How to exclude temperatures when using the Oura Ring
Certain circumstances may affect your temperature. This can lead to varying temperatures and make it harder for the algorithm to track your cycle.
To help our algorithm learn about your cycle and find your ovulation, use the “Exclude temperature” function in the app if you:
- Feel sick (by clicking on Sick in the Add Data page)
- Feel hungover (by clicking on Hungover in the Add Data page)
Medication can also affect your temperature. If you take regular medication, antipyretics (fever-reducing substances), or any hormonal medication, it’s worth consulting with your doctor to discover its impact on your basal body temperature.
- If your doctor confirms any medication you’re taking impacts your body temperature, we recommend that you mark your temperature as 'Sick’, in your Add Data page until you finish using the medication.
Why was my temperature excluded by the algorithm?
If the NC° algorithm detects that the temperature trend from the Oura Ring is too high or low to be biologically correct for where you are in your cycle, if it deviates too much from your baseline temperature, or if you have not slept enough, your temperature will be excluded automatically by the NC° algorithm.
In the app, your temperature will have a strikethrough on the Add Data page, and you will see the text ‘Excluded by the algorithm’ written below.
How excluding a temperature affects my data
An excluded temperature is not taken into account by the algorithm when calculating your fertility status.
Excluding temperatures does not affect Natural Cycles' effectiveness as birth control. Logging less temperature data means that you will experience a greater amount of Red Days, where protection is needed, and this may reduce your satisfaction with Natural Cycles. Learn more in the article What happens if I sometimes forget to measure?
Keep in mind that the more non-excluded temperatures you enter, the better your Green Day ratio is likely to be. For that reason, we recommend adding at least five valid temperatures per week.
Why does it say ‘Not enough data’?
If you see the text ‘Not enough data’ below the temperature section for previous days, this means there wasn’t enough data available for that day. This may happen if you didn’t wear the ring during the night, slept less than 3 hours, your ring was not positioned correctly on your finger, or the ring ran out of battery.
For optimal use, we recommend getting at least 3 hours of consecutive sleep; otherwise, there won’t be enough data to extract a temperature that day.
Why does it say ‘Interrupted Sleep’?
If you see the text ‘Interrupted Sleep’ below the temperature section for previous days, your sleep was not considered long enough to meet our syncing criteria. We only sync periods of sleep registered as 'Long sleep' or sleep that lasts more than three hours.