What exactly are your energetic rhythms? And how can they help you shift out of distraction, chaos, and burnout and into optimal productivity, balance, and focus, without giving up your action-oriented nature?

What ARE  your Energetic Rhythms?

Energetic Rhythms are a combination of both your innate rhythms and the lunar cycle and how they work together to either support you or sabotage you.

Why this matters to you…

Because it’s how we were created or designed.  And when you live in alignment with your rhythms and work with them instead of against them, life flows instead feeling like you are a salmon swimming upstream.

So what are your Innate Rhythms then?

Your body’s response to hormones and the physical elements that impact health (movement, nutrition, stress, sleep).  This includes your body’s natural responses over the course of a day, week, month, season and even a year. Comprised of your Infradian Rhythms, Circadian Rhythm, and Ultradian Rhythms.

Now let’s get to defining what each of those types of rhythms are…

First up, Infradian Rhythms.   

Your Infradian Rhythm is your body’s physical, mental, emotional and behavorial rhythm with a period of time lasting longer than a day and less than a year and is influenced by your body’s sex hormones, thyroid hormones and adrenal hormones.  In other words, it’s influenced by your endocrine system.

 Menstrual Cycle

During the reproductive years, the period of time involving the fluctuation of hormones to prepare the female body for conception or shedding of the uterine lining if conception is not achieved.  This cycle lasts anywhere between 22 & 35+ days, and consists of 4 energetic phases –

• Period/Menstruation
• Follicular
• Ovulatory
• Luteal

These 4 phases mirror the Energetic Rhythms Cycle:

• Rest/Intention-setting
• Planning/Beginning to Take Action
• Taking intentional action
• Wrapping up/Reflecting/Celebrating

Tracking is the first step in knowing where you are in both of these cycles.  

In the next episode, go in depth of what to track and how, but before that, jump over to cairnyogawellness.com/rhythmstracker to download the Daily Energetic Rhythms Tracker I have clients use to get a picture of what their rhythms look like.

Next, Seasonal Rhythms

This is one I recognize as a period of time in which the energetic qualities of a natural-world season are embodied and lived out.  

We experience these when we feel the qualities of a particular season for an extended period of time in our lives; could be months or even years.  They may align with the actual seasons or they may not.  And they may vary from home life to work life.

For instance, you may choose to take a “winter” in your work life, in which you would slow your efforts to produce and do behind-the-scenes work or foundational work. But you may be in a “summer” season in your personal life, in which you’re ready to connect, put yourself out there and be active.

I talk about in a Facebook Live I did here.

Then comes Circadian Rhythms

These are your body’s physical, mental, emotional and behavorial rhythm with a period of time lasting 24 hours and associated with the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle. They are naturally felt by the body’s response to light and dark.

These are the rhythms you are likely most familiar with or have heard the most about. We started paying closer attention to them when we had our first child as babies sleep cycles are so much different than those of adults.

Finally, Ultradian Rhythms

These are your body’s micro-rhythms that happen naturally throughout the day, lasting less than 24 hours and greater than 1 hour.

Examples include: appetite, focus, energy, blinking, heart rate, circulation, body temperature, cortisol 

The other crucial component of your energetic rhythms is the lunar cycle or lunar rhythms.

Lunar Rhythms

The lunar cycle mirrors the menstrual cycle in both phases and energetic qualities each of the phases has.

1. 1. • New Moon
      • Waxing Moon
      • Full Moon
      • Waning Moon
2. The length of the lunar cycle is even very close in length to that of the average menstrual cycle…29 1/2 days.  Each phase has an energetic feel to it that impacts how we engage in the world.

Other astrological elements come into play as well, for instance, what astrological sign the moon is passing through at the various phases, but that is not my area of expertise.  I focus primarily on the fundamental qualities of the lunar phases as a whole.

Your body’s rhythms show you exactly when to rest and when to take action so you don’t have to overthink life and work.

How to use your Energetic Rhythms 

The first step is tracking them.  The may seem daunting and tedious, but once you do it, you’ll hopefully have a clear picture of what your body does each month in response to your biological cycle AND the lunar cycle.

We talk details of tracking and using the Daily Energetic Rhythms Tracker in the next episode.

Now, if you have no menstrual cycle anymore, or if you are on hormonal birth control, you get to take the easy way out and JUST use the moon’s rhythm to find yours!

Your body’s rhythms show you exactly when to rest and when to take action so you don’t have to overthink life and work.

Get your Daily Rhythms Tracker and head over to the next episode to learn how to use the tracker and get started tracking your rhythms.

Resources:

Join the Energetic Rhythms for Intentional Living community here.

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More Episodes like this one:
#14:  Circadian Rhythm & Nutrition with Katie Standafer Lopez
#39: What is Cyclical Living

Disclosure:  Because I like connecting others with resources that I have used and found to work well in my life, I want to be completely transparent with you.  Some of the links within this post are affiliate links from Amazon; as an Amazon Associate I earn  from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. I only promote products that align with my values and with what I truly believe to work, not because of the commission I receive on them. So if you do decide to purchase something from one of these links, thank you!