The Pill Are you Sure it's for You?

My friend Alexandra Pope has come out with a new book on the Pill and its affect on women's health, the menstrual cycle.

Here's the blurb and a description of the book. It's available in Australia for now, North American publication up-coming. You can find it on-line also.

The Pill: are you sure it's for you?
Jane Bennett and Alexandra Pope
(Allen and Unwin)
now on sale in Australia and also available from
http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781741750799

Written in a gentle, engaging style and full of real women's stories, our aim is to give women true informed choice about chemical contraception including the Pill, implants, injections, patches, vaginal rings and IUDs.

In The Pill we explore:
1. side effects such as depression and mood disorders, loss of libido, headaches and migraine, weight gain, increased risk of breast cancer and brittle bones
2. alternatives to chemical contraception that don't harm your health or fertility
3. natural ways to heal menstrual problems rather than masking these with the Pill
4. the fallout of the Pill in relationships (and the health of future children) and conversely how the menstrual cycle can be an ally to deepen your connection and sexual intimacy
5. the radical idea that having a menstrual cycle is really cool and can even be empowering, and, once experienced in this way is something you wouldn?t dream of eliminating with synthetic hormones.

7 great reasons to buy The Pill: are you sure it's for you?
1. You're a fertile woman needing reliable contraception that doesn?t compromise your health and sexuality.
2. You're a man who wants to share in the responsibility of contraception.
3. You're suffering from menstrual and /or skin problems and want to know how to heal them naturally
4. You're a parent of a teenage daughter wanting to support her in her contraceptive needs as she moves toward a sexual relationship and want to fully understand the health implications (many side-effects are of particular concern for teenagers)
5. You're a health practitioner and want comprehensive information on contraception and to learn more about womens? health.
6. You're a counsellor/psychotherapist/psychologist and need to understand the impact of the Pill on womens' psychological wellbeing
7. You want to learn about period power, how to leverage it for success and how the female body is designed for ecstasy.

Some articles and related newstories:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24176816-401,00.html
If your love seems doomed, blame the Pill

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24193724-421,00.html?from=public_rss
Acne-plagued girl Tanya Hayes 'killed by the Pill'

musemother

Rhythm of Life

Rhythm, cycle, flow, moon phases: we women cannot escape the fact that our lives are run by energies and cycles flowing through us of which we are mostly unaware.

It's taken me almost forty years to understand my cycle, and now I don't have one. Or do I?

I think that even menopausal women are affected by their monthly energies, and even daily energy changing, shifting. Nothing stays up, or down, for long.

A recent article about the connection between bright city lights and breast cancer pointed to a little known fact: that our pineal glands, deep in the middle of our brains (and called the Third Eye by some eastern cultures) secrete melatonin:

"Both human and animal circadian rhythms are driven by the day/night cycle and are synchronized with natural geomagnetic electromagnetic fields. The major control gland over this natural cycle is the pineal gland which secretes the neurohormone melatonin. During the day, light falling on the eye's retina produces signals which are biochemically amplified to stimulate the pineal gland to reduce its melatonin output. At night the absence of light with sleep stimulates the pineal gland to produce melatonin."

Apparently even a light as dim as a nightlight in your bathroom can shut down melatonin production, and some researchers are looking for a connection between this lack and the rise in breast cancers in urban areas.

Just one little cycle that is disturbed by our modern lifestyle. Think of all the other ways we are not in touch with our women's bodies and their monthly flow. Look at the moon tonight, for instance, and see where it is (we just had a full moon on the weekend, so after the waning of the moon is done, we'll have a new moon again).

Our cycles wax and wane just like the moon. If we are quiet and give ourselves time to reflect on our emotional and physical state just before our periods, we may notice that there is a pull to withdraw, to have more alone time. If we give ourselves what our inner self needs, who knows, maybe the symptoms of PMS would ease up a bit....

just one more way we can attune ourselves to the natural rhythms, cycles, phases, flow....

jenn