28 Days: What your Cycle Reveals about Your Love Life, Moods, and Potential

hile billed as a daily horoscope for your hormones , this book has nothing to do with star charts. Its information is based on medical research measuring the levels of three hormones, testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone, in women during a typical cycle. While a man s hormonal cycle lasts 24 hours, a woman s usually lasts 28 days. This book also addresses women with a 90-day cycle, those on birth control pills, etc. Author Gabrielle Lichterman has taken a fun and humorous angle to the documentation of the emotional, intellectual and physical impact these hormones have on women daily. Some of her metaphors are laugh-out-loud funny, and she often incorporates pop culture in her examples.

The book begins with a foreword by Scott Haltzman, M.D., who clears up any doubts the reader may have as to there being plenty of scientific support for Lichterman s horoscopes . Next Lichterman gives specific instructions for the use of the book regardless of the length of your cycle.

The main body of the book goes through each of the 28 days of the female cycle, day one being the first day of your period. Each day includes a description of what is happening to a woman hormonally (i.e. which hormone levels are low/high), and how it might affect your relationships, career, diet, intelligence, creativity, sex life/libido, memory, health and spending habits. There is also useful information regarding when in your cycle you can better stand pain (thus when to get shots, schedule surgeries, etc.), when to ask for a raise, when to head off cramps and how, and when your hormones will be a sort of call of the wild to your Honey.

Lichterman s advice for lifting estrogen levels when they are low, and her explanations why having a pap spear on day 13 is most accurate for detecting cervical cancer, and why it is most prudent to do a breast self-exam on day 7 when swelling and sensitivity levels are low, make the book well worth the price ($14.95 US). Even if your cycle is slightly off due to stress, illness, medication, or the presence of other women who are still having cycles in your home, such as a roommate (it s a well documented fact that two or more healthy women who spend a lot of time together every day usually find their cycles going in sync), 28 Days is an excellent guide to understanding the female cycle.