September 26, 2025 • 11 mins
I'm Bridget Walton, a Women's Hormone Coach helping ambitious women ages 25-40 naturally restore hormone balance, fix irregular periods, feel confident in their fertility, and resolve gut health issues without restrictive dieting.
If you struggle with missing periods, PCOS symptoms, bloating, or unpredictable cycles, this women's health podcast will teach you how to support your hormones through strategic nutrition and lifestyle changes that actually fit your busy life.
On I'm Hormonal, you'll discover natural solutions for period problems, learn how gut health impacts your hormones, and get practical hormone balance tips from a functional nutrition perspective - no more guessing what your body needs.
This episode walks you through what short menstrual cycles (25 days or less) and short periods (2 days or less) could be indicating about your hormone levels. You'll learn what's the most important question to find an answer to: are you actually ovulating? And you'll learn two methods to get more clarity on that answer so you can make the best next step to restore balance to your hormones.
👉 DM us on Instagram @im_hormonal - we want to hear your biggest takeaway
👉 Ready to fix your hormones for good? Start at imhormonal.com/goals
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hello there and welcome to I'm Hormonal.
This is episode number 137.
I'm your host, Bridget Walton,and today we are going to be
talking about short menstrualcycles.
What does that mean or whatcould it mean?
Where do you want to startinvestigating if you do have a
cycle that is on the shorterside, a period that is on the
shorter side, and help you makesense of what your body is
(00:24):
trying to tell you with thosesignals?
So this is a mini episode.
We're gonna just get right intoit.
And I'll mention too that thisquestion came to me after the
training that I did earlier thisweek.
So I'll give you a littlesummary of what this person
submitted their question about,and then we'll dive into the
rest of the context that you'llwant to know.
(00:44):
But in short, this gal is havingshort cycles, about 24 days and
really light periods.
So period just lasts two days, acouple days of pink spotting
leading up to the period.
And it had been suggested to herthat light periods could be
related to PCOS potentially,potentially inobulatory periods,
(01:08):
potentially low progesterone.
So that's what we're going toget into here.
First, let's look at what doesthat mean when your cycle is on
the shorter side?
There are a couple of thingsthat you will want to
investigate, but for starters,you want to be thinking about
okay, is this a sign that one,my progesterone levels are low
(01:33):
or relatively low?
Two, is my estrogen low orrelatively low?
And then of course, thinkingabout are you ovulating?
So let me break down each ofthose and explain what those
hormones do and how you can tryto get some context about, you
know, what those hormone levelsare looking like absent from,
(01:53):
you know, lab results.
So let's start off withestrogen.
Estrogen is the hormone that isdominant in the first half of
your menstrual cycle.
So between that first day ofyour period and about halfway
through when you ovulate,estrogen is a hormone that is
going to help build, right?
It's going to help build thetissue that lines your
(02:15):
endometrium.
And so if you are havingrelatively low amounts of
estrogen, that could explain whythere isn't that much tissue to
shed at the end of the cyclewhen your period starts again.
So that's what I'm thinkingabout with estrogen.
When it comes to progesterone,this comes into the conversation
(02:35):
because progesterone is thehormone that your body releases
after you ovulate or in thatsecond half of the cycle.
Or if you don't ovulate in aparticular cycle, then you
naturally would not have therelease of that progesterone.
Now, if you have lowprogesterone or perhaps no
progesterone due to a lack ofovulation, then that itself
(02:59):
could lead to a shortermenstrual cycle.
And then tying it all togetherwith ovulation, because as you
may have deduced, right, yourestrogen levels in the first
half, those can prepare yourbody and that lead up to
ovulation.
Progesterone is the result ofthat ovulation.
So being able to identify, okay,did you ovulate?
(03:22):
Um, that is going to help youfigure out what is the next
step.
And do you need to eithersupport a ovulation?
How do we get a good, likerobust ovulation?
What does your body need?
Or on the other hand, how do yousupport option B of producing
more progesterone on the backend?
We'll talk more about how toconfirm or predict ovulation in
(03:45):
just un momentito here.
I want to talk first about whatis considered a short cycle.
Okay, so officially, if yourmenstrual cycle is less than 21
days, that would be textbookshort.
I would say if your cycle isregularly less than 25 days, and
(04:05):
if you're feeling a little bitlike, okay, I think something
might be a little bit offbalance here, then that is the
informal marker that I would gooff of 25 days or less.
And then when it comes to yourperiod length, if you bleed for
less than two full days, orotherwise, if you're like, I'm
just barely bleeding at all,then that is another kind of
(04:27):
parameter or rule of thumb thatyou can keep in the back of your
mind.
One other thing that this galmentioned was spotting.
So anytime that you spot in thelead up to your period, what
that can signal is thatprogesterone is tapering off
gradually, as opposed to a moreacute drop, and then your like
(04:50):
full period just starts.
Another way to say that is atthe end of your cycle leading up
to your next period, bothprogesterone and estrogen levels
are declining.
When they get to their lowestpoint, essentially, that's
normally when your periodbegins.
But for somebody who may not beproducing like gushes and gushes
(05:13):
of progesterone, um, and thenthat leads to this gradual
tapering or progesterone that'sa little bit lower before
estrogen totally drops down.
That's what could result in someof the spotting.
So, again, that's all to saythat when there's spotting
leading up to your full bleed,that is a signal that, okay,
(05:37):
let's figure out whatprogesterone is doing.
And that comes back to thisquestion of are you ovulating?
Right?
That is the piece of informationthat will best direct you for
your next step.
The next thing that I want totalk about is PCOS.
If you are not yet familiar withPCOS polycystic ovary syndrome,
(05:58):
this is a syndrome that ischaracterized by a couple of
things.
One, irregular cycles or atleast inconsistent ovulation,
two, high levels of androgens,which are your hormones like
testosterone.
And then three, cysts on theovaries.
This is something that you wouldhave a conversation with your
(06:19):
physician about, um, and theywould make an assessment on do
you meet the criteriasatisfactorily such that you may
or may not have PCOS, regardlessof any potential diagnosis from
your provider, right?
What do you want to know?
If your cycles are reallyunpredictable, if you are having
a lot of symptoms like excesshair growth or a lot of acne,
(06:43):
those are two things that happenwhen you have really high levels
of androgens.
Um, those are some things tolook for.
You're probably not gonna knowif you have a bunch of, you
know, cysts on your ovariesunless you do an actual
ultrasound with your provider.
But those are a couple of cluesfor you to think about if you're
(07:03):
like, hmm, PCOS, let me noodleon this.
The common um, the commonanswer, the common piece of
information that you should keeptop of mind is again coming back
to this question of are youovulating?
And how would you find out ifyou're ovulating?
Well, let me suggest twodifferent methods that you can
use, one or the other, or both.
(07:26):
And the first one would be usingovulation strips.
So you can pick up at your localdrugstore probably some
ovulation strips.
And the way that those work, youknow, you would want to use them
consistently throughout a cycleor two or three, and they will
show if there is a spike inluteinizing hormone.
(07:49):
We didn't talk about luteinhormone so far in this
conversation because it's notone of the kind of big players,
I'm doing air quotes over here,for your hormones or for your
menstrual cycle, but it isreally important in practice,
you know, in the way that yourbody works, because when you
have that spike in luteinizinghormone, that is uh something
(08:12):
that happens before you ovulate.
Therefore, if you're usingovulation strips and you don't
see a spike in lutinizinghormone, then you may not be
ovulating.
The second method that you cantry out would be keeping track
of your basal body temperature.
If you have a smartwatch thattracks temperature, then you may
(08:34):
already have the ability to dothis.
Or there might be anotherthermometer that works really
well for you.
There are companies like TempDrop.
That's one that I have used fora couple of years now.
You put this armband on beforeyou go to sleep at night in the
morning, wake up, sync it withyour phone.
It will tell you what thepatterns are in your basal body
(08:55):
temperature, which is thatlowest temperature that your
body reaches, um, really likejust before you wake up in the
morning.
The reason why tracking yourbasal body temperature can be
helpful is because after youovulate, you will see a rise in
your temperature for theremainder of your menstrual
cycle.
Once you ovulate, your body isreleasing or producing that
(09:16):
progesterone, your temperatureis going to reflect.
So these are two methods thatyou can use together or separate
to help build that picture ofare you ovulating?
So you can decide, okay, do Ineed to figure out first why my
estrogen is a little bit low,why my lutezing hormone maybe
isn't doing what we expect it todo?
(09:38):
Or on the other hand, are youovulating and you need to
support the progesterone part ofthe equation?
In summary, here as we get readyto wrap up, this conversation
about short cycles and reallyshort bleeds, just I would want
to dig into A, are you eatingenough?
Are you getting the rightnutrients that you need?
(10:00):
As the second half of that noteis are you digesting your food
properly?
Like how is your gut health?
Because even if you're eatingall of the right things, if
you're not actually digestingthose foods properly and fully,
well, you know, it's not reallygoing to be help helping to
nourish your body in the sameway.
I would also want to be thinkingabout stress levels.
(10:22):
Do you have a lot of stress?
And that could that be signalingto your body, you know, hey,
this isn't a really great timeto ovulate.
Maybe you need to handle thatstress.
And then third and final, Iwould say, you know, what's
going on with inflammation?
How are you feeling overall onyour day to day?
Like, do you feel pretty well?
Or do you have exposure to a lotof chemicals or pollution or
(10:48):
other chemicals or factors thatcan be impacting your hormone
signaling and go from there?
So that is it for today on thismini episode.
Thank you guys for listening.
If you have any questions, ifyou have a situation that you
want to hear my take on on thepodcast, then you can connect
with me over on Instagram, findme at I'm underscore hormonal.
(11:11):
And that's it for today.
I'm Bridget Walton, and I'll seeyou gals on the next one.
If you loved today's episode andgot something good out of it,
make sure you subscribe so thatthese episodes show up
automatically in your feed.
No work needed on your side.
Let's put it on autopilot.
As always, I need to give you myreminder that the information I
(11:31):
share with you here is foreducational purposes only and it
should not be used as areplacement for medical advice
or diagnosis.
Now, if you are, on the otherhand, in the market for some one
on one support, then I wouldlove for you to take me up on my
offer for a free strategy call.
You can find these links andmore in the show notes.
Alright, we'll see you on thenext one.
Hello there and welcome to I'm Hormonal.
This is episode number 137.
I'm your host, Bridget Walton,and today we are going to be
talking about short menstrualcycles.
What does that mean or whatcould it mean?
Where do you want to startinvestigating if you do have a
cycle that is on the shorterside, a period that is on the
shorter side, and help you makesense of what your body is
(00:24):
trying to tell you with thosesignals?
So this is a mini episode.
We're gonna just get right intoit.
And I'll mention too that thisquestion came to me after the
training that I did earlier thisweek.
So I'll give you a littlesummary of what this person
submitted their question about,and then we'll dive into the
rest of the context that you'llwant to know.
(00:44):
But in short, this gal is havingshort cycles, about 24 days and
really light periods.
So period just lasts two days, acouple days of pink spotting
leading up to the period.
And it had been suggested to herthat light periods could be
related to PCOS potentially,potentially inobulatory periods,
(01:08):
potentially low progesterone.
So that's what we're going toget into here.
First, let's look at what doesthat mean when your cycle is on
the shorter side?
There are a couple of thingsthat you will want to
investigate, but for starters,you want to be thinking about
okay, is this a sign that one,my progesterone levels are low
(01:33):
or relatively low?
Two, is my estrogen low orrelatively low?
And then of course, thinkingabout are you ovulating?
So let me break down each ofthose and explain what those
hormones do and how you can tryto get some context about, you
know, what those hormone levelsare looking like absent from,
(01:53):
you know, lab results.
So let's start off withestrogen.
Estrogen is the hormone that isdominant in the first half of
your menstrual cycle.
So between that first day ofyour period and about halfway
through when you ovulate,estrogen is a hormone that is
going to help build, right?
It's going to help build thetissue that lines your
(02:15):
endometrium.
And so if you are havingrelatively low amounts of
estrogen, that could explain whythere isn't that much tissue to
shed at the end of the cyclewhen your period starts again.
So that's what I'm thinkingabout with estrogen.
When it comes to progesterone,this comes into the conversation
(02:35):
because progesterone is thehormone that your body releases
after you ovulate or in thatsecond half of the cycle.
Or if you don't ovulate in aparticular cycle, then you
naturally would not have therelease of that progesterone.
Now, if you have lowprogesterone or perhaps no
progesterone due to a lack ofovulation, then that itself
(02:59):
could lead to a shortermenstrual cycle.
And then tying it all togetherwith ovulation, because as you
may have deduced, right, yourestrogen levels in the first
half, those can prepare yourbody and that lead up to
ovulation.
Progesterone is the result ofthat ovulation.
So being able to identify, okay,did you ovulate?
(03:22):
Um, that is going to help youfigure out what is the next
step.
And do you need to eithersupport a ovulation?
How do we get a good, likerobust ovulation?
What does your body need?
Or on the other hand, how do yousupport option B of producing
more progesterone on the backend?
We'll talk more about how toconfirm or predict ovulation in
(03:45):
just un momentito here.
I want to talk first about whatis considered a short cycle.
Okay, so officially, if yourmenstrual cycle is less than 21
days, that would be textbookshort.
I would say if your cycle isregularly less than 25 days, and
(04:05):
if you're feeling a little bitlike, okay, I think something
might be a little bit offbalance here, then that is the
informal marker that I would gooff of 25 days or less.
And then when it comes to yourperiod length, if you bleed for
less than two full days, orotherwise, if you're like, I'm
just barely bleeding at all,then that is another kind of
(04:27):
parameter or rule of thumb thatyou can keep in the back of your
mind.
One other thing that this galmentioned was spotting.
So anytime that you spot in thelead up to your period, what
that can signal is thatprogesterone is tapering off
gradually, as opposed to a moreacute drop, and then your like
(04:50):
full period just starts.
Another way to say that is atthe end of your cycle leading up
to your next period, bothprogesterone and estrogen levels
are declining.
When they get to their lowestpoint, essentially, that's
normally when your periodbegins.
But for somebody who may not beproducing like gushes and gushes
(05:13):
of progesterone, um, and thenthat leads to this gradual
tapering or progesterone that'sa little bit lower before
estrogen totally drops down.
That's what could result in someof the spotting.
So, again, that's all to saythat when there's spotting
leading up to your full bleed,that is a signal that, okay,
(05:37):
let's figure out whatprogesterone is doing.
And that comes back to thisquestion of are you ovulating?
Right?
That is the piece of informationthat will best direct you for
your next step.
The next thing that I want totalk about is PCOS.
If you are not yet familiar withPCOS polycystic ovary syndrome,
(05:58):
this is a syndrome that ischaracterized by a couple of
things.
One, irregular cycles or atleast inconsistent ovulation,
two, high levels of androgens,which are your hormones like
testosterone.
And then three, cysts on theovaries.
This is something that you wouldhave a conversation with your
(06:19):
physician about, um, and theywould make an assessment on do
you meet the criteriasatisfactorily such that you may
or may not have PCOS, regardlessof any potential diagnosis from
your provider, right?
What do you want to know?
If your cycles are reallyunpredictable, if you are having
a lot of symptoms like excesshair growth or a lot of acne,
(06:43):
those are two things that happenwhen you have really high levels
of androgens.
Um, those are some things tolook for.
You're probably not gonna knowif you have a bunch of, you
know, cysts on your ovariesunless you do an actual
ultrasound with your provider.
But those are a couple of cluesfor you to think about if you're
(07:03):
like, hmm, PCOS, let me noodleon this.
The common um, the commonanswer, the common piece of
information that you should keeptop of mind is again coming back
to this question of are youovulating?
And how would you find out ifyou're ovulating?
Well, let me suggest twodifferent methods that you can
use, one or the other, or both.
(07:26):
And the first one would be usingovulation strips.
So you can pick up at your localdrugstore probably some
ovulation strips.
And the way that those work, youknow, you would want to use them
consistently throughout a cycleor two or three, and they will
show if there is a spike inluteinizing hormone.
(07:49):
We didn't talk about luteinhormone so far in this
conversation because it's notone of the kind of big players,
I'm doing air quotes over here,for your hormones or for your
menstrual cycle, but it isreally important in practice,
you know, in the way that yourbody works, because when you
have that spike in luteinizinghormone, that is uh something
(08:12):
that happens before you ovulate.
Therefore, if you're usingovulation strips and you don't
see a spike in lutinizinghormone, then you may not be
ovulating.
The second method that you cantry out would be keeping track
of your basal body temperature.
If you have a smartwatch thattracks temperature, then you may
(08:34):
already have the ability to dothis.
Or there might be anotherthermometer that works really
well for you.
There are companies like TempDrop.
That's one that I have used fora couple of years now.
You put this armband on beforeyou go to sleep at night in the
morning, wake up, sync it withyour phone.
It will tell you what thepatterns are in your basal body
(08:55):
temperature, which is thatlowest temperature that your
body reaches, um, really likejust before you wake up in the
morning.
The reason why tracking yourbasal body temperature can be
helpful is because after youovulate, you will see a rise in
your temperature for theremainder of your menstrual
cycle.
Once you ovulate, your body isreleasing or producing that
(09:16):
progesterone, your temperatureis going to reflect.
So these are two methods thatyou can use together or separate
to help build that picture ofare you ovulating?
So you can decide, okay, do Ineed to figure out first why my
estrogen is a little bit low,why my lutezing hormone maybe
isn't doing what we expect it todo?
(09:38):
Or on the other hand, are youovulating and you need to
support the progesterone part ofthe equation?
In summary, here as we get readyto wrap up, this conversation
about short cycles and reallyshort bleeds, just I would want
to dig into A, are you eatingenough?
Are you getting the rightnutrients that you need?
(10:00):
As the second half of that noteis are you digesting your food
properly?
Like how is your gut health?
Because even if you're eatingall of the right things, if
you're not actually digestingthose foods properly and fully,
well, you know, it's not reallygoing to be help helping to
nourish your body in the sameway.
I would also want to be thinkingabout stress levels.
(10:22):
Do you have a lot of stress?
And that could that be signalingto your body, you know, hey,
this isn't a really great timeto ovulate.
Maybe you need to handle thatstress.
And then third and final, Iwould say, you know, what's
going on with inflammation?
How are you feeling overall onyour day to day?
Like, do you feel pretty well?
Or do you have exposure to a lotof chemicals or pollution or
(10:48):
other chemicals or factors thatcan be impacting your hormone
signaling and go from there?
So that is it for today on thismini episode.
Thank you guys for listening.
If you have any questions, ifyou have a situation that you
want to hear my take on on thepodcast, then you can connect
with me over on Instagram, findme at I'm underscore hormonal.
(11:11):
And that's it for today.
I'm Bridget Walton, and I'll seeyou gals on the next one.
If you loved today's episode andgot something good out of it,
make sure you subscribe so thatthese episodes show up
automatically in your feed.
No work needed on your side.
Let's put it on autopilot.
As always, I need to give you myreminder that the information I
(11:31):
share with you here is foreducational purposes only and it
should not be used as areplacement for medical advice
or diagnosis.
Now, if you are, on the otherhand, in the market for some one
on one support, then I wouldlove for you to take me up on my
offer for a free strategy call.
You can find these links andmore in the show notes.
Alright, we'll see you on thenext one.
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