Use the thermometer provided and complete the following steps:

• Put the tip under your tongue, towards the back of your mouth.

• Close your lips around the thermometer.

• Wait until it beeps or flashes.

• Remove the thermometer and check the temperature on the display.

• Paying attention to your internal bodily signals can be understood as how much you think about or monitor signals coming from inside your body, or how much they occupy your thoughts/mind. For example, if you often think about your heart beating, feeling hungry or needing the toilet then you would rate your attention to these sensations as high. In contrast, if you don’t often think about your heart rate, how hungry you are or whether you need the toilet then you would rate your attention to these sensations as low. 

• Importantly, when you are asked to rate your attention, please only rate how much attention you pay to these sensations regardless of how well you think you can perceive them. For example, if you often feel you need the toilet but when you go to the toilet you realise you don’t need to you should still rate your attention to this signal as high.  

• Do not worry about how often you think the sensation is truly happening inside your body – we would like to know how much of the time you pay attention to these sensations.  

We will ask you about these at certain points during the study because alcohol consumption and sickness (like the flu) can influence body temperature. These questions are important because they help us to check whether your temperature readings might be slightly altered, in which case we can see the temperature reading as less reliable.

Don’t worry, if you report ‘yes’ to either alcohol use or sickness, we can still use your data, it just gives us more to work with so we can understand bodily changes better! 

Remember, spotting is not the same as menstruating. Menstruation is the specific shedding of the lining of your uterus that occurs in a window within each cycle, where the flow of blood consistently occurs. The window of menstruation varies between people, for instance, your period might last 4 days and another person’s period might last 7 days. The number of days can vary slightly between cycles.  

Spotting is typically extremely light. It can be pink in colour and is often not enough in quantity to use a tampon/pad. It does not occur in lengthy windows and is not linked to your menstrual cycle. Sometimes people have spotting if they are using hormonal contraception and forget to take their pill. Spotting can happen for other reasons too e.g during pregnancy.

Read up on spotting here:  https://helloclue.com/articles/cycle-a-z/what-is-spotting  

There are 7 options for you to choose from and there should always be an option that corresponds to your cervical mucus.

Head to our dedicated page HERE to remind yourself what each cervical mucus rating means and what texture/feeling/visual qualities to look out for.

• If you contact us at insyncstudy@surrey.ac.uk we will not tell you what to select as your response and we cannot give any advice on descriptions or accept any photographs. Read and watch the resources carefully and trust your judgement!