When a woman comes to me wanting to come off the pill, it really lights me up. Helping a woman get back in touch with her body, and learn what’s normal for her cycle, is one of my favourite parts of this work.
This one is personal for me too.
I went on the pill for the same reason so many of us did: fear. Growing up in Ireland, there was a huge fear around sex. Parents wanted to discourage their girls, and a lot of that meant showing us the fear side. The biggest fear of all was getting pregnant.
I was taught that condoms weren’t 100%. I genuinely thought you could get pregnant at any point in your cycle. Nobody ever told me there’s a fertile window, and that it’s only a few days each month.
In my twenties, when I started studying nutrition and herbal medicine, I began to question everything I was doing: the food I ate, my lifestyle habits, and the pill.
So I came off it. I started taking a fish oil and B vitamins, and I noticed such a change in my mood around my period. I was in a difficult relationship at the time, with a lot of conflict. But the irritability I used to feel before my period eased, and I felt steadier in myself.
It took a few cycles to find my rhythm again, and a long time to really get to know my body. But it was an exciting time, and I loved it.
While I was studying herbal medicine, I did a course on cycle tracking, including tracking your cycle as a form of contraception. It fascinated me. And it made me see something much bigger. For centuries, women’s bodies have been misunderstood, and too often nobody cared enough to understand them. Our cycle has been treated as an inconvenience, something to hide or switch off, rather than a sign of how we’re doing. Knowledge this basic should belong to every woman. Instead, it’s been treated as frivolous.
Over time I learned to track my cycle properly. I took my basal temperature every morning, at the same time, and watched my cervical fluid. I got to know my body so well that I could feel when ovulation was coming, and my temperature chart would confirm it.
I used the Natural Cycles app, with condoms as a backup around my fertile window. I used that method for about ten years. I didn’t get pregnant when I didn’t want to, and then I used the very same knowledge to get pregnant when I did.
No method of contraception is 100%. There are variables in all of them. But knowing my cycle gave me something I’d never had before: I felt in control.
It still strikes me that we take a pill every single day to prevent pregnancy, when we can only get pregnant on around six days of each cycle.
The pill works by switching off ovulation, and with it your own hormones. But your hormones do so much more than allow you to get pregnant. They matter for your brain, your mood and emotional wellbeing, your bones, your energy. Just about everything you need as a human being.
I often think: if we offered men a pill every day that switched off their testosterone, would they take it? I don’t think they would. Yet women have been carrying the weight of contraception for decades.
Once you know your cycle, you can start working with it instead of against it. This is where I see some of the biggest changes in PMS.
In the week or so before your period, many women find their blood sugar dips more easily and cravings are stronger. That’s the time to go easy on sugar and keep your meals steady, with protein at every one. It’s also when your body may cope less well with high-intensity exercise. Swapping a hard workout for a walk, yoga or gentle strength work in those days can make a real difference to how you feel.
In the first half of your cycle, after your period, many women have more energy, and that’s a great time for harder training.
Small changes, timed with your cycle, can ease the irritability, cravings and low moods so many of us were told were just part of being a woman. Your cycle is like a report card. When you know how to read it, you can plan around it.
You don’t have to just stop and hope for the best. In my experience, the three months before you stop are the key to an easier transition. That means balancing blood sugar, supporting your stress levels, looking after your gut, and replenishing nutrients the pill can deplete, like B vitamins, zinc and magnesium.
I’ve put everything I share with clients into a free guide: the 3-month prep, the bloods worth checking, what to expect when you stop, and how to start getting to know your cycle.
When I had my daughter, I knew this was something I wanted to pass down to her. My parents didn’t know any of this either, so how could they have taught me?
I want her, and every woman, to understand her cycle, be in control of her fertility, and have sovereignty over her own body. I believe we all deserve that.
A note on how I work: real change doesn’t happen overnight. We start with your foundations and build from there, and there’s always more we can do as your body responds. Anything hormonal takes at least three months to shift, so the real difference comes from consistency: sticking with the changes, giving your body time on the plan (your food, your lifestyle, and herbs or supplements where they’re needed), and being patient with yourself. There’s no magic pill that will fix everything at once.
If you’d like support coming off the pill, or getting to know your cycle again, I’d love to help. Book a consultation, or book a free 15-minute call if you’d like to chat first.
I'm a nutritionist and registered herbalist, and I help women get to the bottom of what's going on with their hormones: painful or irregular periods, PCOS, endometriosis, coming off the pill, fertility and perimenopause. I also support mams through the postpartum years, when so much of the care stops. I work online with women across Ireland and beyond. Slowly, gently and bit by bit, so the changes actually last.
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