How Your Personality Changes With Your Cycle (And What To Do About It)

Since your hormones change several times every cycle, and those fluctuations affect your thinking patterns as well as energy levels and mood (feeling positive and extroverted, or not), it makes sense that our personality traits can get swept up in the mood swings of the moment. And if you’re suffering from nutrient deficiencies, then your mood swings might be even more dominating and extreme, spilling over into your personality tendencies.

Have you ever taken a personality test but weren’t sure if it was really accurate, or maybe you got different results the second time? There might be a good reason for that (we'll get into it!) If you haven’t ever taken a personality quiz, check out the free test here! The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) offers multi-level psychological insight into how your brain most likely works within four domains of behavior: focusing inwards to oneself or outwards to others (introverted versus extroverted); attending to sensory information or interpreting more intuitively; deciding by logic or by situation (rational thinking versus emotional feeling); judging or being open to interpretation. 

Of course, it’s not set in stone for every person because we’re all different and unique, but it offers good guidelines. You can also learn more about your own communication styles as well as those in your social settings, and your profile will have good insight into your strengths and weaknesses. Given that there are roughly 16 different types of personalities and the test might seem to never be the perfect questionnaire for everyone, you might be torn on some questions. However, just try to answer as honestly as possible about how you think and act the majority of the time. 

Your Hormonal Personalities

Now, even though you might be technically introverted or extroverted, emotional or more rational, these traits likely will differ somewhat depending on what cycle phase you’re in. This is due to the rise and decline of hormones such as progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone. Cortisol and oxytocin will also affect your moods. I like to think of a woman’s emotional world as a square instead of a circle, where each side is a phase of her cycle, and the transition from side to side and phase to phase needs the guidance of her own self-awareness as well as nutritional support. 

Although the following projections are generalized, the intersection between the emotional and physiological influences of your hormones and your personality traits offers much food for thought because they do affect each other!

Follicular Personality 

In your follicular phase, your personality is most consistently like your grounded self without the more intense hormones kicking at your mood. You’re energized as if you’ve just awakened from a long nap, and you’re driven, focused, and motivated. Your thinking is more rational and maybe more judging, and you’re growing slowly from being more introverted to more outgoing.

During this time, your personality test might come out with more E (extroverted) since you’re starting to feel more outgoing and some T (thinking) because you’re still grounded and thinking rationally. Increased cognitive function with rising estrogen can result in heightened preferences for intuition (N) with more open-mindedness to exploring ideas, feeling (F) with increased focus on relationships and emotions, or perceiving (P) with feeling more adaptable and spontaneous. 

This means that now is the time to embrace your amazing focus, finalize working plans, and complete projects. Also, dive into self-improvement goals! If you’re in a relationship, maybe step back and do some objective self-reflection and see how you can nurture it even better. 

Ovulation Personality

During ovulation, you’re more sociable and feel confident and flirty due to the rise in testosterone and estrogen as well as good ol’ oxytocin. Your estrogen and testosterone are highest during your ovulatory phase, making you feel happy and womanly and even a little frisky (hey there, tiger). If you’re single, then you might be feeling boy-crazy and attracted to the scent of almost every guy you walk by. If you’re married, your body will be easily aroused and instinctively drawn to baby-making!

Your personality is most likely feeling happy and optimistic – your brain is loving the world and is at peace with life due to the high estrogen (also loving sunflowers and possibly craving trail mix). Be sure to stabilize these rising hormones with healthy fats, protein, and complex carbs – your moods will highly benefit from food like salmon and eggs. You’re vivacious and outgoing, so if your personality is close to a midway between the introverted “I” and extroverted “E” letters, you might feel more extroverted during this phase. This means now is a great time to attend social events and go on a date. Your high testosterone levels mean now is also a great time to take risks, be assertive, and complete any challenging tasks like that big presentation at work. 

Luteal Personality

Now, we get to the somewhat crazy stage: the luteal phase. In the early days of the luteal phase, your energy is still on a high after your recent ovulation and you’re feeling the remnants of your Wonder Woman power, driven and focused. Progesterone peaks around a week after ovulation, lending to your emotional and mental energy (although if you’re low in progesterone, then your luteal phase will be shorter and periods more frequent). With decreased estrogen and testosterone, you’ll most likely be less reactionary and more logical, even more strategic – for some, almost to a cold-hearted degree.

However, this hormonal action doesn’t just mean you have a higher chance than usual at winning a game of Risk. You must be aware of your weak points and what buttons get pushed more easily. For example, even though I am an ENFJ, I can easily lean a bit more on the side of being closer to an ENTJ in being more rational (but a bit less emotionally empathetic) and more efficient (but I have to remember to be patient). 

During the latter portion of the luteal phase, getting into the PMS stage, you might groan at the thought of going on a date and feel like fuming at all the “stupid” drivers when caught in traffic – all the while you’re insatiably hungry for a solid two days. 

Along with decreasing hormones, your serotonin levels are lower, which can contribute to PMS. When nearing your period, your low hormone levels can cause PMS symptoms such as headaches, bloating, fatigue, and higher feelings of irritability and sensitivity. Oh, and let’s not forget the brief emotional breakdown the day or two before your period hits. With the single gals, it might be an early-life crisis, briefly sobbing over an ex, or sniffling at unrequited love; whereas all the married ladies’ husbands are wondering what they did wrong and are proffering appeasing gifts of flowers and dark chocolate. Give yourself some slack, but also be okay with saying “no” to social happenings and big, crowded events. 

Menstruation Personality

When you’re on your period, most likely you just want to sleep in and have quiet time wrapped in a heating pad. You’ll probably be found cuddling with a blanket on the couch with your favorite tea mug and some dark chocolate, watching a chick-flick or feel-good Hallmark movie. And you do need to rest and restore your system so your body doesn’t manipulate your brain into feeling darker than necessary (or at all). 

Don’t even try taking a personality test at this time; besides, you might even feel like any and all of your personality has been drained out of you (ahem, they do say blood is life). If you did, it’d probably come out as “introverted,” along with the personalities that struggle with depressive pessimism and the negative version of J (judging). 

And you’ll probably not feel extremely social, either – cutting down on outings and passing on group events would be advisable. Take a daily walk or two to stay grounded and get self-care time in the quiet while boosting your serotonin. Not getting enough you-time could make you more easily frustrated and irritable, even if you’re usually a very patient and generous person. Continue with the self-care and time outdoors to charge your batteries with some peace and quiet.

Closing Thoughts 

We know the drill, like clockwork. Our cycle is part of what makes a woman’s life fascinating and entertaining yet frustrating to men and women alike. The personality test is a great self-awareness tool to make your emotional life easier! And let’s be clear: all personalities have their ups and downs, their bright sides and dark sides (just like hormones, actually), so there is no “better” or, by any means, “perfect” personality. We just have to make sure we’re the healthiest version of our own.

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