In January I received my late Christmas gift, an Oura Ring. What is an Oura Ring, you ask? Well it is a smart ring that tracks your sleep, activity, and body temperature. Essentially, the ring is another data tracking device that makes you more aware about how your body is functioning and also keeps you accountable on how much sleep and what type of sleep you are getting. It might be surprising to hear that I am a bit of a data nerd, ha! It’s true, I like to see the data from a workout on my apple watch, check my blood oxygen levels, see my heart rate, and track my sleep. I believe that with knowledge comes power and I want to be able to advocate for my health in the most educated way I can.
*Disclaimer, this is not an ad for Oura Ring… I paid for it on my own and genuinely wanted to share what I’ve learned.
I’ve owned the ring for 2 and a half months and have only missed one night of wearing it because I forgot to bring it on an overnight trip, whoops! I have to say I am a big fan of the app and the graph layouts; they are super intuitive and informative. There are videos in the app that go into detail on what you should be looking for when reading your data and what various acronyms mean within the data tracking. I learned a lot just searching around in the in-app ‘explore and learn’ area. The ring tracks your activity, your readiness, and your sleep. It does this through monitoring your heart rate, body temperature, and movement.
Sleep. I used to think I slept terribly some nights because I remembered slightly waking up multiple times to switch sides or what not. Surprisingly even on nights where I think I didn’t sleep well, I can look at the data and realize that I actually went into deep sleep immediately which means my body was recovering right away and the “terrible sleep” was for a short amount of time outside of my deep sleep and REM cycle. The data is fascinating to look at in the morning. I also find that I actually moved less throughout the night than I thought I did. It’s been really eye opening to track my sleep and is honestly the feature I have utilized the most. I typically don’t wear my ring during the day but I think that is going to have to change so I can get more accurate activity and readiness scores.
Activity. My activity score is usually only based on what the ring can find from the health app on my phone which is connected to my apple watch. My goal is to wear the ring more so I can get data from both the ring and my watch to see how it all communicates to show my activity or…. my inactivity (haha) throughout the day. With the ring analyzing my daily movement and how much rest I am getting I am sure it will impact my “readiness” score which never typically looks “good.” Let’s chat about that.
Readiness. This is the feature that confuses me the most because, typically, my numbers are in the red. The Readiness score takes into account how much you and your body can handle based on your sleep, activity, body stress signals (like your body temperature and HRV). Honestly it can show if you are stressed, had too much sugar the day before, ate too late, had a hard workout, if you are sick… so many amazing triggers that you can notice if you are aware of what is “normal” for you. I argue that my number isn’t great because my body is working double-time creating ANOTHER HUMAN but this week as I have been busy and preparing for my upcoming trip, my Readiness score has been lower than normal and I have had to ask myself, “What’s going on?” Well I can physically feel that my body is pushed to the max and needs me to go easier on it. The data only confirms it, which is just wild!
Overall, I love this ring and although I have had it for a few months, I feel like I still have so much I could still learn from it. I highly recommend the Oura Ring if you want more detail about your sleep and heart rate variability. Again, with knowledge comes power so think of this as an investment in your health. I’m so interested to see what my levels look like as I get further along in pregnancy and even postpartum when my body starts to regulate again. The data over time is going to be fun to compare. Cheers to data tracker gadgets! Let me know if you have the Oura Ring or plan on getting one?
The Salty Exchange 