Illustrations by Emma Günther
Our Year in Periods 2024
All the feels – and fluids – by our collective Clue tracking numbers.
Periods are personal. But they’re also universal. This year, millions of you tracked your cycles with us, collectively logging cramps, cravings, moods, flow, and everything else that happens between periods. And while every cycle is unique, together we’ve created a pretty remarkable picture of what it means to menstruate in 2024.
In Our Year in Periods, we’re diving into our collective data. From the over 105 million cycles tracked to the fact that we were most stressed out on Wednesdays, these stats and insights remind us that we’re not alone in our experiences.
So, grab a cup of tea (or slab of chocolate—no judgment here) and join us as we look back on the trends, and tracking surprises that got us through the year of Moo Deng (and mood swings, apparently).
The more we track, the more we all know. So let’s get into it:
We collectively tracked 105 913 026 cycles
That’s about enough blood to fill 26 478 bathtubs or 1.59 Olympic-sized pools (based on an average of 2-3 tablespoons of blood per period).
Light and medium flow topped the charts (again)
Light: 38%
Medium: 37%
Heavy: 20%
Super heavy: 5%
Our top tracking categories
The menstrual cycle is about so much more than just our periods—and what we tracked went beyond bleeding too. Our most-tracked categories (excluding period flow and spotting) were:
Pain (over 104.9 million tracking points)
Feelings (over 91.5 million tracking points)
Spotting (over 58.9 million tracking points)
Sex life (over 51.8 million tracking points)
Most-tracked types of pain
Period cramps: 36%
Breast tenderness: 13%
Lower back pain: 11%
Headache: 11%
Cramp intensity
Mild: 39%
Moderate: 36%
Severe: 20%
Excruciating: 5%
Our top cravings
Sweet: 41%
Salty: 25%
Greasy: 14%
Carbs: 14%
Spicy: 6%
Big moods
Our most-tracked feelings in the Clue app were:
Mood swings 19%
Happy 18%
Sensitive 12%
Sad 8%
Not in control 7%
The day when the most Clue members tracked they were feeling Sad was July 15. But we bounced back, and the most Clue members tracked they were Happy in a single day at the end of that same week on July 21.
The most popular day for tracking exercise was Tuesday (while Sunday was the least popular).
The day of the week with the highest rate of members tracking that they were feeling Stressed was Wednesday.
Most popular period products
Based on the number of times they were tracked as a collection method in Clue.
Pads 62%
Tampons 15%
Panty liners 13%
Menstrual cups 6%
Period underwear 4%
Sex life (and the pleasure gap)
Sex was tracked over 20 million times
High sex drive was tracked over 4 million times
Orgasms were tracked over 3 million times
‘No orgasm’ was tracked over 485 000 times
Masturbation was tracked over 2.1 million times
Fantasies were tracked 967 000 times
Low sex drive was tracked 913 000 times
Painful intercourse was tracked over 363 000 times
Most-tracked sleep quality
Woke up tired 37%
Woke up refreshed 17%
Trouble falling asleep 15%
31 December 2023 was the day when the most members tracked feeling Energized. And we were our most exhausted on 1 January 2024. No mystery there 😉🎉
Discharge data
Good news for our underwear, the top-tracked type of discharge was: None!
No discharge (37%)
Creamy (24%)
Egg white (19%)
Sticky (16%)
Atypical (4%)
(Remember, vaginal discharge is perfectly normal and it fluctuates in volume and consistency throughout the menstrual cycle.)
Just in time for the weekend
The day of the week when most of our periods started was Thursday, followed very closely by Friday.
NOTE: All figures and insights are based on collective aggregates from de-identified data from Clue between November 2023 - October 2024. Find out more about how you’re always in control of your data with Clue here.
