{"id":1235947,"date":"2025-02-28T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1235947"},"modified":"2025-02-28T12:30:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T17:30:00","slug":"ouras-readiness-score-finally-takes-menstrual-cycles-into-account","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1235947","title":{"rendered":"Oura\u2019s Readiness Score Finally Takes Menstrual Cycles Into Account"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Oura, the smart ring<\/a>, is finally taking menstrual cycle data into account when assigning readiness scores\u2014a feature whose absence has baffled users for years. The ring\u2019s app was notorious for assigning lower-than-expected scores during the luteal phase of users\u2019 cycles, but that is changing thanks to an update to the Readiness score algorithm that Oura announced this week<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t have a menstrual cycle, or if you have one but don\u2019t track it, you probably won\u2019t notice anything different about your Readiness scores. But this update is a big deal for anyone who uses Cycle Insights<\/u><\/a>, the feature of the Oura app that uses temperature data to keep track of ovulation, menstruation, fertile window, and follicular and luteal phases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why many users had incorrect readiness scores<\/h2>\n

To explain why this was an issue, I\u2019m going to zoom out and give a quick biology lesson. The monthly cycle that\u2019s sometimes called a menstrual cycle isn\u2019t just about menstruation, i.e., the bleeding that lasts a week or less. Instead, the cycle is a phenomenon that lasts all month, with distinct phases in the first and second halves of the month.<\/p>\n

To be clear, this cycle doesn\u2019t happen in everyone. It\u2019s specifically a phenomenon that occurs in people who have a regular period and are not<\/em> taking hormonal birth control. If you fall into this category, you can use the Cycle Insights<\/u><\/a> feature of the Oura app to track when you are in the first half of your cycle (the follicular phase) versus the second half (the luteal phase).\u00a0<\/p>\n

(An important aside: Every time I write about menstruation or hormonal cycles, I get someone writing in to tell me that \u201cwomen\u201d and \u201cpeople who menstruate\u201d are synonyms. Let\u2019s just take a minute to discuss the fact that they are not. Not only can we acknowledge the existence of trans folks, non-binary people, and a strange species of human known as \u201cgirls,\u201d it\u2019s worth remembering that a significant percentage of women do not have a cycle! This includes women who are past menopause, and women who use hormonal birth control.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

When your cycle starts on day one of your period, you\u2019re in what\u2019s called the follicular phase<\/strong>, as an ovarian follicle (which will produce an egg cell) develops over the course of about two weeks. Midway through the month\u2014day 14 in a textbook cycle\u2014that follicle releases the egg, ending the follicular phase. The releasing of the egg is called ovulation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

At this point, the body\u2019s temperature ticks up by about half a degree. It will stay at this slightly elevated temperature for the rest of the cycle, and the Oura ring can detect the change in temperature. The empty follicle stays behind in the ovary, secreting hormones, and becomes the corpus luteum<\/u><\/em><\/a>, Latin for \u201cyellow thing.\u201d (Scientists are so creative.) In its honor, the second half of the cycle is called the luteal phase<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Temperature isn\u2019t the only difference between the follicular and luteal phases; all kinds of hormonal and biological phenomena are happening throughout the month, some of which have catchy names like \u201cperiod flu,\u201d<\/u><\/a> but that\u2019s a discussion for another time<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s changing in the Oura algorithm<\/h2>\n

As Oura points out in their announcement<\/u><\/a> about the change, the luteal phase tends to have a few detectable differences from the follicular phase (from the ring\u2019s point of view):\u00a0<\/p>\n