Cycle Insights highlights which phase of your cycle you're in, allowing you to learn more about how your body changes within each phase.
What is Cycle Insights?
How Cycle Insights Works
How to Use Cycle Insights
Cycle Phases
Period Prediction
Fertile Window
How to Remove Your Women's Health Data from the Oura App
How to Turn Off Cycle Insights
Things to Keep in Mind
More Information
What Is Cycle Insights?
Cycle Insights allows members to better understand their full cycle by tracking the two main phases, follicular and luteal. Cycle Insights allows members to predict their period and also provides information about how the full cycle impacts the entire body. The feature is available to Gen3 members and newer.
How Cycle Insights Works
Different hormone levels in each phase contribute to natural temperature fluctuations in the menstrual cycle. Cycle Insights uses these temperature deviations to accurately track, predict, and visualize your monthly cycle.
The feature is designed for individuals who have a menstrual cycle and a natural hormonal cycle.
Cycle Phases
The menstrual cycle has two main phases, the follicular phase and the luteal phase. During the follicular phase, which is from the first day of menstruation to ovulation, rising estrogen levels may cause your average body temperature to decrease. During the luteal phase, from ovulation until the next menstruation, rising progesterone levels usually elevate your average body temperature. You'll need at least 60 nights of data in order for the Oura Ring to learn your unique cycle phases.
Period Prediction
Oura uses your nightly average body temperature, along with other biosignals like HRV, to make your multi-day period prediction window. Your period prediction windows are created from comprehensive data that builds over time, not single intakes. Historically, most period tracking solutions rely on the calendar method, which uses your last period start date and a user-inputted cycle length to predict the start of your next cycle. However, periods can change from cycle to cycle and be impacted by various factors like stress, diet, and illness.
Cycle Stats
Cycle stats show your typical cycle length, cycle variability, and period length. These are each based on the medians of the cycles you've logged over the past six months.
- Cycle length is defined as the time between the first day of your period and the day before your next period begins. Cycles that last between 21 and 35 days are considered regular.
- Cycle variability refers to the differences in the length of your cycles over time. Cycle variability of +/- three days or less is considered regular.
- Period length is defined as the time between your first and last day of menstrual bleeding. Periods that last between two and eight days are considered regular.
Your cycle stats rely on your period tags for the last six months, so it's important to log your period start date and each day of your period to get the most accurate data.
Many factors can contribute to changes in cycle variability, and a single instance of an irregular cycle variability is typically fine. However, if you're experiencing consistent irregularity in your cycle length, or have questions about your cycle in general, consult with your doctor.
Fertile Window
Fertile Window will provide you with more information on your chances of getting pregnant throughout your cycle. When using Cycle Insights, you will now have a view of your estimated peak fertility, chance of conception, predicted ovulation day, and when ovulation has been detected.
The Fertile Window is the time during your cycle when you're most likely to conceive. It spans from five days before ovulation to one day after, making it a total of seven days, including ovulation day. This estimate is based on your physiological data—such as cardiovascular metrics, temperature trends, and respiratory metrics—as well as the cycle information you provide.
In some cases, people may have cycles without menstruating. If you don't have a period during a cycle, wait until the end of your luteal phase when your temperature drops, and log a period with "no flow." The ovulation and Fertile Window cannot be predicted if periods are not logged accurately.
Your Estimated Ovulation Day
Within your estimated Fertile Window, one day will be highlighted as your estimated ovulation day, marked by a solid white egg icon. This day represents the time when ovulation is most likely to occur.
Tracking Your Fertile Window
In the Predictions section of the app, you can see either your Fertile Window (marked with white circles) or your next expected period (marked with red circles). To view all upcoming cycle events, tap View calendar.
Your Daily Temperature graph shows you how your temperature rises and falls each day compared to your baseline throughout your cycle.
Before Ovulation is Detected
Before ovulation is detected, Oura creates estimates for your ovulation day and Fertile Window.
- The Chance of Conception will be shown as "High" during this window
- Outside the Fertile Window, the chance is marked as "Low"
- Your estimates may change as new data is collected, but they should not be used as a form of birth control
After Ovulation is Detected
Ovulation is confirmed when Oura observes a consistent rise in your basal body temperature or you tag "Positive LH Test." Once ovulation is detected:
- Your confirmed ovulation day will be marked with a solid white egg icon on your temperature graph
- Your Fertile Window will shift from "estimated" to "confirmed," with high conception chances marked for those days
- Days outside the Fertile Window will have no icons, and the Chance of Conception will be shown as "Low"
Because the Fertile Window is a regulated feature, it's available only in countries where the regulatory process is completed. See the Feature Availability list here.
You can find the Fertile Window User Manual here.
For more information, see What is the Fertile Window? on The Pulse Blog.
How to Use Cycle Insights
Members new to Cycle Insights will see a home card about the feature and be guided through an onboarding flow, which includes a few questions on your cycle, including when your last period started, how long your cycle typically is, and whether you use hormonal contraceptives or other hormones.
If you use hormonal contraceptives or hormones, your natural temperature deviation may be impacted. You can still use Cycle Insights, but you will only see period predictions and not cycle phases, related insights, or Fertile Window. You can update your answer to the hormone question at any time in the Settings menu.
In order to see cycle phases, you must confirm the start date of your period each month by using the "Log period" button via the Cycle Insights home card or detailed view, or the + button on the bottom right of the app. If you change the date of your period start, or log it retroactively, your cycle phases will update.
As you continue to accumulate more temperature data by wearing your Oura Ring 24/7, and confirming or logging the exact start date of your period each month, your predictions will become more accurate.
Using any tags (for example, "Positive LH test") will not indicate when new cycles begin and, therefore, not display cycle phases.
You will see Cycle Insights in the Today tab. Tap on the Cycle Insights home card or shortcut to find additional information about your temperature and your cycle history. In the detailed view, you'll be able to see the below data:
- Average body temperature metric from last night
- What phase you're currently in (blue for follicular phase and purple for luteal phase)
- What day of your cycle you're on
- Educational information related to your current phase
- Estimated next period start
- The ability to log every day of your period, as well as your flow levels
- An option to click to the calendar view
- Cycle stats such as typical cycle length, cycle variability, and period length
- Chance of conception
- Additional resources about the menstrual cycle
- A shareable report of your last six months of data for cycle length, period length, temperature variation, cycle phases, and symptom tags
To delete a period entry:
- Tap on the Cycle Insights home card to see the detailed view
- Under the temperature graph, you can log or edit your period
- You can use the Calendar view to edit or delete (logged period dates will be highlighted by a red circle on the calendar)
How to Remove Your Women's Health Data from the Oura App
Women's Health data may include information about your cycles, such as your latest period start date and cycle length, women's health-related tags (such as positive pregnancy test, ovulation, positive LH test, etc.), period prediction settings, reproductive hormone answers, pregnancy information, and fertile window. Your data is collected, used, and protected in compliance with Oura's Privacy Policy.
You can remove your data from the app at any time in the Settings menu under Women’s Health. Removing your data will disable all Women's Health features in the Oura App. If you would like to delete from Oura’s servers completely, you can choose Delete account and all data in the Settings menu or through Oura on the Web. See How Oura Protects Your Data.
Read about our commitment to reproductive health data privacy on The Pulse Blog.
How to Turn Off Cycle Insights
You can choose to turn on or off the Cycle Insights feature at any point in time. Tap the menu icon in the upper-left corner of your home screen > Select Settings > Cycle Insights
You can use the toggle to turn off the entire Cycle Insights feature. Turning off Cycle Insights will pause period predictions and hide all cycle-related data.
Things to Keep in Mind
- Wear your ring on a consistent, 24/7 basis, and sync it to the app regularly, to help build a robust temperature data profile
- You need 60 nights of temperature data to display cycle phases. Without 60 days of data, you will only see your period prediction based on the calendar method
- The calendar view in the Oura App will only show logged period dates, period prediction windows, and Fertile Window. It currently will not show cycle phase data
- If you're currently taking a hormonal contraceptive or are pregnant, because your body's natural temperature variation is impacted as a result, Cycle Insights may not be able to accurately assess the timing of your period (if you still menstruate under these circumstances) or show your cycle phases. This is because regardless of the hormonal contraceptive being used, your cyclical variations, overall cycle length, and bleeding tendencies are all likely to deviate from your body's natural patterns
- Using the tag "positive pregnancy test" will automatically disable both Cycle Insights and period predictions. You can go into your Settings at any time and reenable the feature
- Medical factors such as infertility and fertility treatments, endometriosis, pregnancy, breastfeeding, overtraining, weight loss, stress, etc. can also have an impact on the key biosignals. If any of these apply to you, this may impact Oura's ability to accurately and consistently predict your period and cycle phases each month
- Only one period can be logged per calendar month, and data integrations from other period-tracking apps such as Apple Health or Clue are not currently available
- Fertile Window is intended to help women who are trying to conceive understand their cycle better and see their ovulation predictions, detection, and chance of conception. Fertile Window is complementary to our partnership with Natural Cycles. Natural Cycles is FDA-cleared as a Class II medical device, which means that it can be used as a reliable birth control method in the US, and has a conception mode to aid in trying to conceive. We encourage our members to select the feature set that is right for them based on their goals and preferred user experience. See our How to Use Natural Cycles with Oura for more information
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