For hundreds of years, there was a stigma surrounding periods: from 73 AD when the primary Latin encyclopedia implied that contact with menstrual blood would mean “crops change into barren”, “fruit of trees fall off” and “hives of bees die”, to the current day where tampon tax still stubbornly stays casting tampons into the category of “luxury.” Periods are still in lots of cases a taboo, so Moody Month is here to vary that.

Founded by Amy Thomson, Moody Month is a mood and hormone cycle tracker designed to assist women higher understand their bodies, filling the void of female produced, female-focused technology. The tech company built by women, for ladies, was created with the concept our moods mustn’t be suppressed or seen as a taboo, due to this fact reclaiming what it’s to be “moody.”

Hoping to evolve into the go-to space for ladies’s health, Moody month is an area to “log and learn”. By inputting data about your mood and cycle into the app, Moody Month provides personalised advice based in your monthly rhythm. Additionally they offer an enormous vitamin and complement range that might be used based on their findings.

Pioneering positive period relationships for all, Moody are striving to attach as many ladies as possible with their hormones and cycles. Here, founder Amy Thomson shares her story.

Tell us about Moody Month.
Amy Thomson, founder: Moody Month is a mood and hormone cycle tracker that helps you connect with the fluctuations of your cycle and changes in your each day wellbeing and higher take care of your body. Moody’s mission is to assist women understand and own the ability of their moods, hormones and body. We offer knowledge, tools and space where all can feel heard. By encouraging all to support not suppress moods we’re reclaiming what it means to be moody.

What led you to want to start out Moody Month? Where did the concept come from?
Amy Thomson: Moody Month got here after a private experience, my periods stopped as a consequence of stress, travel and burn out that got here consequently of several years of labor scaling my events agency in London. I started on the lookout for help, information and answers and was struck by the lack of know-how or tools for ladies to look at and take care of their unique health patterns. I used to be aware of the period tracking tools around but there was nothing that helps you see the gaps or connect the causes from a 360-degree health perspective. More importantly, there are so few solutions to support how women live and make personal well-being simpler and more accessible.

What did you think that was lacking within the industry that you need to address?
Amy Thomson: There was a void in technology built for ladies and by women. Technology allows us to democratise the science and experience of hormone cycles. Not so we are able to solve it, but so we are able to allow women to raised understand the ability of their bodies through knowledge. There may be a lot science that isn’t being shared within the mainstream and we wish to deal with this. Technology is a vehicle for delivering that message.

What are you hoping to realize with the brand?
Amy Thomson: Connecting as many ladies as possible with the ability of their hormones and cycles. The knowledge that understanding how your hormones work every month, gives you recent found productivity and fewer guilt. Allowing women to be more productive and tuned into themselves.

What sort of warning signs do our bodies give us?
Amy Thomson: Your moods and symptoms every month are signals. By understanding and tracking the common patterns, you’ll be able to begin to note when things feel out of whack. Once you hearken to your body, it unlocks a recent language of moods and symptoms that enable you to navigate if you end up feeling best and worst.  

There was a stigma surrounding periods for hundreds of years and across many cultures. Why do you think that that is?
Tara Scott, head of content: I feel it comes from a fear of girls’s power, creativity and sexuality. Throughout history and across cultures we’ve seen every kind of practices, whether it’s extreme violence like FGM or microaggressions like raising children with gendered toys, which manifest a message that ladies/girls, and our bodies, are dangerous, dirty or sinful. After we step out of the angle of social-constructs, it’s laughable that something so normal, natural, and integral to life may very well be shrouded in a lot taboo.

Some people view self-care as a feminist act, do you agree with this?
Tara Scott: 100%. For hundreds of years a lady’s role has been to nurture and support their children and husbands, prioritising the needs of others over themselves. So learning to properly look after ourselves, and make our emotional and physical health a priority, is foundational feminism to me. How will we take over the world if we’re not on our A game?

What do you see as the connection between women’s periods and their self-esteem?
Tara Scott: Culturally, we see many ladies open up enthusiastically when in a secure space to debate their experiences. There may be a collective feeling of ‘it’s not only me’ and for some, they’ve been inside their head worrying about issues and idea of normal for years.

At a physiological level, women may even see connections between how good they feel mentally and physically at different points of their cycle, this can be different for every woman depending on the symptoms they experience and once they feel at their best. We hope with understanding more women will know what works for them and give you the option to support these patterns.

Has technology affected the way in which women approach their periods?
Amy Thomson: Yes technology has allowed women to start to know their period and higher organise their life with their cycles in mind. We imagine the long run of health, is allowing humans to raised understand themselves through the vehicle of technology. Your period and hormone cycle is an incredible start line for this.

Why do you think that we’re culturally becoming more open to talking about periods, especially in relation to women’s mental health, wellness, self-esteem?
Amy Thomson: Society is opening its eyes to a male bias, that has dominated societal norms. If men had been bleeding every month for the previous couple of centuries, then sanitary products could be free like toilet paper. Sadly it’s 2019 and only now are recent voices breaking through. Nonetheless, it’s vital we don’t discuss periods just as a political movement, but as a barometer for all women to raised understand their bodies and structure for listening to themselves. We have to be listening to numerous female voices about how we are able to move into an era of higher health, wellness and emotional intelligence. Understanding your period is an incredible place to start out.

What are the largest misconceptions about periods and girls’s menstrual/intimate health on the whole?
Amy Thomson: We see plenty of misinformation being circulated by women of all ages. We’d say the concept of ‘normal’ worries many ladies unnecessarily, everyone seems to be different and the main target needs to be on what’s normal for the person, observing changes for you is what is useful not comparing.

That we’re unclean or unattractive, often a dangerous concept is that we’d like to detox our intimate areas with lotions, washes or worse. There was a rise in cosmetic surgery which is concerning. Also, that lifestyle isn’t connected to our periods or reproductive health. Stress, weight loss plan, sleep and activity all contribute to our bodies overall health. We want to support all our systems and functions or we’ll notice changes to our menstrual cycle, digestion, skin and sex drive all effective by our hormone health.

How do you need to challenge these?
Lola Ross, co-founder and nutritionist: So many misconceptions are simply about lack of expertise and due to this fact, starting period education within the classroom from an early age, across all genders, combined with the shedding of taboos that surround menstruation and intimate health could be useful. Celebrating this natural, life-giving physiological event that the majority women experience, in addition to acknowledging that many ladies don’t have periods for various reasons, from problematic ovarian cycles, to hormonally-driven vaginal imbalances,  is crucial in difficult misconceptions. There may be a really progressive reproductive health centre in LA called LOOM that runs PERIOD ROADMAP sessions for teenagers and adults, providing evidence-based information on the important thing features of the ovarian cycle, explores ovarian cycle conditions and offers an area to bust myths around periods. I really like this idea and the way amazing would that be to have this rolled out to adolescents and adults?

How has social media modified the pressures and expectations on young girls?
Lola Ross: Social media has been an incredible  source of comfort and inspiration for young girls in some ways because it has given women and girls a platform to share experiences, connect with others who’re going through similar challenges and help normalise and break down taboos around anything, from having period leaks in public to the challenges of living with endometriosis. Conversely, social media brings about other pressures and expectations for young girls to be a certain way, so I’m keen for the federal government, parents and the community to support young girls in using social media in a constructive way that contributes to well-being somewhat than negativity and low self-worth.

What would you prefer to see Moody Month evolve into?
Amy Thomson: The go-to space for ladies’s health. We would like to maneuver the conversation and science forward while constructing the solutions women want to raised support their well-being. There are such a lot of gaps in knowledge each from a science and lifestyle perspective around hormones and cycles, akin to reproductive health, mental health, trans women and transition, menopause and conditions akin to endometriosis and PMDD.  

Why did you select to have the vitamin/complement aspect of the brand?
Amy Thomson: We are usually not exclusive to vitamins and supplements, but we had to start out somewhere with a business model that didn’t depend on selling data. We desired to make the natural support and solutions to common monthly symptoms akin to bloating, water retention and headaches more accessible. Most ladies, including myself, have been confused by the quantity of products available, so we began by just curating the most effective products in the marketplace — the shop is curated by our nutritionists and doctors. Having a nutritionist is a large luxury and we wanted more women to have access to this source and the knowledge they’ll provide.

Moving forward are you hoping to branch out into other products? What’s within the pipeline for Moody Month?
Amy Thomson: Our plan is to listen. Constructing a business that relies on asking the audience what works for them and the way we are able to bring higher mainstream solutions to common monthly experiences. There may be never going to be a magic pill to resolve every part, but there needs to raised access to information around what routines and rituals can assist support a healthy monthly cycle.