Charting for Health: Basal Body Temperature

If achieving or avoiding pregnancy is not your main goal, charting your cycles can still be extremely beneficial for you. When charting cycles, tracking biomarkers such as basal body temperature (BBT), cervical mucus, and LH levels can reveal many factors of our overall health.

Useful information BBT can provide:
•If your temperatures are consistently lower than 97.6 in the follicular phase or 98.4 in the luteal phase, this could be a sign of a sluggish thyroid/thyroid issues
•Can identify illness/fever before other symptoms present
•After you ovulate, your temperatures shift and higher temps are sustained during your luteal phase (need to sustain temps 0.2 degrees higher for at least 3 days to confirm ovulation) - see slide 3 for example
•3 higher temps indicate ovulation took place, a sign of a healthy cycle and hormonal activity
•If temps drop back down in the luteal phase, could point to hormonal imbalance
•For some people, either a few days before or the day of your period, temps will drop off significantly. Sometimes you will see the temp drop before bleeding and you know to prepare.
•Temp spikes can occur due to effects of certain foods or alcohol - a stress indicator that could tell you to evaluate certain foods/drinks & how you feel afterwards

I love the insight temperatures give into our cycles and if you’re a data driven person like me, the temp patterns are so cool. Personally, my temps have been on the lower end which aligned with my results of a thyroid panel I got back in September. And temping has saved me more than once of when to put my menstrual cup in before heading to work.