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Joy is a Registered Nurse, Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and a Public Health Nurse. She is the Director of the Natural Family Planning Program at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Centre in Spokane Washington. Joy and her Natural Family Planning students began studying the effects of night lighting on the menstrual cycle in 1976. Joy is the author of the book Effect of Light on the Menstrual Cycle and Fertility and her work has highlighted the significant impact of light on the menstrual cycle and fertility.
In today’s show, we talk about Joy’s research and how limiting our exposure to light at nighttime can improve menstrual cycle health and fertility. We also talk about the philosophy behind Natural Family Planning which gives a window into the differences and similarities between Natural Family Planning and the Fertility Awareness Method. (Skip ahead to the 45-minute mark if you want to go straight to the discussion of the light elimination technique!)
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Topics discussed in today’s episode
- What led Joy to discover that the menstrual cycle can be regulated by having women sleep in complete darkness
- How does exposure to light at nighttime interfere with hormone production?
- The connection between light exposure at nighttime and melatonin production and how that impacts the menstrual cycle
- What does a normal/healthy cycle look like?
- How many days of cervical mucus should a woman have in a healthy cycle?
- What are the 3 fertile signs and how can a woman use these signs to identify her fertile days?
- If a woman’s menstrual cycle falls outside of this normal/healthy range how can sleeping in darkness improve her cycle?
- The philosophy behind Natural Family Planning and how it differs from the Fertility Awareness Method
- What is a “contact pregnancy”?
- Why Joy teaches the light elimination technique as a standard part of her Natural Family Planning classes
- How dark does it have to be for it to be effective? And why even the smallest light exposure can interfere with normal hormone production
- Using the light elimination technique to improve various menstrual cycle irregularities including lengthening a short luteal phase, restoring a normal cervical mucus pattern, correcting the length of the menstrual cycle, and addressing repeated miscarriages
Connect with Joy
You can connect with Joy via email!
Resources mentioned
- Light Elimination Therapy for the Treatment of Infertility (LET) | Joy DeFelice
- Lunaception | Louise Lacey
- Lunaception (book) | Louise Lacey
- Serena Canada
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Music Credit: Intro/Outro music Produced by Sirc of (The Nock)
Hi Lisa! This was such an interesting discussion around light and the impact on the menstrual cycle. It really grounded your earlier discussion with Louise Lacey, which I found intriguing but a little hard to follow given that her theory was based on observations of herself only. I’ve always been super sensitive to light in my sleeping environment – years ago I used to complain to my husband that the streetlight outside our bedroom at the time still shone through my eyelids when my eyes were closed and prevented me from falling asleep. He thought I was nuts so now I can tell him there’s something in it for sure! These days I make sure my bedroom is properly dark at night and I know I sleep better for it. I have no idea whether it impacts on my cycle but perhaps it does contribute to it being pretty regular. Such a great podcast!
Hi Fiona, thank you! So glad you enjoyed the show. I completely agree. I love that such s simple modification to our sleeping environment could make such a big impact on sleep quality, and the menstrual cycle! My husband was skeptical of the whole pitch black thing at first too!