Dear all, Fran Wiedemann is a mental coach, cycle expert, mindfulness coach and nutritionist, and today she explains how our female cycle can become a success booster for us. In 1:1 coaching, she accompanies women in various stages of life and supports them with cycle disorders, menopause challenges and cycle-based training.
Her focus at Wiedemann Women Mentoring is on holistic women’s health and is based on three central pillars: mental health, the female cycle (with a focus on the transition to menopause) and nutrition. She encourages women to live in harmony with themselves and to stand up for themselves. She is herself a mother of three and lives with her family in Brandenburg.
Dear Ms Wiedemann, we all know that women are cyclical beings, but how can we use our cycle as a natural success booster?
To be honest, I don’t think everyone really knows that we women are cyclical beings. There are many women for whom this topic is new and who are only slowly becoming familiar with the term „cyclical being“ and everything related to it. This makes it all the more important that the topic is now becoming more prominent and that more people are engaging with it.
In order to use our cycle as a natural success booster, it is first important that we gather knowledge about it. Because when you know your own cycle and understand when which phases are active, you discover yourself as a woman in a whole new way. You live with more understanding for yourself and thus with more ease. You also put less pressure on yourself, which, in my opinion, leads to success. In other words, you can use your cycle as a success booster, if you want to call it that.
Even professional athletes are now considering adapting their training sessions to their cycle… When are we at our most productive and when are we at our least productive?
That’s a good question, as it really highlights how individual this all is. When we are at our most and least productive depends on our own personal cycle. Of course, there is a general trend, a mainstream view, so to speak, which says that you are at your most productive during the follicular and ovulation phases. When the hormone progesterone slowly rises and you are in the luteal and menstrual phases, you are at your least productive according to this mainstream view.
But as I said, it’s all very individual. Exceptions always prove the rule, although in this case we shouldn’t talk about exceptions, but simply individual perceptions. For example, there are also women who feel very powerful during menstruation and can give their all.
It is also important to note that in sport, there is a difference between pure performance and self-perception. Studies have shown that performance measured in numbers – for example, times, repetitions or distances – does not always correspond to how athletes feel. This means that if an athlete is not feeling well, she may assess her performance as poorer, even though the numbers show a good result. The cycle therefore not only influences our own performance, but also how we feel about it.
As many of our readers are already in perimenopause, what in particular can they pay attention to in order to use their strength as efficiently as possible?
The most important thing is to pay attention to yourself and your own body and to listen to yourself, even if it may not always be easy to actively deal with the issue. It is important not to be afraid of it. You should also never lose sight of the fact that perimenopause, or the entire period of menopause, is a marathon and not a sprint.
A wide range of symptoms can occur during the menopause: from hot flushes and sleep disorders to vaginal dryness and reduced libido – and these are just a few of the many possible symptoms that can naturally sap your energy. It is important to recognise the signs and learn more about ways to influence them, as there are many options available.
For example, you can make a big difference and alleviate symptoms by changing your lifestyle, i.e. your diet, sleep and exercise habits. Hormone replacement therapy is also one of many ways to relieve symptoms. But no woman has to search for solutions on her own: there are, for example, contact points that can show you the various options available so that you can filter out what is best for you.
Finding the right option is a process in which I provide intensive support to women in my coaching sessions: there is no one right solution, no one right way. Every perimenopause, every menopause, the entire process of the change of life is individual for every woman. The course depends on lifestyle and has ethnic and genetic connections. It is important to see that you can make a difference and that you can face the whole thing positively and, above all, without fear.
If I want to explain to my boss that I would prefer to work on the big project in two weeks‘ time because I will be feeling stronger then, how can I justify this on biological grounds?
The only thing that helps here is honest communication about the issue. Women are cyclical beings, and during the luteal or menstrual phase, it can be more difficult to work on such a project due to discomfort and hormonal fluctuations.
It is right and important to stand up for yourself, and I personally think it is very good when women can muster the courage to do so. However, those who do not feel comfortable with such direct communication can pay attention to their own cycle when working on projects that have been planned for a long time or for which there is plenty of processing time available.
For example, the most difficult part of the project could be completed during a peak phase – the follicular or ovulation phase – while everything else that is easier could be done during the other two phases – the luteal and menstrual phases. If you take your cycle into account, you can simply plan accordingly and don’t necessarily have to inform your boss about your cycle.
Of course, there are also situations in which you do not have the opportunity to follow the phases of your cycle or your own energy levels and in which you have to give more than you are actually capable of at that moment. In such situations, it helps to be aware that you are demanding a lot of yourself and have exerted yourself more than you perhaps should have done. Afterwards, it is essential to allow enough time for recovery, even if this may not be possible until two days later.
We are now at the beginning of a new year, and many people are enthusiastically setting themselves resolutions, but quickly abandoning them. How can we manage to stick to them?
It’s true, a new year is always motivating and we quickly come up with a whole host of new resolutions. But the truth is that you don’t need a new year to make resolutions or to herald change for yourself. It doesn’t matter when you start with new resolutions, but it is important to realise that not every desire for change has to start with a huge change right away.
It’s worth starting with small steps and being happy about every bit of progress. It’s especially important to maintain continuity and implement these small changes over the long term. If we’re too hard on ourselves and want to achieve too much at once, we usually fail and the result is frustration rather than progress.
Do you have an example for us?
We don’t have to suddenly start exercising for an hour every day in January, especially if we haven’t done any sport for years. A good start would be, for example, 10 minutes of light exercise per week: a little yoga, a short run or a few strength exercises. This is achievable and keeps you motivated. Even if you might not think so, you will quickly feel how much difference these 10 minutes per week make.
It is therefore important that we set ourselves achievable, realistic goals that fit both our schedule and our current condition so that we can consistently achieve them. There is no point in setting goals that are so unrealistic that they cause even more stress in our everyday lives. When planning goals, we should think carefully about what we really want and how we can integrate and implement it in the long term. Of course, it is also important to stick with it and not give up as soon as things get a little difficult.
Would you say that our female cycle and knowledge about it can be a great source of strength?
Absolutely, definitely! Knowledge about our cycle explains a lot and makes many things clearer for women who are interested in themselves and their cycle. They no longer perceive themselves as wrong or strange, but know that mood swings, for example, are okay and allowed. Once you have this knowledge, you are much kinder to yourself. I also believe that it helps you to stand up for yourself more.
It changes your mindset, which, like emotions, is always linked to hormones. We need to be aware that it’s not just about the cycle, but that all these aspects are connected. Knowing more about the cycle and these connections and putting this knowledge into practice means looking at things holistically. For me, it’s definitely a strength, if not a superpower!
What else would you like to share with us mothers in general to help us have a good 2026?
Don’t be too hard on yourselves and don’t compare yourselves to others, but follow your own path and pay attention to what is best for you and what suits you best. If you want to make changes, don’t take huge, quick steps, but take small steps continuously and at your own pace – the magic word here is continuity. Also, make sure you take enough me-time. This is very important, because only when we as women and mothers are doing well can we pass this on to our loved ones, our children and our environment. If we as mothers have no strength, then we are just functioning and cannot really enjoy life. Imagine it like being on an aeroplane: in a dangerous situation, you should put on your own oxygen mask first and then help others, because it doesn’t work the other way round. You can’t help anyone if you don’t have any oxygen yourself.
