamin D was so low I stumbled into something that genuinely surprised me.

I had a conversation on Substack with someone about whether inflammation could suppress vitamin D levels, not just the other way around. A 2023 Mendelian Randomization study found the relationship between vitamin D and inflammation appears to be bidirectional.1 The reverse causation was not strongly supported by the genetic analysis but the pattern across conditions is hard to ignore.

Endometriosis. PCOS. Adenomyosis. Diabetes. All chronic inflammatory conditions. All consistently associated with low vitamin D levels. Correlation is not causation, I want to be clear about that. However, I can’t help but be curious and curiosity is how Garden Society works.

So my current theory (one I am actively testing on myself) is that addressing inflammation through anti inflammatory foods, quality supplements, and understanding my cycle could help with my period pains and my luteal phase fluctuations. I will report back.

The 3 Supplements Worth Actually Researching

These are not the only supplements worth considering. But they are the three I keep coming back to for women’s hormonal and cyclical health specifically.

Magnesium glycinate

I started taking this recently and genuinely cannot believe the difference in my sleep. I used to wake up groggy after eight hours and wonder why. Since starting magnesium that grogginess has shifted.

Here is why it works magnesium glycinate is highly bioavailable meaning your body actually absorbs it.2 It regulates GABA which is your brain’s off switch. It helps lower cortisol. And because cortisol and progesterone compete for the same receptors keeping cortisol lower helps your body maintain better hormonal balance. For period pain specifically it acts as a smooth muscle relaxant reducing the intensity of uterine contractions.3

Naturally found in pumpkin seeds, spinach, almonds, dark chocolate. But getting therapeutic amounts through food alone is genuinely difficult which is why supplementing makes sense here.

Omega 3 ( look at EPA and DHA)

This one requires label reading because most omega 3 supplements are not what they seem. If the front says 1000mg but the back shows EPA 180mg and DHA 120mg that pill is only 30% omega 3. The rest is filler fish fat. Look for a supplement where EPA and DHA together make up at least 60 to 80% of the total pill weight. That is how you know it is concentrated and worth taking.

Why it matters for your cycle : Omega 3s are the building blocks of anti inflammatory molecules. They help modulate prostaglandins which are directly involved in cramping and inflammation during menstruation.4 They also support ovulation, egg quality, and uterine blood flow. For anyone managing endometriosis or PCOS this one is particularly worth researching.

Naturally found in wild caught salmon, mackerel, sardines, walnuts, chia seeds, and flaxseeds.

Vitamin D3 with K2

Vitamin D functions more like a hormone than a vitamin in the body. It has receptors in your ovaries and your endometrium. It supports insulin sensitivity which is particularly important for PCOS.5 It supports follicle maturation and ovulation. And it reduces systemic inflammation which connects back to everything we just talked about.

It should always be taken as D3 not D2. D3 is the form your body actually uses. Pairing it with K2 ensures that the calcium vitamin D helps absorb goes to your bones and not your arteries. Two different mechanisms working together.

Naturally found in cod liver oil, egg yolks, beef liver, and sunlight. Most of us are not getting enough of any of those consistently which is why this is one of the few supplements where deficiency has genuinely wide ranging effects.

How To Actually Choose A Supplement : The Non-negotiables

This is the part nobody tells you and I wish someone had told me earlier.

Look for third party testing. NSF, USP, or Informed Sport on the label means an independent organization has verified that what is on the label is actually in the bottle and that it is free of heavy metals and contaminants. This matters more than the brand name.

Check that it is in its active form. Your body has to convert inactive forms of vitamins before it can use them and some people do not convert efficiently. Look for methylfolate instead of folic acid. Look for P-5-P instead of standard vitamin B6. Look for magnesium glycinate or malate instead of magnesium oxide which has very poor absorption.

Read the full ingredient list. Avoid titanium dioxide, artificial colors like Red 40, and excessive sugar especially in gummies. Check the carrier for fat soluble vitamins. Vitamins A, D, E, and K should be carried in a quality fat like extra virgin olive oil or MCT oil. Avoid cheap seed oils like soybean or cottonseed oil as carriers.

Check the dose. A supplement with 100IU of vitamin D is not going to move your levels. Know what therapeutic doses look like for what you are trying to address and work with a doctor or naturopath to find what is right for your body specifically.

Final Thoughts

Supplements are not magic. They are not a replacement for food, for sleep, for stress management, for understanding your cycle. All of that comes first and I have written about all of it in previous Garden Society articles linked below.

But when your foundation is solid and you choose the right supplements in the right forms at the right doses they do something. More than the gummy bears ever did.

I am currently testing this theory on myself. Anti inflammatory diet plus targeted supplementation to support my hormones and reduce my period pain. I will keep you updated as I learn more.

Also make sure is that you get your blood work checked with a doctor before significantly changing your supplement routine!!

Next week I am going into something I think about constantly, the social side of the Women’s Health gap. Why we dismiss ourselves before anyone else gets the chance. See you Sunday.

xoxo GS🌸

Previously on Garden Society

I felt disoriented. Confused. Overwhelmed by information and not knowing where to start or what to actually do with any of it. Even now some of you may feel you are being fed so much information about a systemic and social gap in healthcare, and think now what do I do with this information. Or maybe that is just my self diagnosed ADHD brain needing a clear path to follow. Either way, I and I think many others genuinely needed someone to hand them a guideline or path. What to look for. What to follow. Where to even begin.

Nobody handed me that. So I made one.

For you and for me. Hopefully this works out.

I have four steps. Take what works, leave what does not, and adjust as you learn more about your own body.

1. Nourish

So turns out what you eat and when actually matters more than I ever realized, who would have ever thought.

I am not asking you to have an overly optimized diet or follow a strict meal plan. I definitely don’t. What I am asking is that you start paying attention to what you are putting in your body because what you consume directly impacts how your body experiences each phase of your cycle. Everything is connected.

Here are some foundational principles that apply across every phase :

Add magnesium rich foods consistently : Magnesium levels drop naturally in the luteal phase. Research shows magnesium reduces the prostaglandins that cause cramping, supports sleep, and stabilizes mood as estrogen falls.1 Most women are not getting enough. Try a small handful of pumpkin seeds as a snack. Dark chocolate after dinner. Spinach in your smoothie or eggs. Almonds and cashews throughout the week.

Eat warm cooked foods especially in the second half of your cycle : Progesterone slows digestion significantly in your luteal phase.2 Your body has to work harder to heat cold raw foods to body temperature before it can even begin digesting them. Warm foods reduce that burden and leave more energy available for everything else. Try sweet potato and lentil soup. Warm oats with banana and pumpkin seeds. A grain bowl with roasted vegetables and tahini.

Prioritize anti inflammatory foods across every phase : Inflammation is a hormonal disruptor. Anti inflammatory foods reduce the prostaglandins that cause cramping and support your liver in processing estrogen efficiently.3 When estrogen is not cleared properly it recirculates and shows up as worse PMS, heavier periods, and hormonal acne. Try berries in your breakfast every day. Salmon twice a week. Ginger in your tea or stir fry. Olive oil over everything.

Reduce sugar and caffeine especially in the second half of your cycle (luteal): Sugar promotes insulin resistance and inflammation.4 Caffeine on an empty stomach spikes cortisol which directly suppresses progesterone.5 You do not need to eliminate either. Just be mindful of when and how much. Try switching your morning coffee to after breakfast instead of before. Swapping processed snacks for nuts, fruit, or dark chocolate when cravings hit.

For the full phase by phase breakdown of what to know and why, I covered this in detail in my cycle phases article. Link

2. Move

I am not going to tell you to build a complicated workout schedule around your cycle. What I am going to say is, move consistently and adjust the intensity based on how you feel. That is it.

A 2025 randomized controlled trial found that regular light exercise during menstruation significantly reduces cramp severity and PMS symptoms. Gentle movement pumps oxygenated blood into the pelvic region, releases endorphins which are your natural pain relief, and speeds up the clearance of the prostaglandins causing your cramps.6

The baseline that applies every day regardless of phase: A 15 to 20 minute walk outside. That is it. Not a gym session. Just movement and natural light. Research consistently shows that regular walking reduces inflammation, regulates cortisol, and supports mood across every phase of your cycle. Free and underrated.

Try a 15 minute walk in the morning before your phone. A gentle yoga flow on heavy days. Stretching before bed during your luteal phase. Save the intense sessions for when your energy naturally peaks.

3. Sip

I am a tea person and finding out that my favorite thing was actually doing something for my hormones was genuinely the best news I have ever received.

Herbal teas are not a cure. They are a consistent supportive tool that works best when used regularly, not just when you are in pain. Think of them as something you add to your routine across the month, not just reach for in desperation during your period.

Here is my list and the simple reason behind each one :

Spearmint : Research has shown spearmint tea has anti-androgenic properties meaning it helps lower elevated androgen levels. Particularly useful for anyone with PCOS or hormonal acne. Two cups a day consistently over 30 days is where the research shows results. Best during follicular and luteal phases. Daily if you have PCOS.7

Raspberry leaf : Acts as a muscle relaxer for the uterus which means it can reduce the intensity of contractions and cramping.8 Rich in magnesium and supports uterine tone. Used for centuries in women’s reproductive health. Best during the week before your period and during menstruation. Two to three cups a day.

Chamomile : Chamomile binds to GABA receptors in the brain which is why it genuinely calms the nervous system. Also shown to reduce anxiety and improve sleep quality.9 Best during luteal and menstrual phases. Before bed especially.

Ginger : Anti-inflammatory, reduces prostaglandins which are the chemicals directly responsible for cramps, and supports digestion which slows down in the luteal phase.10 Over 2000 years of traditional use backed by modern research. Best during menstrual phase. Morning or after meals. Fresh grated ginger in hot water works just as well as a teabag.

Cinnamon : Helps stabilize blood sugar which matters because unstable blood sugar in the luteal phase amplifies mood swings, cravings, and fatigue. Research also shows it may reduce inflammation and nausea during menstruation.11 Best during luteal phase when cravings and blood sugar swings are most intense.

Aim for two to three cups daily. Warm over cold. And please choose organic where you can.

4. Feel

I’ve probably repeated this step a multitude of times, but I cannot express how important it is.

Not because journaling is trendy, but because your body is communicating with you every single day and most of us have been taught to ignore it, push through it, or dismiss it as dramatic. Writing it down is how you stop ignoring it and start actually seeing it.

Once a week, a Sunday morning works well. Take five minutes and answer these questions :

How did my energy feel this week : high, low, or uneven?

Where in my cycle am I right now?

What physical symptoms did I notice : any pain, bloating, cravings, sleep changes?

What was my mood like : calm, anxious, irritable, low?

Did anything feel harder than it should have?

That is it. Five questions. Five minutes. That data is yours. And when you walk into a doctor’s office with two months of tracked patterns you are not just describing a vague feeling, you are presenting evidence. That shifts the entire conversation.

If journaling feels like too much, use a free app like Clue or just your notes app. The format does not matter. The consistency does.

Final Notes

Some of you will finish this and think, that is just regular health advice. And yes!!! That is exactly the point.

Your cyclical health is your everyday health. It always was. We just were never told that. The pain, the discomfort, the confusion we were told was normal. That every woman goes through it. The amount of times I have been told that mild discomfort is just part of being a woman is insane.

But nobody asked if it was actually mild, cause how would they truly know if we aren’t as equally included in research. And nobody connected the dots. So here we are, connecting them ourselves.

I hope this gives you something you can actually use this week. As I learn more I will keep coming back to update you guys, because I am learning too and that is the whole point of Garden Society. We figure it out together.

Peer to peer. Just the notes I wish someone had passed me years ago.

See you next Monday. 🌸

xoxo GS

Last Week’s Article:

Why Are We Googling Our Symptoms? Let Me Tell You What I Think.

Okay so I have been seeing a lot of people get worked up about AI in healthcare lately. The concern is that people have become too reliant on chatbots and search engines instead of just going to their doctor. And honestly I get it. It is very easy to spiral down a Google rabbit hole at midnight and convince yourself you have had some rare condition for the past decade. That kind of anxiety is real and it is not helpful.

But here is the thing. This did not start with AI.

Remember Dr. Google? People were showing up to appointments saying well Google said… for years. Now it is well when I asked ChatGPT it said… So I want to ask a different question. Is it really the tool that is the problem or is something deeper going on here?

A brand new Gallup study just released this month found that over 66 million Americans, that is 1 in 4 adults who have used AI for health information or advice. And the top reason? They wanted answers quickly. The second reason? They wanted to do their own research before seeing a doctor. 46% said using AI actually made them feel more confident going into their appointments.1

I am not telling you AI is always right or that you should replace your doctor with a chatbot. I am saying there is nuance here. And the more important question is why are people doing this in the first place.

My mother is a nurse. She has come across many family members who research their loved one’s prescriptions before agreeing to them. From one side she understands this is medical practice, the best treatment available. But she also gets why they research. Because my mother also looks things up when someone in our family gets a medication she is uncertain about.

Why? Let me get there. Hold on.

The 7 Whys

The 7 Whys is an exercise I had to do in school. You take a behavior and ask why seven times until you get to the real root of it. It is annoyingly revealing. Let me try it here.

Why are people using AI and Google for health answers when doctors exist? Because they did not get a satisfying answer at their last appointment.

Why did they not get a satisfying answer? Because the appointment was 15 minutes long and the doctor moved on before they felt heard.

Why did the doctor move on? Because the system is built to manage symptoms efficiently, not to investigate root causes.

Why is it built that way? Because it was designed around an average patient and the average patient the system was built around was not a woman.

Why was it not built around women? Because women were excluded from clinical research for decades. Their hormones were considered too complex. Their pain too subjective. Their experiences too variable to study cleanly.

Why were women excluded? Because the male body was treated as the default. Women were seen as variations from the norm, not as the norm themselves.

Why has that not been fully fixed? Because women’s health still receives only 6% of global healthcare investment. Because PCOS did not even have its own line item in NIH funding until 2022. Because the gaps are structural and structural change is slow and uncomfortable for the people who benefit from things staying the same.

So here we are. The compulsive Googling is not a character flaw. It is a rational response to a gap that has always been there. Women did not get answers for their concerns so they looked elsewhere. They lost trust, not necessarily in individual doctors, but in a system that has consistently dismissed, minimized, and confused the people seeking its help.

And I want to say something about the wellness boom too because I think about this a lot. That explosion of supplements, cycle syncing apps, hormone tests, biohacking content, that is the market responding to a real gap. Businesses recognized that people were searching for something the system was not providing. That is genuinely good business sense. It can also be exploited. Which is why I think your understanding of your own health has to always come before “optimizing”.

Here is a stat that really highlights the structural gap. Among Americans earning under $24,000 a year, 32% said they used AI because they simply could not afford a doctor’s visit. That is not misinformation seeking. That is a healthcare access crisis playing out in real time through someone’s phone.

And the younger generation is not waiting around to be failed the way the generation before them was. A study of young women aged 18 to 29 found they are significantly more likely to search online for health information specifically around menstrual symptoms, reproductive health, and psychological distress. Women are also more likely than men to both seek health information online and to have their health behaviors shaped by what they find. That is not reckless. That is a generation filling in the gaps they were never given, and doing it on their own terms.2

So what do we actually do with all of this?

I think it is two things happening at the same time.

Keep researching. Keep asking questions. Keep being curious about your own body. That instinct is not a problem to fix it is information.

But when you walk into that appointment, come with questions rather than conclusions. Come with notes rather than accusations. The shift from ChatGPT told me I have X to I have been tracking these symptoms for six weeks and I would like to investigate is small but it changes everything. One puts a doctor on the defensive. The other invites them into the conversation.

And to any doctors reading this, the patients coming in with their Google results are not trying to undermine you. They are scared and they have been let down before. Meeting that with curiosity instead of dismissal goes an incredibly long way.

Things to actually take home this week 🌸

Start tracking before your next appointment

You do not need a fancy app. Your notes app works. A journal works. A piece of paper works. Every day for two to four weeks write down:

• How is my energy today : high, medium, low

• Any pain : where, how intense, how long

• My mood and sleep

• Anything that felt off

Being able to say I have had sharp pelvic pain on the left side for about two hours, usually mid-cycle, for the past four months is completely different from saying I sometimes get cramps. Specific, tracked, dated symptoms are much harder to dismiss.

What to actually say at your appointment

Here are phrases that research shows helps get heard :

“I have been tracking this for [X weeks] and I have noticed a consistent pattern. I would like to investigate what is causing it before we discuss medication.”

“I hear you but I still believe this needs more investigation. Can we look into this further?”

“Can you document this concern in my notes?” When something is formally recorded doctors are far more likely to act on it.

“Before we close today, I just want to confirm, what are our next steps and when should I follow up?”

If you are continuously dismissed, ask for a referral to a specialist. You do not need a reason beyond the fact that your symptoms are ongoing and you want answers. That is enough.

Tests worth knowing about and asking for

If you are experiencing hormonal irregularities, fatigue, mood changes, irregular cycles, or symptoms you cannot explain these are worth raising:

• Full hormonal blood panel — FSH, LH, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone

• Thyroid panel — TSH, T3, T4

• Insulin and blood glucose — especially relevant if you suspect PCOS

• Full blood count — checks for anaemia which is common in women with heavy periods

You do not need to walk in knowing what is wrong. You just need to walk in knowing what questions to ask.

Something to know about PCOS that most people do not

You do not need cysts to have PCOS. The what shows up on an ultrasound are arrested follicles not true cysts, the name is widely considered a misnomer and researchers have been pushing to change it for over a decade. PCOS is a full metabolic and hormonal condition affecting your heart health, mental health, skin, digestion, and more. Up to 70% of people with it are undiagnosed. If you have irregular periods, unexplained acne, fatigue, or hair changes, it is worth raising with your doctor and asking for a full hormonal panel.

Take Aways

Until the system changes at the structural level and it genuinely needs to, the best thing any of us can do is show up informed, ask better questions, and keep the conversation going. Keep researching just rephrase what you want to express!!

Hopefully this helps people!

xoxo GS♥️♥️

Hey everyone!!

So this week I wanted to give you something you can actually use. Something practical alongside all the context I usually share.

A lot of what I write here is about the bigger picture: the systemic gaps, the research failures, the funding numbers. And I genuinely love that conversation. But I also want to sit beside all of that and give you the practical side, because understanding why the system failed us is one thing but building your own toolkit anyway is another.

I also want to say something quickly before we get into it. I recently came across a note from a physician who has been practicing for over two decades. She talked about how the standard 15 minute family doctor appointment was never designed to investigate root causes, it was designed to treat symptoms. That is not always the doctor’s fault. It is how the system was built. It means most of us leave with something to treat the current pain rather than something to fully resolve the issue.

While I can not cure any cyclical pains you guys or your loved ones are experience through the screen (although I wish I could <3), what I can do is help you learn some simple ways to actually support our bodies instead. It is time to build your toolkit. Come on, we are upgrading… this one might take a while 🌸

Your Cycle Is More Than Your Period

Most people narrow their cycle down to one phase. The bleeding part. But your cycle is a full 28 days with four phases that all feed into each other. When one is off the others feel it.

Here is why this matters beyond reproduction :

• In 2015 American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have affirmed that your menstrual cycle a vital sign. The same way they consider blood pressure or heart rate.1

• When your cycle is off it is usually not random. It is your body flagging something. The exhaustion, the mood shifts, the cravings, the terrible cramps, these all have hormonal explanations.

So all in all you were not dramatic. You were just not given the information.

Meet The Team : The 4 Hormones

Before we go through the phases I want to quickly introduce the four hormones driving all of it. Think of them as a team. Two come from your brain and two come from your ovaries and they are in constant conversation throughout your entire cycle.

The “Control Center” Hormones (From the Brain)

• FSH : The starter signal. Released at the beginning of your cycle to tell your ovaries to start preparing an egg.

• LH : The trigger. Stays quiet until ovulation approaches then dramatically surges to release the egg.

The "Action" Hormones (From the Ovaries)

• Estrogen : The building hormone. Rises in the first half of your cycle, peaks at ovulation, dips, then rises again before falling before your period. When it falls your mood often follows, because estrogen helps regulate serotonin.

• Progesterone : The calming warming hormone. Low in the first half of your cycle, rises significantly after ovulation. It raises your body temperature slightly, slows digestion, and turns your energy inward. When it drops at the end of your cycle that collapse is what triggers your period and drives PMS.

Now let’s look at what they are all doing phase by phase.

The Cycle (4 Phases)

Follicular : Budding (Inner Spring)

You know that week or so after your period ends where you suddenly feel like yourself again? Clearer. More motivated. Ready to actually do things? That is your follicular phase and estrogen is behind all of it. I also want to mention that menstruation is technically the start of the cycle, but since it is cyclical it always made more sense to me to start here. So bear with me and we will come full circle.

Hormones:

• FSH rises and stimulates your ovaries to prepare an egg.

• As the follicle grows it produces Estrogen which rises steadily and starts rebuilding your uterine lining.

• Progesterone is low which means your metabolism is at its most efficient baseline, meaning body can uses energy well right now.

What actually helps:

Eat berries, leafy greens, whole grains, and lighter proteins like chicken or salmon. Your estrogen is rising right now and your liver is working to process it. If it does not get cleared efficiently it can build up and cause problems later in the month, heavier periods, worse PMS, skin breakouts. Antioxidants from berries and leafy greens help your liver do that job properly. Think of it as maintaining the rise so it does not crash you later.

This is also your best phase for higher intensity workouts: strength training, running, anything that requires power and recovery. Estrogen actively supports muscle repair in this phase which means you will recover faster, feel less sore, and make more progress from the same effort. If you have been waiting for the energy to come back this is when it arrives. Use it.

Ovulation : Bloom

This is the shortest phase but hormonally the most dramatic. It is your biological high point.

Hormones:

• Estrogen hits its peak.

• LH surges suddenly and that surge triggers the egg to release.

You will likely feel it. Confidence peaks. Social energy peaks. Some research suggests that verbal fluency and communication are measurably better around ovulation.2 You are wired for connection right now use it to your advantage!

But here is what people do not tell you. Even though you feel amazing, your body is under real internal pressure. Ovulation is technically a micro-inflammatory event. The egg physically ruptures through the follicle wall. Your metabolism is at its highest. Your cells are working hard.

What actually helps:

Antioxidant rich foods like berries, dark chocolate, broccoli, cauliflower are doing real protective work here. As ovulation is technically a micro-inflammatory event and your metabolism is at its highest point of the entire cycle, that combination creates oxidative stress which in simple terms means your cells are producing more waste than usual. Left unchecked that cellular waste is what causes you to crash harder in the days that follow aka, the fatigue, the bloating, the mood drop in your next phases earlier on. Eating antioxidants now is essentially protecting your next two weeks. You feel amazing today, this is how you stay feeling good longer.

Luteal : Harvest

This is the phase most people find hardest. And honestly it makes so much more sense once you understand what is happening.

Hormones:

• After ovulation Progesterone rises significantly. It warms your body, slows your digestion, and turns your energy inward. Your metabolism is now burning an estimated 100 to 300 extra calories per day just to maintain that elevated temperature. This is why you are hungrier. This is why you want comfort food. Your body is literally asking for more fuel.

• Then in the final days before your period Estrogen drops and takes serotonin with it. That is the direct biological cause of the irritability, sadness, and cravings that most of us have spent years being told was just our personality.

What actually helps:

Warm foods and complex carbohydrates such as sweet potatoes, oats, soups, warm grains. Here is the practical reason this matters. Progesterone slows your digestion significantly right now and your body is already burning extra calories just to maintain its elevated temperature. Cold raw foods require your body to heat them to body temperature before it can even begin digesting them, that is energy your system does not have spare right now. The result of eating cold heavy foods in this phase is often that wall of fatigue and brain fog that hits mid afternoon. Warm cooked foods digest more easily and leave more energy available for everything else your body is doing.

Add magnesium rich foods like dark chocolate, leafy greens, pumpkin seeds. In practical terms magnesium does two things in this phase that you will actually feel. It reduces the severity of cramps by calming the uterine muscle contractions that cause them. And it supports sleep quality which tends to deteriorate in late luteal because of the hormone drop. The chocolate craving is your body asking for something it genuinely needs. Now you can honor it without the guilt and try some dark chocolate covered almonds with sea salt it is delicious.

Low impact movement only in this phase: walking, yoga, Pilates, swimming. The reason this matters practically is that your ligaments are more lax right now because of progesterone. That means your injury risk is higher and your recovery from intense exercise is slower. Pushing hard in this phase often leads to setbacks like a pulled muscle, joint pain, or a crash in energy that takes days to recover from. Save the intensity for follicular. In luteal protect your body and you will show up stronger in the next cycle.

Menstruation : Rest and Renewal

Your body is doing active repair work right now. Rest is not laziness. It is literally what this phase asks for.

Hormones:

• All four hormones are at their lowest point.

Your body releases chemicals called prostaglandins which make the uterus contract to shed the lining. Those contractions can temporarily cut off oxygen to the uterine muscle, that oxygen deprivation is what causes the throbbing pain we call cramps.

What actually helps:

Light movement, even a 10 to 15 minute gentle walk. The reason this helps when you are in pain is specific. Cramps are caused by your uterus contracting so intensely that it temporarily cuts off its own blood supply. That oxygen starvation is the throbbing pain. Gentle movement pumps fresh oxygenated blood back into the pelvic area and relieves it. It also triggers your body to release endorphins (your natural pain relief system) and speeds up the clearance of the prostaglandins that are causing the contractions in the first place. Less of those chemicals means the contractions become less severe. You do not need to push through a workout. You just need to move gently.

A yoga ball. Sit on it and do slow hip circles or gentle bouncing for 10 to 15 minutes. The rhythmic movement improves blood supply to the lower abdomen directly, this is what the research found. It also activates your parasympathetic nervous system which is your body’s rest and digest mode. In practical terms that means your nervous system stops amplifying the pain signal and starts calming it instead.3 I started doing this a years ago before I ever heard of this study and it genuinely changed my periods.

Drink your water (specifically warm water)!!!! Okay I know this sounds like the most basic advice ever but hear me out because there is actual research behind this one. A clinical trial found that women who drank 1600 to 2000ml of water daily during their period had measurably less pain and used fewer painkillers.4 The reason is pretty simple once you understand it, when you are dehydrated your blood thickens and your uterus has to work harder to push it out. More effort means stronger contractions. Stronger contractions means worse cramps. Staying hydrated literally makes your flow easier to move. Dehydration also drops your blood volume which is why you get that heavy dragging fatigue during your period that feels different from normal tiredness. It is your body struggling to circulate oxygen properly. Water fixes that.

Aim for 2 to 2.5 liters a day and add an extra glass or two during your period. And make it warm where you can. Heat relaxes smooth muscle (including your uterus) and a study on hot water intake during menstruation found it specifically helped reduce cramp severity. Warm herbal tea counts. Warm water with lemon counts. Cold water by contrast can actually constrict blood flow to the pelvic area which is the opposite of what you want right now. Start your morning with a warm glass before your coffee and see how you feel.

Rest without guilt. You are not behind. You are just in a different phase.

For Those With Irregular Periods (Please Read This Part)

I want to say something before the practical steps. Not having your period is not a relief. I know it has always been framed as an inconvenience, something to dread and manage and plan around. But your cycle is a vital sign. A consistent cycle means your brain, thyroid, and ovaries are talking to each other correctly.

When that signal goes quiet or becomes erratic it deserves investigation. Not a prescription for birth control without a conversation. An actual investigation into why.

Gynecologic oncologists have noted an increase in endometrial cancer diagnoses in women under 50 who had years of irregular or absent periods that were never properly investigated.5 When the uterine lining is not being shed regularly it can build up. This is not meant to scare you, it is meant to motivate you to take it seriously now rather than later.

Step one : Track first. Use a free app like Clue and log your cycle for at least two to three months before your appointment. Note how many days between periods, how long each lasts, and any symptoms. This gives your doctor something concrete rather than just a feeling that things seem off.

A cycle is irregular if it falls outside 21 to 35 days consistently, varies by more than 7 days between cycles, or has been absent for more than three months without a known reason.

Step two : Know what to ask for. You want a pelvic ultrasound to check your ovaries and uterine lining. You also want a hormonal blood panel including FSH, LH, estrogen, progesterone, and thyroid function. These are standard investigations. You are not asking for anything unusual.

What to say at your appointment:

“I have been tracking my cycle for the past few months and I have noticed consistent irregularities. Before we discuss any medication I would like to understand the root cause first. I am requesting a pelvic ultrasound and a hormonal blood panel including FSH, LH, estrogen, progesterone, and thyroid function.”

**** You change the wording to best fit your voice and comfort level

If they try to skip the investigation and go straight to birth control, ask them to document their reasoning in your notes. When a doctor knows something is being formally recorded they are significantly more likely to put in the referral. You are not being difficult. You are advocating for yourself.

If your GP continues to dismiss you, you are entitled to ask for a direct referral to a gynaecologist. Ongoing menstrual irregularities are a valid reason. That is enough.

Final Notes

If you made it this far, thank you genuinely 🌸

I know this one was long but I wanted to give you something you could actually use. And honestly I am still learning too. As I find more research, better advice, things that actually work I will post more, but shorter articles.

We figure it out together <3

xoxo GS

Heyyy!!

So, I genuinely think starting the week with something that gets your mind going is one of the best things you can do for yourself. A little think piece. Something to bring up over coffee or send to a friend or share with family member.

So grab your drink of choice. Here is what has been living in my head lately.

You know what generational wealth is right? Born into access because someone before you built something and passed it down. Resources, opportunities, a head start you did not have to earn from zero. Honestly it sounds amazing. Just the idea of starting life with that kind of foundation already in place.

And then there is generational trauma. The weight that gets carried forward. The pain of your ancestors that somehow lives in your body, your patterns, your nervous system. That ache when you hear certain stories because you are connected to them even though you were not there.

Now what if I told you there is a third one that nobody is really talking about yet.

Generational Health

I am genuinely not sure if I made this term up or if it already exists somewhere, but I have never heard anyone say it quite like this. Generational health is the health that is maintained and prioritized in your family. The habits, the knowledge, the awareness that gets passed down (or does not) from one generation to the next.

And here is why it hit me so hard.

Woman Being The Primary Caregiver of the Household

Think about the women in your family for a second. The mother, the grandmother, the oldest sister. The one who shows up with warm tea when you are sick. The one who knows which remedy works, who to call, what to say, how to hold everything together when someone is not okay. The one who carries the health knowledge of the whole household and distributes it quietly without anyone ever really noticing or saying thank you.

I think about my own family when I write this. The amount of times the women around me just pushed through something and kept going because there was always someone who needed them. Never really stopping to ask if they were okay. I wonder how much of that I absorbed without even realizing.

In most families women are the primary caregivers. What they know, what they prioritize, what they have access to does not just affect them. It flows through the entire household and gets passed to the next generation. Their knowledge becomes your knowledge. Their gaps become your gaps too.

But here is the thing, you cannot pour from an empty cup. A healthy heart ensures the rest of the body receives blood. A healthy woman ensures the people around her can thrive. So when we underinvest in women’s health we are not just affecting one person. We are affecting everyone connected to her. And everyone connected to them after that.

What Does Research Say?

Healthy women are more likely to give birth to healthy babies and raise well nourished children. Those children have lower rates of illness, better school attendance, and go on to become more educated and more productive adults. Healthy women participate more fully in their communities, in education, in leadership, in the decisions that shape how we all live. The whole ecosystem lifts when women are well.1

But okay wait. This is the part that actually got me.

More than half of the health gap is experienced by women during working years. Between roughly 20 and 70. The years when most women are building careers, starting families, raising children, and caring for ageing parents all at the same time. According to McKinsey a woman will spend an average of nine years of her life in poor health. Nine years of reduced presence, reduced energy, reduced everything, during the exact years she is needed most.2

Nine years that ripple forward into the next generation.

These are not statistics. These are our mums. Our grandmothers. Women we know and love who spent years feeling unwell and were just expected to keep going. Our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters have likely all experienced some version of this. And honestly so have we.

This Is Not Just For Women To Read

I want to say this clearly because I mean it, this page is for everyone. Men come in. These are your mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts. The women who held your household together quietly and consistently without being asked. Visibility around women’s health does not only need to live amongst women. It needs to live everywhere.

Final Thoughts

What does your generational health look like? What did the women before you pass down, knowingly or not, about how to take care of a body? And what do you want to pass forward?

You do not have to figure out everything at once. Honestly just start by talking about it. At dinner. In your group chat. With your friends. That sounds small but it genuinely is not. Normalizing this conversation is how it changes, one kitchen table at a time.

And if you are not sure what to talk about that is exactly what Garden Society is here for. Pull up a note. Share an article. Pass it on.

That is how Generational Health changes.

Have you guys ever sat down and actually mapped out where your money went in a week? Just opened your bank app out of pure curiosity and been like, wait, how much have I been spending on coffee? I do this more than I would like to admit. And every single time without fail I am humbled by how much I have spent on the little things like bubble teas or matchas over the year. Like genuinely humbled by how not small of a number it was.

We are all aware of this kind of spending right. The little things that do not feel like much in the moment but quietly add up into something that makes you put your phone face down and take a breath.

But I want to talk about a different kind of cost. One that most of us have never actually sat down to calculate. One that if you have a period has been adding up since you were a teenager and nobody ever pointed it out.

The bill nobody handed us

It is not just the products. Think about all of it. The painkillers you buy like clockwork. The sheets and clothes you have replaced. The last minute pharmacy run because your period showed up and somehow still caught you off guard even though it does this every month. The days you called in sick or sat at your desk completely unable to function and just eventually gave up and went home.

And then there is the trial and error phase that I feel like nobody talks about. How many pad brands did you go through before you found one you could tolerate? How many tampons, cups, disks? The testing phase alone costs a ridiculous amount of money and half the time you end up settling for something that just about does the job rather than something that actually works for you.

I have been there. And I have only now began to figure out what I like and how to find what I like.

And then I saw a post from Clue Health on LinkedIn and I had to stop and actually sit with it for a minute.

They surveyed 2,000 women and people with cycles in England and discovered that the average lifetime cost of having a period is £20,359.

I just need you to sit with that number for a second.

And it is not just the people who can comfortably absorb it.

• 37% struggle to afford period products at all.

• 39% have cut back on food, bills, or transport just to manage the cost.

• 40% have used tissues or wipes as a substitute because they had no other option.

• Nearly half say their period has affected their ability to do their job.

• Over a third say the financial pressure is a direct and ongoing source of stress and anxiety.

And we still do not treat this as the systemic issue it is. Which honestly at this point should not surprise any of us, but it should frustrate us.

Scotland made period products a legal right in 2022. Northern Ireland followed in 2024. There is a petition running right now to bring the same change to England (< click hyperlink), if you are a UK reader please go sign it. And honestly I am sitting here hoping Canada figures this out soon too because we are long overdue.

Okay so what do we actually do in the meantime

While we wait for systems to catch up (which we should absolutely keep pushing for them to do) there are things we can do individually to reduce the cost, the pain, and the guesswork. Here is what has actually made a difference for me. Let’s take some notes together shall we! <3

1. Switch to natural cotton products. Yes it is a health choice but it is also a financial one. Conventional pads contain chemicals that I now firmly believe were making my cramps so much worse than they needed to be. Switching to 100% organic cotton made a noticeable difference for me pretty quickly. Worse cramps means more painkillers. More painkillers every single month for years adds up to a number that would genuinely upset you. Reducing the severity of your cramps at the source means spending less managing them after the fact. My favourites are Natracare, TOTM, Organyc, and Iris + Arlo for my Canadian girls. I broke down exactly what certifications and qualification to look for in my first article in order to find truly 100% organic cotton brands, worth a read before your next purchase. No more guess work and stick to something reliable.

2. Track your cycle. This one saves money in the most boring and practical way possible and I love it for that. When you know your cycle you are never caught off guard. No last minute pharmacy runs where you grab whatever is closest and most expensive. No panic buying three different products because you forgot what you normally use or they don’t have your typical products in stock. No showing up somewhere completely unprepared. Clue is free, it takes two minutes to update, and it will quietly save you money every single month just by keeping you prepared. I use it religiously.

3. Move your body before your period arrives. I know this sounds like general wellness advice but stay with me. Women who do light consistent movement in the week before their period report significantly less severe cramping during it. Less severe cramping means fewer painkillers. Fewer painkillers means less money spent every month on something you should not have to rely on in the first place. Walking counts. A twenty minute bodyweight workout counts. Bouncing on a yoga ball when you are already cramping sounds completely unhinged but I promise it works and it is free.

4. Magnesium glycinate. A good quality bottle costs around fifteen to twenty dollars and lasts about a month. Start taking it in your luteal phase the week or so before your period. It reduces cramping, supports sleep, and takes the edge off the mood shifts. Now compare that to what you spend on painkillers, sleep aids, the loss of money you experience from calling in sick at work and whatever else you reach for to get through your period. For most people magnesium glycinate costs less and does more. That is a good trade.

5. Spearmint and raspberry leaf tea. Anti-inflammatory, hormone supportive, genuinely effective for cramp relief, and costs a few dollars for a box that lasts weeks. Make it a ritual in the second half of your cycle. It is not a replacement for medical care but as a daily habit it reduces the severity of symptoms over time which reduces what you spend managing them. Plus it gives you something warm and intentional to hold onto during the part of your cycle that usually just feels like something to survive.

The money we spend on our periods is not just a personal finance issue. It is a health issue and a systemic one and an information one all at the same time. The more we share what works, push for better options, and stop absorbing this cost in silence, the less any of us has to figure it out alone.

That is literally why I am here.

XOXO Garden Society

Can I be honest with you for a second?

I am a woman in my mid twenties trying to figure out my health, my career, and honestly just my life. And the more I read, the more I realize how much we were simply never told. Not because the information doesn’t exist, but because nobody thought to hand it to us in a way that actually made sense for our lives.

That is not an accident. And I find it genuinely unacceptable.

So here we are. Grab your coffee or your tea. Come sit. This one has been on my mind all week.

The problem isn’t that you’re not paying attention

I think a lot of us navigate women’s health in blurry steps. Unclear on the gaps, unsure of the turns, and at every stage nobody prepared us. It feels like imposter syndrome but for your own body. Like you should already know this. Like somehow you missed the class everyone else attended.

You didn’t miss it. The class was never offered.

The gaps in women’s health information exist on two levels.

• On a systemic level — this space has been chronically underfunded, under-researched, and frankly undervalued. The information gaps are not accidental.

• On an individual level — the way what little information does exist gets communicated makes it almost impossible to absorb.

Too clinical and people skim it and forget it. Too vague and mystical and it loses credibility entirely. There is a middle ground almost nobody is hitting.

And then the wellness industry showed up and filled that gap, not always with information, but with products. With aesthetics. With the idea that if you just buy the right thing you will feel better. Which sometimes works. But mostly just leaves us better moisturized and still confused about our own bodies.

Then I thought about skincare

Okay stay with me here because this is the part I keep coming back to.

Think about what happened with the skincare boom. Niacinamide. Hyaluronic acid. Retinol cycling. Slugging. Glass skin. People became their own personal dermatologists, not because they went to medical school but because the information was made accessible, interesting, and genuinely aspirational. It felt like self investment. It felt like something worth knowing. It felt cool.

And here is the thing … People learned actual science. Percentages, pH levels, ingredient interactions, layering orders. Real information. Because it was framed in a way that felt relevant to how they wanted to live and look and feel.

Now ask yourself : Do you know your skincare routine better than you know your own cycle?

If the answer is yes, I am not judging you. I was there too. But I do want you to sit with why that is. Because your skin and your cycle are both biology. One of them just got a better PR campaign.

Why haven’t we had that moment for women’s health yet? I have some thoughts and I’m sure you have some idea to why as well, but I also think we are closer to that shift than we realize.

And then Vogue said something

I was scrolling one day and I saw Vogue post about women’s cyclical health. Covering platforms like Clue and Ovia fertility and more. And I actually stopped.

Because Vogue is not a wellness platform. It is a sociocultural platform. It is fashion and beauty and identity and aspiration. And it just put cyclical health in the same conversation. In the same breath as what society has deemed to be relevant and worth paying attention to right now.

I thought, is this skincare boom beginning to happen for women’s health? I was happily surprised at the possibility because that is how you normalize something not by making it clinical, but by making it part of the social cultural. By making it feel like something the most put together, most in tune version of yourself would want to know.

That is what I want Garden Society to be part of building.

So what do we actually do with this

Here is where I land. Consume women’s health content the same way you consume skincare content. With curiosity, with discernment, and without pressure to get it all right immediately. Find what is accurate, find what suits your body, and build your toolkit slowly.

A few things worth actually starting with :

Understanding your cycle as a calendar. There are four phases and each one gives you a genuinely different energy and different strengths. You have been operating like you have the same energy every single day. You don’t. And once you know that, everything starts to make more sense. The days you feel unstoppable, the days you cannot get off the couch, the weeks you are sharp and social and the weeks you just need quiet. That is not inconsistency. That is your cycle. Learn it like you learned your skincare routine. Adjust to it in the same way you do adjust to your internal clock for meal times and your sleep/wake cycle. Invest in this and watch what changes.

A menstrual diary. An app, a journal, the notes on your phone, whatever works. Start tracking your symptoms, your energy, your mood, your cravings. You cannot connect dots you have not written down. And those dots become patterns. And those patterns become information. And that information is yours.

Herbal teas. Yes really. Do not let anyone convince you that traditional remedies are just talk. Raspberry leaf, spearmint, ginger, chamomile. These are not trends, they are tools that have existed for centuries before the wellness industry put them in pretty packaging and marked them up. Steep and sip and pay attention to how you feel.

Here is why I am telling you all of this

I am not a doctor. I am not a researcher. I am someone who got curious and started reading and could not stop because the more I found out, the more I realized how much had been kept just out of reach.

This is Garden Society. This is the class we never got, passed peer to peer. No gatekeeping, no overwhelm, no products to sell you. Just information about new diagnostics tools, information about facts and gaps in Women’s Health, tips in how to navigate your health and many more to come. This is all information that belongs to you anyway.

You are not behind. You are just starting. And so am I.

Share this with someone who needs it. More to come.

Hey guys!!

Okay so I came across this BBC article and I genuinely could not stop thinking about it. I’m still thinking about it. So naturally I have to share it.

But first a little context on me. I’m in my mid-20s, trying to figure out my health, my career, all of it. And somewhere along the way I picked up this habit of actually reading news articles (not just fiction book). To be specific its general news articles, opinion pieces, Substack posts, and LinkedIn post share some great resources if you follow the right people. If you told 12 year old me I’d be doing this voluntarily I would have said absolutely not. But here we are. Because the more I read, the more I realize how much nobody told us and how much we deserve to know.

Which brings me to this.

Why is menstrual blood not a diagnostic tool yet?

Think about this for a second. Urine, stool, and venous blood have been used as diagnostics for centuries. Something feels off, doctor collects a sample, investigates, gets answers. That’s just how it works.

So why not menstrual blood?

Because here’s what it actually contains and it’s not just blood. It’s proteins, hormones, bacteria, endometrial tissue, and cells shed from the vaginal cavity, cervix, fallopian tubes, ovaries and more. It is complex, information-rich fluid that the body produces every single month. And we have been calling it waste.

I need someone to explain that to me. Genuinely.

And what do we get instead?

If you go to a hospital with severe period pain (which I have) they do not ask for a menstrual blood sample. They don’t. What they will eventually point you toward if you push hard enough is an ultrasound and if you push even further you may be suggested a endometrial biopsy. A procedure where they remove a small tissue sample from the uterine lining to look at under a microscope. And yes it is as painful as it sounds.

Here’s the issue with that. The uterus is about the size of a grapefruit. A small tissue sample from one spot is not giving you a complete picture of what’s going on. It’s just not.

Menstrual blood contains the entire shed endometrium. The whole lining. Every month. Naturally. It is essentially a non-invasive biopsy that your body produces on its own and nobody is collecting it.

Okay but what does the research actually say

There is a reproductive biologist named Christine Metz who has been studying menstrual blood for over a decade at Northwell Health in the US. She started looking for endometriosis biomarkers and it just kept expanding endometrial cancer, adenomyosis, PCOS, recurrent miscarriages, even early signs pointing toward immune conditions like thyroid disorders.

Some of the research listed in the BBC article genuinely floored me:

• One study identified 385 proteins found exclusively in menstrual blood.

• Another discussed how women with endometriosis had significantly fewer uterine natural killer cells — the immune cells responsible for embryo implantation and protecting against infection.

• There were also differences found in the cells that repair the womb lining after each period in women with endometriosis those cells were more inflamed and less functional.

So this means that there is evidence of biomarkers that can be used for diagnostic purposes.

Metz and her research partner have studied over 3,700 women so far. And the goal? An at-home diagnostic kit. FDA approval being sought as early as 2027.

An. At. Home. Kit.

Why I actually care about this

The average person with endometriosis waits years for a diagnosis. Years of being told it’s normal. Years of being sent home. Years of pain being minimized. And this whole time there has been a potential diagnostic tool showing up every single month that nobody thought to take seriously.

I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t make me angry. But I’m also excited because the research is there, it’s moving, and something could actually change.

Maybe this becomes the tool that lets us understand our own bodies without having to fight to be believed first. Because honestly? The current system is not keeping up. So the more we know, the better we can advocate for ourselves and each other.

That’s why I share this stuff. Peer to peer. Here are the notes, please share them.

Full article here: ‘It’s a very unique biological specimen’: What menstrual blood can reveal about your health — BBC

Welcome or welcome back if you are familiar with my page!

In trying to make a new article, I realized I never actually introduced myself. So, hi. I’m Garden Society !!! :)

I came up with this name cause I for one, love flowers and botanical stuff, and two, I want to build a community where people can actually flourish. A space with tools, information, and conversation about cyclical health, that allow you to take the right steps in bettering your health.

Today I posted a note for International Women’s Day using a quote from an Anne of Green Gables article. It was written for a period piece and yet it hit like it was written for today:

“The utter disrespect of women’s bodily autonomy is a systemic failure — one that enslaves an entire sex — and therefore is surely worth our time and attention.”

— Anne of Green Gables era, still relevant today

That’s the thing about women’s health. The conversation hasn’t moved as far as it should have. And that’s exactly why this space exists. I am creating the space I always wanted.

We Were Taught to Be Quiet About This

For the most part, women navigate their health in isolation. But why is that the case if we are 50% or the population?

According to the Government of Canada (Women and Gender Equality), 1 in 4 people believe periods are dirty or unclean, and 1 in 5 think menstruation shouldn't be discussed publicly. That stigma doesn't exist in a vacuum, it's a ripple effect of how little visibility women's health has been given. When your health is undervalued, you see it everywhere: in what gets researched, what gets funded, and in what women feel they're even allowed to ask about.

Think about how periods are talked about or rather, how they’re not. In school, in media, even just in passing, it’s always whispered. Like it’s classified information. I remember even being encouraged to wrap your pad (that are already wrapped once) in multiple layers of toilet paper before putting it in the bin. It’s already wrapped. It’s going in the garbage. What exactly are we hiding it from… the garbage can?

But here’s what doesn’t stay private: your cycle shows up in your sick days, your focus, your energy, your mood, every single month, whether you talk about it or not. The silence doesn’t make it disappear. It just encourages you to manage it alone.

A System Not Built With You in Mind

Anna O’Sullivan at Future Femme Tech wrote that long before problems appear in Gynecological waiting lists or national health statistics, they’re already visible in sick days, reduced hours, and careers put on hold. The system isn’t catching women at the waiting room. It’s catching them long after they’ve already been quietly managing and pushing through alone.

When care is hard to access and conversation is discouraged, that isolation doesn’t just affect your health. It follows you into your work, your income, your sense of whether your body is something worth caring for or just something to manage around. That’s what happens when a system is built without you in mind. Your health starts to feel like a burden. And it is truly not.

Your Cycle Is a Vital Sign

In 2015, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists declared the menstrual cycle a fifth vital sign alongside blood pressure, heart rate, and temperature. Your cycle is a window into your overall health. And most women have never been told that. I have to ask … why?

Countless women have been dismissed by doctors, pushed through pain, or handed a pill to fix a symptom without anyone explaining why it was happening in the first place. Your body has been communicating with you this whole time about your hormones, your nutrition, your stress, your overall health. The problem was never that women weren’t paying attention. The problem is that nobody took the time to teach them what to listen for.

So Let’s Start There

Getting to know your own health doesn’t have to be overwhelming. The simplest thing you can do right now is start a menstrual diary. Think of it like becoming your own scientist, you’re just collecting data on yourself.

To start, just track three things:

1. The consistency of your period

2. How long it actually lasts

3. What symptoms show up leading up to and during your period

That’s it to start. Use whatever works for you, a tracking app like Clue, your notes app, a physical journal. Once you have that data, you can start to see patterns. And once you see patterns, you can figure out the next step to actually improve your cyclical health.

That’s what this space is for. Not to overwhelm you, not to sell you a program, just to give you the tools and the information so you can show up for your own health. Peer to peer. Like notes from last week’s class.

Welcome to Garden Society. Really glad you’re here.

Think about someone you genuinely love like, deeply. The way you talk to them, root for them, pay attention to what they actually need. Now ask yourself honestly, do you do any of that for yourself?

“Whoever that person is, that you are like wow I really love you, like I have so much love for you. Talk to yourself that same way, the exact same way.”

— Olivia Dean

That’s the energy I want us to bring this year. And I think the first real step toward loving yourself that way and actually investing in who you want to become starts with understanding. Not perfection, not an overhaul of new ideas, just understanding.

Quick note before we dive in: I am not a writer or a professor, so don’t expect anything too eloquent here. I’m also not an expert, I learn from other people, and then I share what I find. So think of this less like a lecture and more like me passing you my notes from last week’s class. You know like peer to peer. Take what’s useful.

So Where Do We Even Start?

Health. A big, central part of self-care is your health. Your health touches everything: your mood, your energy, your skin, your drive, how excited you feel to get out of bed in the morning. It’s the foundation.

The area where I personally hyper-focus is women’s health and specifically, cyclical health. Something I think about a lot is how we are more or less encouraged to read the ingredients on our food (or is at least trying to), and yet many of us don’t read the “ingredients” in our period products. Because most of us never were taught to.

What’s Actually in Your Period Products?

Research has found that some conventional menstrual pads contain measurable levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals — phthalates, phenols, and parabens — that can interfere with reproductive health. This is a real, under talked about exposure route that most of us were never told to question.

On top of that, conventional cotton production uses about $2.6 billion worth of pesticides a year and accounts for 10% of global insecticide use. Studies have found detectable levels of dioxins and glyphosate in some tampon brands, both of which have been linked to cancer. And plenty of people have noticed that switching away from conventional products made their cramps better. Correlation? Maybe. Worth knowing? Absolutely.

I know that’s a lot. And it adds to the long list of things we have been told to not use. Exhausting… I get it. But keep reading I am going to tell you the other part!!

The Notes: What to Avoid, What to Look For

Skip these:

Big legacy brands like Always and Tampax, these have been found to contain toxins that can enter your system.

Brands that only have FDA approval. FDA approval on its own is not the flex it sounds like. It’s the bare minimum required to sell a product, not a mark of safety or quality. Don’t let it be your only benchmark.

Look for these instead:

Founder or family owned companies tend to be more accountable. Larger corporations have more to lose from being transparent, are more likely to use misleading labels, and are more prone to cutting corners. A perfect example: the L brand markets itself as natural cotton and claims GOTS certification, but they don’t have the actual stamp on their product. Why? Because they’re only GOTS certified at the source of one layer of cotton. The rest of the product doesn’t qualify (less than 70% of the product is non-organic cotton) and that is not enough. They’re now owned by Procter & Gamble, which has an active lawsuit for greenwashing and non-organic contaminants in their tampons. That’s the kind of thing you only find out if you go looking.

Your Certification Cheat Sheet

Here’s the thing about certifications, they’re all public record. You can verify every single one. Here’s what each actually means:

GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) - the gold standard.

Requires at least 95% certified organic fibers, non-GMO, and strict environmental and ethical labour standards throughout the entire supply chain. To display the GOTS logo on the box, a product must be at least 70% organic cotton, so if a brand claims GOTS certified but there’s no stamp on the box, dig deeper.

OCS (Organic Content Standard)

Verifies that a product contains a certain percentage of organically grown material. Good, but doesn’t cover the full supply chain the way GOTS does.

USDA Organic

Covers the farming and growing side, no synthetic pesticides or GMOs at the source. Worth looking for, especially paired with another certification.

MADE SAFE

Screens for harmful chemicals across a product. Covers non-GMO as well. A great bonus cert to see alongside GOTS.

BPI (Biodegradable Products Institute)

Confirms a product is compostable. Not essential, but a nice bonus if sustainability matters to you.

You only need one of the three GOTS, USDA organic or OCS to ensure its organic cotton. Many brands have the certificate stamp on their website or in the ingredients and the third-party posts test results on their websites.

Brands I’d Point You To

All four of these are founder or family owned, GOTS certified, and non-GMO. Do your own research, obviously, but these are the ones that came up again and again when I went looking:

Natracare — Founder-owned by Susie Hewson. One of the original natural period product brands, she started it in 1989 specifically because of concerns about dioxins in bleached products.

TOTM — Founder-owned by Kate Herbert and St. John Pearce-Burk. UK-based, subscription model, very transparent about sourcing.

Organyc — Family-owned by Corman S.p.A., a second-generation Italian family company. 100% organic cotton, widely available.

Iris + Arlo — Founder-owned by Lara Emond and this one is Canadian, which as a Canadian I am genuinely excited about. Really impressed so far.

Final Thoughts

I have seen people say “if you can’t read it, don’t get it”, with regards to ingredients and while I get what that’s trying to do, I think it actually sets people up to feel more confused. The better version is: if you don’t know what it means, look it up, and then make a decision. That’s where the power actually is.

Knowledge is what lets us make better choices, not just about period products, but about everything. That’s what it means to invest in yourself. To love yourself the way you’d love someone you really care about, with attention, with curiosity, with the willingness to actually learn what they need.

That’s all I’ve got for this one. Now you have the notes … go use them. <3

Thank you for reading my first article!! Leave a comment or a question and I’d love to look into it further!