28 Days: What Your
Cycle Reveals About Your Love Life, Moods and Potential
By Gabrielle Lichterman
Polka Dot Press/Adams Media 2005
282 pp., $14.95
Veteran
women’s health writer Gabrielle Lichterman is onto something here – it’s
called Hormonology, and her book is described as a daily horoscope for
your hormones. Meaning that by reading one of the 28 chapters this book
is divided into (one for each day of a fertile woman’s cycle), you can
find out what the Big Three – estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone –
have in store for you each day. Sounds like scientific, dry reading?
Think again. Lichterman’s breezy style of writing has you chuckling all
the way through your forecast, even on grouchy PMS days (but, for the
curious, included in the endnotes are references to the studies she
bases her conclusions on).
What to expect? On Day 5, your
libido should have you “not only making the first move, you’re as
tenacious as a sexual telemarketer.” Day 7 finds you with your
left-brain skills at an all-time high for the month – “You’re logical,
practical, and full of wise decisions. You’re like Alan Greenspan.
Only funner!” And on Day 28, when PMS has got your energy at a low,
“estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone are all plummeting to the
bottom of the chart today and, like accomplices looking for a plea deal,
they’re taking you down with them.”
I found this book to be very
educational. Prior to reading this, I thought hormones affected women’s
behaviors and moods maybe during PMS, if at all. I found out instead
that estrogen and testosterone work to make a woman more extraverted,
mentally sharp, and open to new experiences during the first half of her
cycle. Then, declining hormones result in a woman becoming more
introspective and right-brained during the final two weeks. It’s
interesting that a woman’s cycle is naturally conducive to reflecting on
one’s experiences and integrating them emotionally and mentally as an
ongoing process each month.
I had more questions about that
and in a personal correspondence with the author, Ms. Lichterman
responded: “It is incredibly fascinating how nature has set up both men
and women to behave in certain ways for certain reasons -- women are
more outgoing and flirtatious and have a higher libido leading up to
their fertile phase while we're more sedate and sensitive during the
second phase of our cycle when mating could be potentially dangerous to
a developing fetus. Meanwhile, men have most of their energy in the
morning, which would help them hunt down animals in the wild. Of course,
nowadays, we can use those same impulses for other reasons. The energy
of the first phase of a woman's cycle can be harnessed to launch a new
business. And the mornings can be used by men to pitch a new client.
Neat, huh?”
Neat indeed. I found
28 Days to be enlightening, accurate, and most of, fun to
read. Biology is certainly not destiny, but this knowledge can be used
to gain an advantage, day by day.
Find out more about
Hormonology, and Gabrielle Lichterman, at
www.Hormonology.info
-- Review by Diane Saarinen
