Until I took IB Biology in high school, I thought that testosterone was the male hormone, and estrogen was the female one.

I’d always imagined it was testosterone that made Tarzan beat his chest and estrogen that made me kiss my dolls goodnight.

I wasn’t completely wrong, but it turns out hormones are more complicated than that. Hormones are responsible for more than developing our sexuality. They are the messengers of our bodies, sending all kinds of push notifications throughout our cells - technically, the insulin that breaks down the sugar we eat, the melatonin that puts us to sleep, and the motilin that helps us push our poop out (if you know me, you know how much I love poop!) are all hormones.

By the time I reached university, I’d started to resent my female hormones. I thought that my PMS (the cramps and bad moods you get before you menstruate) were caused by an increase in my hormones. I felt that biology was being unfair to us somehow by burdening us with estrogen…wrong again!

Actually, women are not ‘hormonal’ when they get their periods. What happens is that our estrogen and progesterone levels plummet - and guess what else drops with our hormones? That’s right, serotonin, also known as the happy chemical.

So, we’re not actually hormonal when are PMSing, or even when we hit menopause (during menopause, your body pretty much stops producing estrogen) - we’re MISSING our hormones.

Estrogen makes women generally happier, as it promotes the release of serotonin (more about that in a later post)…and for men, testosterone is, believe it or not, converted into estrogen when it reaches the brain.

Hence, why hormonal fluctuations are actually linked to depression, not to mention a bunch of other gnarly symptoms 😿 So what can we do about it?

1. Learn about your hormone cycle

   I love this super practical guide on Huda Beauty about how to manage your skin during your cycle (I even learned that the period flu isn’t a myth!) The article Your Brain on PMS is Like Your Brain on Alcohol and Antidepressants also makes some great points about how the modern women has more periods, and hence more PMS, than our antecedents (we used to be pregnant for most of our short lives!)
   
   And, if you’re a guy, you’re not above it - we all have hormonal cycles - in the case of men, testosterone also plays a huge seasonal, daily, and even hourly role in your mood…and there’s even something called Irritable Male Syndrome if you’re a particularly moody dude.

2. Check in with your doctor about your hormone levels

   So, birth control can make PMS better, but it can also make it worse. The Pill brings up your progesterone, which breaks down and acts as the “brain’s police force” it regulates, making sure there isn’t ‘too much excitement’ going on.” If your progesterone levels are too high, then you may need to switch birth control pills or switch over to a method that is non-hormonal. If you’re still feeling blue, ask your doctor to test your thyroid or talk to a therapist to see if you’re clinically depressed.

3. Increase your serotonin levels naturally

The first thing you can do is exercise and change your diet. My friend Lubna also recommends 5-Htp pills, since they help your body create more serotonin, and vitamin B6 pills are also recommended - both can be found anywhere they sell supplements. In case of emergency, there’s always baby animal videos 😁

I first noticed it when I was at my favorite beach north of Beirut.

I had jumped that cliff many times. Squealing, holding hands with a girlfriend. Smiling, eyes and body squinched shut into a cannonball, trying to impress a boy. Making a star shape, mid-air for the ‘gram at sunset.

That’s why when my heart dropped as I looked down from the cliff edge, I was a little surprised. What had changed? Can one develop a fear of heights spontaneously? The only new development, honestly, was that I’d just turned thirty. The cliff had never been that high, anyway.

You can do this, I egged myself on. You don’t want to be one of those women who won’t swim in cold water or get on rollercoasters.

every time this gif loops my stomach flips.

I stood at the edge again. This time, my knees actually knocked together! A first. Whoa. I decided to listen to my body. I walked back down to the seashore, crestfallen. I was soon distracted by friends and our delicious lunch of fresh fish, but my mind came back to it again and again.

Do we develop new anxieties and phobias as we age? Does life paralyze us as we grow?

We all remember the driving anxiety that Kim Kardashian developed once she had kids (and if you don’t keep up the Kardashians, I congratulate you and I’m sure your brain cells thank you). There are even reports of postpartum OCD and germaphobia that hit new mothers with a vengeance. It makes sense that your Mama Bear instinct would kick right in and protect your cubs at all costs. But could my biological clock be similarly responsible for my spontaneous acrophobia?

A little poking around on the internet…and BAM! I was right 😎 Not only was growing up making me more afraid of heights…it was actually making the very cliff appear higher than it actually was. The reason being that “perceiving something as being taller than it actually is can reduce your risk for dangerous falls, increasing the likelihood that you’ll live to thus reproduce.”

And I learned the fancy term for this…EVOLVED NAVIGATION THEORY.

The theory is backed up by legit scientific research and funny sentences such as, “Falling injuries likely influenced reproductive fitness in all environments in which humans evolved.” So, the next time you’re at the beach choosing a chaise lounge instead of chasing thrills, you can just say,

“Well, excuse me for lying here like a beached whale, I’m just minding my reproductive fitness.”

Virgos like to be supporting actors. We enjoy being backstage (unless you’re Beyonce) where the view is better, back where we can see everything and we don’t have to be full-blown participants in the drama of life. We’re looking for patterns, seeing signs, and every once in awhile, closing our eyes, taking a deep breath and stepping into the limelight. I don’t intend to share much of ‘me’ on here, but since it IS my birthday tomorrow, here are some of the main themes and lessons of my 31st year:

Stepping outside your comfort zone is great, but once you’ve hit your thirties, it’s ok to enjoy your comfort zone a little.

Honestly, even an overachieving b*tch (it me) needs to take a break. At some point around hitting thirty (and like, no judgment if this isn’t the case for you) you start making enough money and feel comfortable career wise (Saturn returns, baby!). Relax 💆‍♀

And then, if you’re anything like me, you’ll shift your attention to the freaking MEANING of your life.

And there’s no damn bank account for that, let me tell you. You start to wonder - am I a first world problem? Is my existence choking the earth? Is my complacency about poverty and politics basically how the world got so fucked up in the first place? I’m a professional _____ …but what do I DO? How do I serve humanity? What is my MISSION?

First of all, breathe.

Second of all, stop. Enjoy the present moment. Your joy is radical. You’ve earned your peace.

And finally, read on to my last point.

Your thoughts mirror your actions. Meditation works.

Meditation is a form of prayer. Prayer is a form of meditation. There are loads of resources on meditation, and the meditation app space is crazy right now (maybe even oversaturated). If you’re ready to start meditating, the right way to do so will appear in your life. For me, it happened on a silent retreat in Bali, after I had been reading Sufi texts.

I just started repeating “AL-LAH-HU” silently. And then magic happened. It felt like I was watching a sunrise with my eyes closed.

I’ve begun to study Sufism with others and we gather to talk and chant. I also participated in an abundance whatsapp group challenge that featured daily Deepak Chopra meditations and journal exercises, and saw some surreal results for both myself and fellow members.*

There is no substitute for action.

Your thoughts might be powerful, but it’s your actions really have the potential to affect others and the world we live in. On my birthday this year, I tried to set the tone for the rest of the year — I volunteered, raised money for a charity, and spent time with family. Sometimes I wish I were a policymaker, because that’s where we can really enact change, I think. My thirties have been shifting so that it’s less about me and more about the world I hope to leave behind for future generations. Here’s to a lifetime of selflessness. end scene

*I’m happy to tell you more about what happened during the abundance challenge if you message me privately!

YES, you read right. Babies are speaking sign language.

I recently visited my college bestie Jess in the UK, and finally got to meet her AMAZING identical twin boys, Will and Arlo. I was astounded at how many words they were both speaking, and even more so when I saw them use sign language.

Discover & share this Greenberg GIF with everyone you know. GIPHY is how you search, share, discover, and create GIFs.

We were at the park, and the twins started doing a funky little hand movement simultaneously. Like this 👌🏼, but it flutters! I understand that identical twins are in sync, but this was weird. It felt like both one-year-olds were trying to tell me the same thing.

“Jess, what’s this?” I ask, showing her the little hand movement.

“Oh, that’s a bird,” she said nonchalantly.

Like, duh. I looked at the tree where the boys had been waving their hands, and saw a sparrow fluttering up to its branches.
“Right…” I said, looking at Will —or was it Arlo?— as he moved his attention to the ball that had bounced over from the playground. Was there a sign for that too?
”I’ve been taking them to baby sign language class,” she said.

Jess has always been #goals, from her killer writing, to her boho chic life and family, to her sweet, giving nature. It was so cool to see what an active, hands-on mom she is, and how developed her kids are as a consequence! In my time and travels throughout the Middle East, Europe, and North America, not all the new parents I had talked to had heard of or were using baby sign language.

I got insight from Lubna, who is using baby sign language with her 2-year-old twin nephew and niece in New York, that you have to be strategic when using baby sign language.

“If a baby signs something to you, you should respond accordingly.

So, if my niece signs that she’s hungry, I should show her I understand by giving her a piece of bread. If she signs “I love you” then I should sign back “I love you too” instead of whipping my phone out for a quick Instagram story of my freaking adorable niece.”

Oops! So when Will and Arlo were signing about the bird, the supportive thing to have done was to turn around, look at the bird and also sign “bird.” Now I know! There are lots of baby sign resources, and there have even been scientific studies done that show babies can learn sign language just from watching videos. Another friend, Nauf (whose story I’ll write about in an upcoming post), says of teaching her daughter sign language,

“I know it saved us so many tantrums and meltdowns!”

It seems particularly useful to use baby sign language to know when your babies are in pain (when they’re teething, for example, so that you can give them medicine). And sometimes it can be hilarious. Take, for example, when the twins both started signing “more” after I did a super groovy interpretation of the chicken dance for them. Or this little guy from Meet the Fockers!