How the Oura ring improved my sleep and overhauled my general health

I first heard about the Oura ring through a fitness podcast back in 2015, and what drew me most to its features was how accurate it was in determining your sleep quality and recovery (HRV) `– two of the most important markers for health.

Back in 2017 I was going through my own health issues, which culminated in a diagnosis of Hypothalamic Amenorrhea (absence of periods) and subsequently led to fertility issues. My hormones were totally out of whack, and I was on the verge of burnout due to chronic stress.

One of the biggest areas I personally needed to tackle was my sleep hygiene and so in 2018 I decided to purchase what is considered to be the ‘world’s most accurate sleep tracker’.

The features and benefits

The Oura Ring uses advanced sensor technology to deliver personalized sleep and health insights straight from the most reliable source: your body. With precise sensors that give you accurate results from your finger pulse, Oura packs state-of-the-art heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), temperature, activity, and sleep monitoring technology into a lightweight, non-invasive ring.

Sleep tracking

If you want to combat the effects of poor health, sleep is your best defence. There is a modern-day misconception about the importance of sleep. We’ve convinced ourselves that anything else is more productive and frequently hear the expression “you can sleep when you’re dead.”

Recently, though, sleep science has been gathering steam and proving what should have been intuitive all along – our bodies didn’t evolve to waste time. Sleep is central to your health and performance. Although we remember little from our time asleep, our brains are firing, and our bodies are actively repairing.

I knew I needed to invest more in my sleep and start taking better care of myself to reduce my stress levels and reduce signs of adrenal fatigue. I hadn’t realised that for years I had been ignoring the quite obvious signs of sleep deprivation and thinking that my body could survive on an absolute maximum of 6.5 hours sleep, all whilst burning the candle at both ends due to my busy lifestyle.

After the first few months of use, my Oura ring (via the Oura ring app) started to gather data on my individual sleep patterns and subsequently shared personalized guidance on when to start winding down to improve my sleep quality (essentially when our melatonin levels in the body, our sleep hormone, start to rise).

The Oura Sleep Score (1-100) tells you how well you sleep every night. Your score is based on how long you spent in each sleep stage and your body signals like temperature and heart rate. You can tell if a specific activity, like a late coffee or dinner, alcohol or blue light, can affect the quality of your rest.

Oura tracks your sleep quality and sleep stages with research-grade sensors. I knew if I was getting enough deep sleep, REM sleep, and light sleep every night, and it gave me tips on how to improve these scores if they were low. ‘Sleep latency’ is also recorded so you know how long it took you to fall asleep (determined by your body temperature and heart rate), and generally speaking, if it takes your body a few minutes to fall into a deep sleep it’s a sign you’re your body is craving more sleep.

If you’re sceptical about the accuracy of the Oura ring data, it is comparable to gold standard sleep lab testing. It was that assurance that set the bar, particularly against other fitness/health monitors, and made me really start to pay attention to my own personal data.

Getting enough restorative sleep helps keep your autonomic nervous, hormone, and immune systems balanced. When you’re balanced, you sleep better. So, every morning when I woke up and looked at my sleep stats via the app, it helped me reflect better on the reasons why I might have had a good or bad night’s sleep. If it was a poor night’s sleep, then my ‘Readiness’ score was negatively impacted.

Which brings me on nicely to the other important health marker that the Oura ring monitors — your HRV or heart rate variability.

HRV monitoring

HRV is the measure of time variability between heartbeats, and a very slight variability is actually a good thing. HRV is linked to your autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the balance between the parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) and sympathetic (fight-or-flight) branches. What the Oura ring measures is largely parasympathetic activity, due to how the parasympathetic system impacts heart rate beat-by-beat. This variability indicates that your body is responsive to your physiological demands – which puts you in the optimal recovery state.

As a general rule of thumb, a higher HRV is associated with rest-and-digest, general fitness, and good recovery and a lower HRV is associated with fight-or-flight, stress, or illness. HRV differs greatly from person to person — and day to day. But from my personal perspective, my HRV score (marked as your ‘Readiness’ score in the app) became the most important statistic for me to pay attention to. Because your ‘Readiness score’ most of the time correlates with your ‘Sleep score’, if it was generally a low figure, I wouldn’t deem it safe for me to train that day, or to exert myself in any way.

It's important to note here that a lower HRV does not mean that you’re unfit, nor is the opposite necessarily true. Monitoring your HRV trends, especially by using ‘Tags’ which allow you to personalise your data in the Oura App, can build you a better personal health profile over time.

Activity tracking

Although I’ve used different fitness trackers in the past to track my training (Garmin watches and the Apple Watch currently), I didn’t purchase the Oura ring for the sole purpose of monitoring my training. However, because my Apple Watch syncs with my ring, it helps me stay motivated with personalized daily activity goals. With Oura tracking my heart rate, activity levels, and training frequency, it helps me understand if my training is being negatively or positively affected by my other health scores (sleep, HRV, etc.). It also helps me determine if I’m hitting my goals and giving my body enough recovery time.

What other features do I find useful with the Oura ring?

Oura now offers convenient monthly trends report on the first Monday of each month, covering Oura Scores, key biomarkers, and more. I find the monthly report helpful because I can see longer-term correlations. For example, I now visibly see the affect that eating dinner earlier can have on my sleep and readiness scores, as well as result in a lower resting heart rate.

The other new feature that came with the recent Generation 3 upgrade is that Period Prediction is designed to get smarter with use. When you first start using Period Prediction, your estimates will be based on your past cycles – how regular they are, when your period tends to occur, etc. Over the first two months, the feature will get to know your personal temperature rhythms and start to make predictions based on the patterns it sees as they happen. Each cycle, your feedback on your period start date and flow level help predictions become even more accurate.

Oura also measures your resting heart rate (RHR) by detecting changes in your blood pulse volume through infrared PPG sensors found inside your ring. Oura provides you with the following RHR metrics:

Average RHR: your average RHR captured during the night.

Lowest RHR: your lowest RHR value captured during the night

Your RHR Trace: Your RHR values captured every 10 minutes throughout the night, displayed in the graph view.

The OURA app also provides the ability to monitor your heart rate 24 hours a day.

In Conclusion

I could go on about the other amazing features and benefits of the Oura ring, but you can browse the website and their Instagram page to delve into these further.

I don’t believe health trackers like the Oura ring are a luxury anymore, I believe it is a mandate on our health. By monitoring my sleep, activity levels, temperature trends and stress levels, Oura has helped me reach my goals by delivering the best 360°view of my health in one neat, little device!

I started paying more attention to my sleep, I started to pay more attention to my rest and recovery. I understood my propensity for stress more. And when I eventually recovered from Hypothalamic Amenorrhea, I continued to use the Oura app to cultivate all the healthy habits I had learned over the last few years. Suffice to say, my health scores have increased and become more consistent.

What I love most about the Oura ring, is that you don’t need to be a medical professional, fitness enthusiast, or yoga master to understand your health; all you need is a willingness to listen and learn from your body.