I started cold plunging, then I got my period for the first time.

I’ve always had a strange relationship with my period… or lack thereof. In fact, I don’t really remember ever having a normal one.

It was irregular from the start, which was quickly “resolved” by going on the pill at 15. I basically only went off it once during my adolescence, when my gallbladder stopped working, and went straight back on. My gynecologist at the time told me it was a precaution of sorts: keeping the machine working so that I could one day have a baby.

About five years ago, when Ronan and I started talking about having a baby, I finally went off the pill. And then… nothing. No period.

We tried one round of stimulation, but it felt too early. I wasn’t ready for it. So I decided to take a break from Western medicine and give acupuncture a try. Over the course of a year, going once or twice a month, my period came back maybe once or twice. But nothing significant enough to try to get pregnant naturally.

Finally, I felt ready. We went to a different gynecologist, started stimulation again and three months later, I was pregnant.

After giving birth, I had absolutely no expectation that my period would come back on its own. So much so that we made an appointment with my doctor to understand what trying for another baby would look like.

And a month ago, the morning of the appointment, I got my period.

Naturally.

For what felt like the first time in my life.

So how did this happen?

It is entirely possible that, for the first time in my life, my hormones are regulating naturally after pregnancy. But I couldn’t help thinking aboutthe external factors that could have contributed to me getting (or not getting) my period naturally.

Contrast therapy?

It’s popping up everywhere, so naturally its benefits and dangers have become hot topics. And I had been hearing a lot about its potentially negative effects on female hormones.

The argument is that cold plunging is a stressor on the body, resulting in a cortisol spike. Too much stress can interfere with female hormones. So, women should be careful about cold plunging.

Except, in my case, this didn’t really add up.

When I started doing contrast therapy regularly, I got my period on my own for the first time.

So I decided to investigate.

Last month, The New York Times Magazine published a piece by Taffy Brodesser-Akner called “I Survived a Cold Plunge and All I Got Was Everything I Ever Wanted.”

Taffy goes into the experience deeply skeptical. Her friend tells her cold plunging has essentially “cured” everything, while Taffy points out that there really isn’t much compelling or comprehensive science behind all the benefits attributed to it.

But quickly, she gets it.

After her second session, she describes feeling extraordinarily good: energized, happy, alive. A month later, though, the skepticism creeps back in. She still can’t really explain what happened or prove why it made her feel the way it did.

The Wall Street Journal has also written about cold exposure, but from a different perspective.

In a piece about therapies moving from elite athletics into mainstream wellness, the Journal spoke to Dr. Sawalla Guseh, a sports cardiologist.

When we’re exposed to extreme cold, blood pressure and heart rate rise and the body enters a fight-or-flight response. Guseh compares brief cold exposure to a sort of “microdosing” of stress. The theory is that by exposing the body to a controlled stressor for a short period of time, it may adapt and become more resilient to other stressors.

Neither story is as simple as “cold plunging is good for you” or “cold plunging is bad for you.”

And yet we have become obsessed with turning wellness into a set of rules, many of which contradict each other.

Wake up at 5 a.m. But prioritize sleep.

Take supplements. But don’t take too many.

Track your sleep. But don’t get obsessed with your sleep score.

Cold plunge. But it may be bad for your hormones.

To me, wellness is personal.

The fact that my period arrived while I was doing a lot of contrast therapy does not necessarily mean contrast therapy gave me my period. Pregnancy and postpartum alone are enormous variables.

But I do think the more wellness information we consume, the easier it becomes to mistake information for instruction.

We hear that something is good for us, so we do it. Then we hear that it might be bad for us, so we stop. But along the way, we forget to ask ourselves the most basic question: How does this actually make me feel?

Wellness isn’t universal.

What makes one person feel incredible might make another person feel terrible. What works for me today might not work for me five years from now.

Wellness isn’t about finding the perfect set of rules to follow; it’s about listening to the experts while still remembering that we are all uniquely different.

So did cold plunging give me my period?

I have absolutely no idea.

But I know how I feel when I do it.

And I’m definitely going to keep going back.