Tracking your mood
in the luteal phase
By Ben Jonas Goedeke · 2 min read · checked against its sources · updated 10 Oct 2026
The luteal phase is the part of your cycle after ovulation and before your period, usually around two weeks. It is when many people notice a shorter fuse, low mood, poor sleep or cravings, and when PMS and PMDD symptoms show up.
What is worth writing down
How you felt, how strong it was, and how much it got in the way of your day. Sleep and energy help too. A word or a sentence is enough; what matters is that you write it on the day, not at the end of the week.
What it shows after a few cycles
One bad week could be anything. When the same feelings return in the same part of the cycle, and lift once your period starts, that is a pattern you can see and plan around, and one a doctor can read if you want to talk about it.
Knowing which phase you are in
A tracker should tell you each day where you are in your cycle, and show what you logged around the same day in earlier cycles. If your cycles are irregular, the estimate is rougher, and a good app says so.
How Tideline does it
You write or say one sentence a day. Tideline picks out the symptoms on your phone, shows which phase you are in, and after two cycles puts the week before your period next to days 4 to 10. No account, nothing on our servers. It keeps a record; it does not diagnose.
Keep the record your doctor needs. Tideline is a period and mood tracker for iPhone: write one sentence a day, and after two cycles it puts the week before your period next to the week after it starts. Free to track, no account.
Get Tideline on the App Store
Keep reading
Sources
- US Office on Women’s Health: Your menstrual cycle
- Endotext (NCBI Bookshelf, NIH): The Normal Menstrual Cycle and the Control of Ovulation
- US Office on Women’s Health: Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)
- NHS: PMS (premenstrual syndrome)