Libido (Sex Drive)

What Libido Measures

Libido reflects how much interest in sex you feel, whether or not you act on it. It's shaped by many things at once. Hormones play a measurable part: in studies that tracked women's hormones and desire day by day through natural cycles, estradiol showed positive effects on desire and progesterone showed negative effects, with desire peaking mid-cycle.^[1] Mood, stress, relationships, and sleep all feed into it too, which is why desire on any single day doesn't map neatly onto any one hormone.

How It's Measured

There's no lab test for libido. Research studies measure it the same way trackers do: self-report, usually a daily rating of how strong desire felt that day. Repeated daily ratings across a cycle are what let researchers, and you, see whether desire follows a pattern rather than judging from memory.^[2]

Why People Track Libido

The main reason is pattern-finding. If desire tends to climb as you approach ovulation and dip in the luteal phase, a daily log makes that visible within two or three cycles. Some people log it as one signal among several around the fertile window, alongside signs like the LH surge and rising estradiol. Others track it because a stretch of unusually low or high desire is easier to talk about, and to put in context, when there's a record of what's normal for them.

How Go Go Gaia Tracks Libido

Go Go Gaia logs sex drive as a 1-click daily rating from 1 (low) to 5 (high). Each entry is charted against your current cycle phase, so a mid-cycle rise or a luteal dip shows up as a repeating shape rather than a hunch. You can view it alongside other logs like mood, sleep, and cycle signs to see how they move together.

What the Research Shows

A preregistered diary study drawing on more than 26,000 daily entries found that women's sexual desire increased around the middle of the cycle, addressing sample-size criticisms of earlier ovulatory-shift research.^[2]

A longitudinal study of 375 women found that within-woman changes in general sexual desire were related negatively to progesterone, with no significant relationship to testosterone or cortisol. Estradiol showed some positive associations, but these were mainly significant for solitary desire rather than general desire.^[3]

The evidence isn't uniform, though. A review of hormone studies concluded that endogenous testosterone's contribution to women's desire remains uncertain, and studies differ on how large and how consistent the periovulatory rise really is.^[4] Population averages also say little about any one person's pattern, which is exactly what a personal log fills in.

Related Terms

Frequently Asked Questions

Educational information based on published sources. Not medical advice. For personal concerns, please consult your doctor.

Does libido change across the menstrual cycle?

Several studies report that sexual desire rises around the middle of the cycle, near ovulation, and drops during the luteal phase. A large preregistered diary study of over 26,000 entries found mid-cycle increases in desire.^[2] Not every study agrees on the size or timing of the shift, and individual patterns vary.

Which hormones are linked to sex drive in women?

In studies of natural cycles, estradiol shows positive associations with day-to-day desire and progesterone shows negative associations.^[1] Testosterone showed no significant effect in these studies once estradiol and progesterone were accounted for, so its role in women's desire remains uncertain.^[4]

Why track libido in a cycle app?

Logging desire daily lets you see whether it follows a repeating pattern across your own cycle, such as a mid-cycle rise or a luteal dip. Charted against cycle phase, the log turns a vague sense of high or low interest into a pattern you can actually look at.