Is a long period cycle a bad sign?

[Princesskay]

Hi- I realise you may have been asked something similar to this before but I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for.
For background I’m 17 years old, started my period when I was 10, I’m not sexually active at the moment and I have anxiety which makes me obsessed with my health.
There is regularly about 5 weeks and 5 days between each of my periods, and I am not sure if I should be worried about this. Everything else I see on the internet focuses on irregular long cycles but I can usually always expect mine to come around this time, but very occasionally it is early. Due to my anxiety I am afraid to ask a doctor about this or anyone else, but I was wondering if I should be worried about such a long cycle at my age.
Thanks for the help

[Heather]

There’s no cause for concern about this as a problem.

Just having cycles that are around 35- 40 days long isn’t “so long,” for one, that’s not super-uncommon, but cycle length, period, without any other issues, generally isn’t something to be concerned about. No worries!

[Princesskay]

Thank you Heather that is reassuring

[Heather]

Happy to help. Anything else I can clear up for you about menstruation (or anything else)?

[Princesskay]

Well I was wondering, considering my cycle is longer then 4 weeks, is it normal to not have a December period? My last period started a few days before the end of November and I didn’t have one the whole of December but it’s only just been 5 weeks since the last one so should I wait for periods based on how many weeks instead of calendar months?

[Heather]

Given the average length of your cycles, by all means, there are going to be months every now and then where you won't have a period. Basing periods on calendar months is actually never a good way to chart them, since months have different numbers of days in each. Really, when you're charting, no matter what kind of cycle you have, you want to just do it by numbered days. There's no reason to pay attention to months, really.

For a bunch of information on charting, you can check out: http://www.scarleteen.com/blog/heather_ ... t_to_chart