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Women's Monthly Cycle Tracker

Neil Cartwright29 August 2026
Interactive · Cannabis Knowledge Foundation

Cycle phase explorer

Tap a phase to see what happens in that part of the month, and what has actually been studied there. Enter a start date and it will show you roughly where today sits.

MenstruationDays 1–5

Menstruation

Days 1–5
Lowest point of the month

Pain in this window has a clear cause. The chemicals that make the womb contract are at their highest, and the body's own painkilling system is at its weakest. It is not a matter of tolerance.

What has been studied for this phase

The doses and timings below are the ones the studies actually used. This describes the research — it is not a suggestion of what to take.

ALarge, well-run trialsBSmaller studies, or people followed over timeC+Early work, or long traditional use

Educational content drawn from the Cannabis Knowledge Foundation knowledge base. Evidence grades describe the strength of the published literature, not a recommendation. Nothing here is medical advice, and none of it accounts for your own history, medication or diagnosis — those are conversations for a qualified practitioner.

What this is

Your body makes its own versions of the compounds found in cannabis. The main one is called anandamide, and how much of it is in your blood is not the same every day of the month.

It rises through the first half of your cycle, peaks around ovulation, then falls to its lowest point in the days before your period. Two hormones drive that. Oestrogen helps your body make anandamide. Progesterone helps break it down. Oestrogen is high around ovulation, progesterone takes over after it — so the level climbs, then drops.

That is the pattern the tracker is built on. It has been measured in more than one group of women, and it holds up.

Pick a phase to see what is happening in that part of the cycle, and what researchers have actually looked at there. If you enter the first day of your last period, it will show you roughly where today sits — on a standard 28-day cycle, which is a starting point rather than a measurement of yours.

What we don't know

Quite a lot, and it's worth being straight about it.

We know the anandamide pattern is real. We don't know whether it changes how cannabis or CBD affects you at different points in the month, because nobody has run that trial — in any condition. So there is no "take more in week three" rule to hand you, and anyone offering one has gone further than the evidence goes.

If you want the full version, with the studies and where they stop, we've written it up here: Menstrual cycle phase and endocannabinoid modulation.

About the remedies listed

Each phase lists what has been studied in that part of the cycle, with a grade for how strong the evidence is. Grade A means large, well-run trials. Grade C means early work, or long traditional use without much testing behind it. The doses shown are the ones the studies used.

One thing stands out when you read across them: the herbs and minerals have better evidence here than CBD does. Ginger worked about as well as a standard anti-inflammatory painkiller across seven trials. Calcium cut premenstrual symptom scores by roughly half. CBD for period pain has three small studies behind it, none of them the properly controlled kind you'd want before saying it works, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists concluded in 2024 that there isn't enough evidence to recommend cannabis for gynaecological pain.

That's the honest state of it. The thing with the most interesting biology is not the thing with the best evidence.

And none of this is advice for you specifically. It is a summary of what has been looked at. Whether any of it makes sense for you depends on your history, what else you take and what's actually causing your symptoms — which is a conversation for a doctor or a pharmacist.

Questions

Ask the knowledge base

If you have any questions about your monthly cycle or how natural remedies may help, then please ask them here and we'll try to help!

Answers are generated from the Cannabis Knowledge Foundation knowledge base and can be wrong or incomplete. This is general information, not medical advice, and it is no substitute for a conversation with a clinician who knows your history.