Learning how to track your cycle. How to use affordable at-home hormone testing. How to chart your cervical mucus without the confusion. How to confirm ovulation with Basal Body Temperature. Get into your own customized flow and master your fertility using a pen and paper method or completely customizable app.
Tracking your cycle with the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) involves paying attention to different fertility biomarkers (such as basal body temperature and cervical mucus) to track ovulation.
Menstrual cycle awareness and FAM are an incredible pair. Once you start charting fertility awareness it’s almost impossible to not notice the influence of your cycle on your entire being. You can track your fertility biomarkers (such as cervical mucus and basal body temperature) to identify when in the cycle you’re fertile.
Charting in this way means you can more accurately pinpoint ovulation, and sync up your life with your cycle. You can also use this info for natural birth control. If you’re avoiding pregnancy there will be times in the cycle when pregnancy is impossible and you enjoy worry-free unprotected sex. If you’re trying to conceive, you’ll know the optimal time to have sex!
You might have heard of cycle tracking, the practice of paying attention to each day of your cycle and recording what you observe. There are several different levels of cycle tracking, depending on your intentions. But all ways of tracking come with similar benefits: increased connection to your cycle, empowered decision making around your health and a brand new way to communicate and understand your self!
Tracking your cycle is empowering and plugs you into your rhythm. I firmly believe that what we pay attention to, grows. When we pay more attention to our cycle and put energy into noticing the subtleties of our cycle, we can live in more ease and flow. Wanting to start a charting practice but not sure where to begin? This post is for you!
Menstrual Cycle Awareness (MCA) is the practice of paying attention to each day of your cycle and noticing the ways in which the physical, emotional, spiritual and mental aspects of yourself are influenced by the cycle. Practicing MCA can be as straightforward as jotting down the day of your cycle and how you feel.
If you are charting your cycle with fertility awareness, you will already be halfway to menstrual cycle awareness. This is because you’re inherently paying attention to your cycle days by tracking your fertility. I really do think that FAM and MCA are an incredible pair - it’s almost impossible to not notice the effect that the cycle has on your mood, libido, appetite and more - why not use that information to live more in line with your cycle?
Symptohormonal methods include FEMM, Marquette and Boston Cross Check. These methods use a combination of hormone urine tests or a hormone monitor to test LH and sometimes estrogen in conjunction with cervical mucus.
Symptothermal methods like Sensiplan, Symptopro, Serena, NFPTA or the method from Taking Charge of Your Fertility use cervical mucus and basal body temperature as the primary fertility biomarkers, however some methods include optional cervical position checks.
There are a multitude of ways to chart your menstrual cycle, as well as varying levels of depth that you can go. If you are new to charting, start by tracking the basics, and slowly add elements as you go. Building habits take time, and charting is no exception. The longer you track, the more it will feel like second nature. Building slowly will help you stick with it!
the two types of cycle tracking
Cycle tracking at its most basic level is paying attention to the day of your cycle you’re on and how you feel, which is also called menstrual cycle awareness. It’s optimal to track this over several cycles so that you can begin to see patterns. Cycle Tracking can be done on a simple paper tracker, in your journal or in an app.
Charting your cycle with fertility awareness is a more in depth way of tracking. With fertility awareness you are tracking different fertility biomarkers to track ovulation. You can then use that information to avoid pregnancy, get pregnant, or monitor your reproductive health.