Seed Cycling: A Simple Way to Support Your Cycle and Reconnect With Your Body

Seed cycling is one of my favorite tools for people who are cycling or experiencing hormone-related symptoms, in part because it is almost ridiculously simple. At its core, seed cycling means eating different seeds during different phases of your menstrual cycle to provide nutrients, fatty acids, lignans, and minerals that may support the hormonal changes happening throughout the month.

It can be a useful supportive tool for people dealing with PMS, painful periods, irregular cycles, or the hormonal unpredictability of perimenopause. I also love it for people who have recently come off hormonal birth control or had an IUD removed and are trying to reconnect with their natural cycle. Seed cycling can even be used during the first few years after menopause, when there isn't a menstrual cycle to follow anymore.

But one of the reasons I love seed cycling has very little to do with the seeds themselves.

It makes you pay attention to your cycle.

For so many people, our understanding of our menstrual cycle has been reduced to a pretty simple question: Am I on my period or am I not? Maybe you've gotten to know your body well enough that you recognize the few days beforehand because you're bloated, your breasts hurt, you're craving everything in the kitchen, or everyone around you suddenly seems significantly more annoying. But there is an entire hormonal rhythm happening throughout the month, and I think we've become incredibly disconnected from it.

Seed cycling gives you one tiny daily practice that asks you to notice where you are.

What Is Seed Cycling?

A menstrual cycle isn't hormonally identical from beginning to end. During the follicular phase, which begins with the first day of your period and continues toward ovulation, estrogen generally rises. After ovulation, you enter the luteal phase, when progesterone takes on a larger role as your body prepares for the possibility of pregnancy and/or another period.

Seed cycling changes the seeds you're eating alongside those phases.

During days 1–14, or the follicular phase, I generally recommend 1–2 tablespoons of freshly ground flax, pumpkin, chia, or hemp seeds per day. I also like to include omega-3 fatty acids during this phase. During days 15–28, or the luteal phase, the seeds shift to 1–2 tablespoons of ground sunflower and sesame seeds, along with omega-3s and a source of GLA such as evening primrose or borage oil.

Why these particular foods? Flax and sesame contain lignans, which are phytoestrogens. Pumpkin seeds provide zinc, sunflower seeds provide vitamin E, and all of these seeds bring beneficial fats, fiber, minerals, and other nutrients along with them. The fatty acids in fish oil and evening primrose or borage oil provide additional nutritional support during the different phases of the cycle and these individual ingredients have been shown to help with hormonal balance.

And honestly? You're eating seeds. Even if they don't magically fix your progesterone, you've added fiber, healthy fats, protein, vitamins, minerals, and plant compounds to your diet. Considering how many people aren't getting enough fiber in the first place, I'll happily take that win.

Who Might Consider Seed Cycling?

I use seed cycling most often with people experiencing PMS, painful periods, irregular cycles, and other cyclical symptoms. It can also be a lovely tool when you're trying to reconnect with your natural cycle after coming off hormonal birth control.

I especially like it during perimenopause, when cycles can become considerably less predictable and symptoms can start changing. Maybe you're having symptoms, but you're not at a point where you want or need HRT. Maybe you're already using HRT and simply want additional nutritional support. These things don't have to exist in opposition to one another. Seed cycling is one more tool we can use alongside whatever else makes sense for you.

It can also be continued after menstruation has stopped. Obviously, at that point we don't have a menstrual cycle telling us when to switch our seeds.

And that's where things get a little more woo-woo.

Cycling With the Moon

If your cycle is irregular, absent, or you're no longer menstruating, you can use the moon as your guide: begin Phase 1 with the new moon, switch to Phase 2 at the full moon, and alternate again with the next new moon.

But for me, using the moon isn't just a convenient way to remember when to switch your seeds. This is where seed cycling connects beautifully with some of the ways we understand the body in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

In Chinese medicine, we are constantly looking at the relationship between yin and yang. We often describe women as more yin and men as more yang, but—as with basically everything in Chinese medicine—the reality is much more nuanced than that. Yin and yang exist within all of us. Neither is inherently better than the other. They grow, transform, reach their peaks, and eventually give way to one another.

You can watch that entire cycle happen simply by looking up at the moon.

The darkness of the new moon is deeply yin. From there, light begins to return. I think of that waxing phase spring and Wood energy: something is beginning, growing, moving upward and outward. Eventually we arrive at the full moon, the brightest and most yang point of the lunar cycle—our Fire moment.

And then we turn.

The light begins its descent again. We transition through Earth, move into the letting go and contraction of autumn and Metal, and eventually return to the darkness, stillness, and deeply yin Water energy of the new moon.

Your menstrual cycle has its own beautiful version of that rhythm.

In an idealized lunar cycle, menstruation occurs around the new moon, when the world is darker and the body is being asked to turn inward, rest, bleed, and begin again. From there we move through the follicular phase as energy builds toward ovulation. Around the full moon, we reach the outward, energetic and fertile peak of the cycle. Then we move into the luteal phase and gradually begin turning inward again until menstruation returns.

And I find it fascinating that our sleep may have its own relationship with this rhythm. Research has found associations between lunar phases and sleep, including later sleep onset and shorter sleep around the days preceding the full moon. Basically you get less sleep when its bright outside from the moon.

Think about what is happening around ovulation. For many people, energy is higher. Libido may be higher. You may feel more social, more outgoing, more interested in intimacy. You're at the more yang portion of your own monthly cycle.

And then you've got this giant bright moon in the sky.

If there were ever a night when perhaps you didn't need quite as much sleep because you were otherwise occupied with certain... activities... that’s just good timing. And you are in your higher energy phase so you wont regret the lost hour of sleep the next day.

Then comes the new moon. Darkness. Yin. Rest. And if that's also when you're menstruating, maybe you don't need to fight the desire to go to bed early, pull the covers over your head, and have everybody leave you alone for a minute.

What a wonderful system that could be.

Does this mean something is wrong with you if you bleed at the full moon? Of course not. Does your menstrual cycle have to perfectly synchronize with the moon for you to be healthy? Absolutely not. Bodies are much more complicated than that.

But how great is it that this rhythm is built into the world around us?

There is something powerful about beginning to notice it again. What phase is the moon in? What phase are you in? How is your energy? How are you sleeping? What's your appetite doing? What about your libido? Do you want to be around everybody, or would you very much like everyone to stop speaking to you for the foreseeable future?

You don't have to perfectly cycle with the moon to start paying attention to yourself within it.

You Can Absolutely Make Your Own Seed-Cycling Blend

You do not need to buy a special product to seed cycle.

You can purchase the individual seeds, grind them yourself, and add them to your food. In an ideal world, you're grinding your seeds fresh because the oils in seeds can oxidize and eventually become rancid after grinding. If daily grinding is never going to happen in your actual life—and I completely understand—prepare a smaller amount at a time and store it in the refrigerator.

The warmer your house or climate, the more important cool storage becomes.

If you're following the fuller version of seed cycling that I typically recommend, I also like adding the appropriate essential fatty acids alongside the seeds: EPA/DHA during the follicular phase and EPA/DHA plus a source of GLA, such as evening primrose or borage oil, during the luteal phase.

But there is an obvious problem with the perfect version of this plan.

You have to actually do it.

Buying several kinds of seeds, remembering which ones you're supposed to eat, grinding them, storing them properly, remembering your supplements, figuring out where you are in your cycle, and then doing it all again tomorrow can turn an incredibly simple nutritional intervention into one more wellness chore that eventually gets abandoned in the back of the pantry.

The Easy Version: Why I've Been Using Beeya

This is where Beeya has won me over.

Beeya makes pre-ground seed-cycling blends for the different phases, which takes away most of the preparation. I've been using the blends myself, and I really appreciate how much easier they make it to actually stay consistent. I also genuinely like how they taste.

Their blends include powdered chamomile, which is another ingredient I love. Chamomile gets pigeonholed as the herb in sleepy-time tea, but it's such a beautiful, gentle herb with uses extending into digestive and nervous-system support. Having it incorporated directly into the blend is a nice addition.

There are a million ways to eat the seeds, too. I love putting mine in cottage cheese. Greek yogurt works beautifully. I've thrown them onto toast with jelly and onto avocado toast. You can work them into smoothies, oatmeal, or other foods.

And on particularly rough late-luteal-phase days?

Put them on your ice cream with berries or chocolate syrup.

If you know, you know.

You can also eat the mixture dry and drink some extra water afterward. There doesn't need to be a perfect seed-cycling recipe. The best way to take it is the way you're actually going to remember to take it.

I've recently become a Beeya affiliate, which means if you choose to purchase through my link and get a discount on your first order. When using my affiliate link I do get a small commission, at no additional cost to you. If the convenience of having everything ground, blended, and ready to scoop would make seed cycling more realistic for you, you can find my Beeya link in the Products & Resources section of my website.

You absolutely don't have to purchase a premade product to seed cycle. I'm recommending Beeya because convenience matters. If having everything ready means you actually do it every day instead of staring guiltily at four bags of seeds in your cabinet, that convenience has value.

A Little More Nutrition—and a Little More Connection

Seed cycling doesn't need to become another complicated wellness protocol.

It's a couple tablespoons of seeds.

You're getting additional fiber, beneficial fats, protein, minerals, and plant nutrients. You're creating a tiny daily habit. And perhaps most importantly, you're giving yourself a reason to check in: Where am I in my cycle right now? How am I feeling? What's changing? What does my body need during this part of the month?

That awareness is one of the reasons seed cycling remains one of my favorite tools. Because health isn't only about fixing something once it has gone wrong. Sometimes it's about developing small practices that help you pay attention to your body before it's screaming loudly enough that you have no choice but to listen.

Maybe your daily scoop of seeds helps your PMS. Maybe it gives you a little more fiber. Maybe it finally teaches you the difference between your follicular and luteal phases. Maybe it makes you look outside one evening, notice the full moon, and realize another month has turned.

Those all sound like pretty worthwhile outcomes to me.

Want to Understand Your Hormones a Little Better?

If reading this has you realizing that you don't actually know what your hormones are doing throughout the month—or why you feel like a completely different person during different phases of your cycle—that's exactly why I created Harness Your Hormones.

It's a self-paced course designed to help you better understand your hormonal cycle, recognize the patterns happening throughout the month, and learn ways to support your body through those changes.

You can find Harness Your Hormones through Full Scale Wellness and learn at your own pace.