Do Women Feel More Attractive Before Ovulation? A Deep Dive into Cycle-Related Changes | Ep. 603

Episode 603

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In today’s episode, we are going to be diving into a field that I find so
interesting, this field of evolutionary biology, where they’re asking all of these
really interesting questions about our hormones and how they affect our behavior. Do
women change their behavior around ovulation? Are men more attracted to us around
ovulation, all these types of things? And, of course, I think one of the most
interesting and intriguing studies that has been done in this area I’ve talked about
on the podcast many times, which is the stripper study where they actually measured
the attractiveness in terms of tips. So they were looking at how men were responding
to women depending on where they were in their cycle compared to women who were on
birth control who then are not cycling. And so of course, we’ll link that episode
in the show notes page because that’s super interesting. But today’s study is a
little bit different because it’s not actually looking at men’s responses to women.
It’s actually looking at how women rate themselves in terms of their attractiveness
and actually also their grooming behavior if they change the way that they’re
presenting themselves. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s
episode.
larger sample size so that the results are more significant and give us more insight
into what’s really going on. So in this particular study, the researchers, they had
a group of 872 women, 580 of them who were cycling naturally,
and 292 who were using hormonal contraceptives. So they were actually then comparing
cycling women to non -cycling women to see if they could identify any patterns. And
by the title of the study, you can see what they were kind of looking at. They’re
kind of looking at how women are actually feeling about themselves, if they’re
feeling more attractive, and then also within the study results, they were looking at
some of the activities and actions that women were taking to see if their behavior
changed, as I mentioned. And so the participants in the study were between ages 18
and 49, so of that reproductive age. And the participants were completing daily
reports and answering specific questions about these topics for 70 consecutive days.
So depending on the length of the cycle that may encompass about two menstrual
cycles, I mean it may not. And they included women whose cycles were kind of
between 20 and 40 days is what they were saying. So I think, unsurprisingly,
the researchers did find that there was a link between where women were in their
cycles and how they were feeling about themselves. Potentially,
how it plays out in certain areas might have been a little bit different to what
they thought, but for any one of you who’s listening who does track your cycles, I
feel like studies this, and maybe for women who don’t track their cycle studies like
this might be really kind of like, oh my goodness, I had no idea. But for women
who have been cycling naturally and tracking their cycles for, you know, a
significant period of time, I feel like many of these studies kind of reinforce a
lot of what we already know and also provide some specificity around what we know.
So one thing that’s really interesting about this study is that they were not
looking to confirm ovulation by the day. So they didn’t actually do LH testing,
which is pretty standard for research that is looking at the menstrual cycle.
Instead, they used a different method to kind of estimate where women would be in
their cycle. So they calculated backwards by counting from the confirmed menstrual
period, and they kind of did some math to estimate where these women were in their
cycles. So I would say given the nature of the study and what they were trying to
do, I think that it’s reasonable that they did it that way.
a true menstrual period. There is a such thing as an anovulatory bleed. So some of
the data could be skewed in that way. And of course, the ludial phase is not
always standard. There’s a bit of variability in ludial phase length. So of course,
there are situations where maybe these estimates weren’t right on point. But again,
given the nature of the study and what they were trying to do, I do think it’s
reasonable for them to do that. And also given the sample size, given that they had
872 women, 580 who were naturally cycling. So almost 600 women who are naturally
cycling. I mean, are we teaching them all head to their cycles and having them
track their BPD? That would add an element and potentially at cost. And also, if
they were being so stringent, they may have to actually remove a lot of the data
for women who didn’t comply. So I just wanted to make a comment on that because I
do think it’s always interesting to see how researchers try to account for this
issue, which is how do we identify ovulation and if we’re looking specifically at
that fertile window, how are we defining that? So, I mean, again, with this study,
they are having these women write and answer questions on a daily basis so that
they get this sense of how they’re feeling at different types of their cycle. And
what they did find was that there was a strong ovulatory increase for the cycling
women in how they perceived their own attractiveness and how they perceived their own
sexual desire. So when they were tracking this data, they did find a significant
uptick in terms of how confident these women were feeling about themselves and their
level of attractiveness. And this is interesting because there’s a lot of different
research that has been done about this. So I think that one thing to note is that
I think for many women who are cycling naturally over the years, just working in
this field, I think it’s safe to say that many of us do find that there is a
change in our interest level in terms of sexual activity around ovulation. Many women
find that they may be more interested in sex. They may feel more interested in
engaging with their partner, maybe just more receptive to the advances of their
partner during that time. So That is a real phenomenon. But I think the nuance
there is that it doesn’t mean that it’s only around ovulation that you are going to
want to engage in any type of sexual activity. So there are studies that have
showed that if you look across the menstrual cycle, while there may be this uptick
around ovulation in that fertile window, it doesn’t mean that there’s just no desire
at any other time. And there are other times in the cycle where women have that
desire. But I’ve always kind of seen that consistency in real world experiences where
many women do report that they naturally feel more inclined to engage in sexual
activity around that time. And often if there’s going to be sexual activity, it’s
often around that time. So that is something to keep in mind. What’s interesting
about this study, though, is that they weren’t only looking at a woman’s desire for
sex. They were also looking at how she perceived her attractiveness and also if she
changed her behavior, if she was going to kind of do her hair or dress differently
or those kinds of things. And so what the researchers found was that there was an
increase in what they called grooming behavior. So making a bit more of an effort
to look a certain way and that kind of thing around ovulation. But it actually
wasn’t the strongest variable. So Interestingly, the kind of actions that women were
taking, there was a bit of an increase, but it wasn’t kind of the main highlight.
I think the feelings of attractiveness and sexual desirability, those were much more
pronounced than actually for women changing their behavior and changing how they were
dressing or those kinds of things. So I do think that is an interesting data point
that the researchers found. So if we were to put it into a neat little list and
tie it up with a little bow, the researchers found that naturally cycling women did
tend to feel more attractive, more sexually desirable during the fertile window. And
these shifts were pretty consistent. So no matter how the researchers analyze the
data, you know, if they’re running it one way versus another, the same pattern kept
showing up. So it was a strong pattern and it gives a good evidence that these
changes are real. One of the, I suppose, critiques that the researchers had about
previous research was that often they were using smaller sample sizes. So maybe they
couldn’t be as confident in the data. And so this is one of the reasons that these
researchers aimed to create a more robust data set so they could be more confident
in the results. So again, as I mentioned, women did put a bit more effort into
their appearance and things like that around ovulation overall, but it wasn’t as
strong of a variable as the other ones. And when they looked at self -esteem and
overall mood, they did find some changes around ovulation, some positive changes. So
they did see improvements in self -esteem and improvements in mood for naturally
cycling women around the fertile window, but it wasn’t, again, as big as the other
changes. So it wasn’t necessarily this huge change, but there was a bit of a modest
change. Now, one thing that I haven’t specifically said, I don’t think, but the
research definitely did confirm, was that these changes were only observed in women
who were cycling naturally. None of these changes that they are talking about were
observed in women who were on hormonal contraceptives. So having these two groups,
the 580 cycling women, compared to the 292 women using hormonal contraceptives,
really provided strong evidence that women who were on the pill don’t have a cycle.
I mean, this is something that we already know. And I think, again, it’s fascinating
that we need research to kind of confirm these things, but when they’re looking at
this and trying to test this hypothesis and show if it is likely true that women
are experiencing these shifts and changes based on hormonal shifts and changes around
ovulation throughout the menstrual cycle, it is really helpful that this study did
include a pretty significant group of women who were on contraceptives to kind of
verify that they were not seeing any of these changes. So the patterns for the
women on contraceptives are basically flat. And of course, we know why that is. And
if we needed additional evidence to kind of show, especially, for example, if this
is the first podcast you’ve ever tuned into on the show, and you didn’t know that
the periods on contraceptives aren’t real periods and you’re not really having a
cycle because you’re not ovulating. And ovulation is what defines having a normal
cycle in a true menstrual period, then here’s some more evidence, right? Without
these cyclical changes, without the hormones that we are releasing as we prepare for
ovulation, which is namely estrogen, and then after ovulation, we produce significant
progester. Without these hormonal changes, we’re not really seeing any of this. And
of course, this study doesn’t answer the question of, what are the implications here?
But, I mean, we can certainly talk a little bit more about that. And I suppose the
last little point that I’d make is that, as I’ve mentioned, the researchers really
aimed to clear up some of the questions that have been raised in previous research
here. So what’s great about it is that we do have quite a bit of data here and
they analyzed it in a really robust fashion. They have a pretty decent size group.
Of course, it would be even stronger if they had thousands of women in the group,
but it’s a pretty good sample size. So I feel like they kind of ticked a lot of
boxes in the study. And as I mentioned at the beginning, because they’re looking at
women themselves, they’re not really looking in the study at how men are responding.
So we can kind of use this as a complement to other research that looks primarily
at how men are responding to our hormonal shifts and really dial into how do women
feel and how are we changing and how is our mood changing and how is that related
to this whole concept of mating and attractiveness and sexual desire and all these
kinds of things. So really, really interesting to look at all of this stuff.
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has really given me is the confidence to then go and teach people this method for
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where they’re in their cycle rather than kind of be like, do you think you’re
populated? Like, oh, I don’t know. So, like, it’s made it really specific.
I just have this, like, wealth of knowledge now and this ability to teach people,
like, exactly where they are in their cycle and for them to understand exactly
what’s going on and there’s like there’s no assuming anymore. Like I just assumed I
ovulated on day 14 because that’s where everything told me. Actually that first
chart, what was day 20 or something? Like just because I had a 28 day cycle, it
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So then I suppose one of the questions is, what is the implication here? With this
data, what does this really mean for women? And I think that one of the ways that
this can be framed negatively, and I’ve heard things like this said in the past, is
like, we’re just ruled by our hormones, and we’re just kind of along for the ride,
and we don’t really get a say in what’s going on. I think that the actual study
results themselves show that’s not true. There was a lot of nuance here and there
was a lot of different variables that they were looking at. They weren’t only
looking at, for example, sexual desire. They were looking at grooming behaviors. They
were looking at self -esteem and they were looking at different emotions. So it does
show that there’s nuance and it does show that there are a lot of different factors
that shift around ovulation, but they’re not all defining factors and they’re not all
shifting to the same degree. We’re definitely not robots, and there’s a lot of
variation in there. I think what this study really shows is the trends toward how
the shift in our feelings of attractiveness, our mood, our confidence.
It does show this general trend there, but how that’s going to play out with each
individual woman is going to be different. And I feel like that is what comes
across with this study, because we are seeing this trend. And in some cases, they’re
seeing these overall general kind of blips, like with this self -esteem with the
mood. They’re seeing this general trend. But it wasn’t significant enough, meaning
that every single woman didn’t feel exactly the same way. So I think that this type
of research is really helpful. Of course, as a data nerd who’s been studying the
menstrual cycle for so many years, I really like research like this, which is why I
find it, pull it, and share it with you in this format, because it’s really
interesting for us to not only just talk about how we feel and look at the chart
and kind of see how this works out, but also see more large -scale data on what
this means, especially when you’re working with clients and you’re trying to
understand what’s going on in their cycle. I think one of the principles that we
try to share with our practitioners in our fertility awareness mastery mentorship is
that it’s not just about trying to put us into a box and try to really understand,
okay, well, this is what happens for every woman around ovulation, and this is what
happens for every woman around the Ludio face. If anything, when you’re working with
women on a kind of week -to -week, month -to -month basis, and you get to a point
where you’ve worked with hundreds of women, and you’ve analyzed their charts and kind
of really gotten into the weeds with your clients. What you find is a very nuanced
picture. So we see the trends, and it’s important to acknowledge those trends. So we
do see trends. But when you’re working with clients, no two clients are the same.
And everybody doesn’t respond the same way. I mean, you have a trend where a lot
of your clients will feel better, we’ll have more energy, will feel more confident.
And they might be exerting some of these behaviors outlined in the study where maybe
they are changing their outfits a little bit. And maybe they’re feeling a little bit
more bold. And they’re more extroverted around that time, which is, again, a trend
that we tend to see around ovulation. But you will always have clients who are
counter to that, who may not feel that great. Of course, that can be a sign that
there’s some underlying issues. For example, women that are not great at clearing
histamines might not feel so great around ovulation. And from the perspective of the
menstrual cycle as a vital sign, if a woman is feeling really terrible at certain
times of the cycle, then that is also a clue that we need to be looking at what’s
going on. But I suppose my point here is just that there is nuance, right? And so
that’s one of the things I really like about the study, because it didn’t just show
like every single woman found that this was how she felt. So we can’t use it as a
horoscope and say, you’re definitely going to feel this way, but we can help to
inform our clients and help to inform all of the women who we are interacting with
about the trends. And it also helps to normalize, right? It helps to normalize what
many of us do see, feel, and experience. And so another thing I like about the
research aspect of this is that as women, we often struggle to have our real world
lived bodily experiences acknowledged. We are often experiencing these things,
especially if you’re charting your cycle, you’re seeing these trends, you’re seeing
these cyclical patterns. It’s not always the same cycle to cycle, but as a woman
who’s charted her cycles for two decades here, there are certain trends that we
consistently see. And the last thing we need is to have another practitioner or
another individual out there just tell us it’s in our head and it’s not really a
big deal or that’s not exactly how it is or whatever. So that’s another reason why
I love research studies like this, because it helps us to normalize. It helps us to
provide that additional, Yes, actually, it’s not in your head. It is normal to
experience these shifts and changes around the cycle. And for women who might not
experience them to the same level, it’s also helpful to normalize that as well.
So we know there is nuance here. Every woman is not the same. These studies show
us that we experience these trends to varying degrees. One other implication that I
just want to point out that has come up within my writing, within the podcast over
the years, is the implication of what hormonal contraceptives could be masking or
taking away. So of course, what the study found is that the women who had these
results, like the ones who were showing these trends, they were the ones who were
not on contraceptives. And so the women who were on contraceptives, they had a flat
experience. They weren’t having peaks and valleys. They weren’t having this period of
time during ovulation where they were experiencing a stronger sexual desire or feeling
more attractive about themselves and then maybe a time that I suppose you could say
a little bit less pronounced. So cycling women experience a cyclical situation we’re
experiencing shifts and changes and we experience our cycle in seasons, if you will.
So there may maybe a season where you feel more energized, more excited about
certain things, in a season where you kind of take a step back and maybe are more
reflective about things. Whereas women who are on contraceptives are not experiencing
those natural emotional shifts and changes and nuances. And one of the things that I
remember that stands out to me quite a bit after interviewing so many women on
contraceptives is that when they come off of is what they’ll often say is that when
I was on this contraceptive, it was like I was living in a haze. It was like
everything felt flat. I didn’t experience the high highs or the low lows. It was
just kind of always the same. And then when I came off, I felt more like myself
again. And so I suppose that is one of the questions that the study doesn’t answer,
which is how does blocking this normal cyclical experience that we have?
What are the implications of that? Where did the implication?
we can continue this conversation.
So I’m going to go ahead and wrap this episode here. If you enjoyed this episode
and this discussion and you’re wanting to dig into the paper, make sure to head
over to the show notes page, fertilityfriday .com slash 603 is where you will find
the episode summary as well as the link to the research paper and the link also to
the previous episode that I mentioned about the stripper study, which I always love
to talk about because it’s one of the most interesting studies I think that has
ever been done. So if this topic interests you, then I would highly recommend to
just head over to the show notes page and take a peek at some of the other
episodes that we’ve done on this broad topic of evolutionary biology and how our
menstrual cycle interacts with our attractiveness and mating choice and all of these
things. And of course, these are topics that I talked about extensively in my first
book, The Fifth Vital Sign. And in the pill chapter where I kind of got into, does
the pill change the way that you choose a partner and potentially could it lead you
to choose a partner differently? That’s a whole other discussion that we did not get
into today, but certainly I cover in the Fifth Vital Sign. So at that said, I hope
you have a wonderful week, weekend whenever you’re tuning into the show. And of
course, as always, until next time. Be well and happy charting.
And that’s a wrap. If you’ve been loving the podcast and you’ve been thinking about
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You know what I’m going to be.