The Ring Leader
Essential: The Oura Ring
I have tracked my sleep and movement for over 10 years, first using the Jawbone Up then using a few different FitBit bands. They were all "good", but then I learned the Oura Ring was even better at tracking - especially for sleep.
For the past few years, I've relied on the Oura Ring as my primary "quantified self" tool, tracking my activity and biometrics. It has become a major impact on my lifestyle, and an essential part of my life.
For the Uninitiated:
The Oura Ring is one of the most sophisticated "self trackers" available. It combines advanced sensor technology with a sleek, minimalist design to offer detailed insights into your overall health. Unlike bulkier fitness trackers, the Oura Ring is subtle, blending seamlessly with any style while providing powerful tracking of sleep, activity, and readiness.
It also isn't worn on the wrist like most trackers. Instead, as the name suggests, it's simply a ring. You first order a [free] sizing kit, choose your style and color, and order the ring specific to your finger size. The rest is almost fully automated with the accompanying Bluetooth-enabled app.
So, why is it the best?
1. Sophisticated Sleep
The Oura Ring's sleep tracking capabilities are second to none. Its location on your finger makes it an especially effective location for tracking some of your biometrics that help it capture and understand your sleep.
It also provides detailed information about your sleep stages, disturbances, latency, and overall quality. Ultimately, it helps me make important decisions based on my data (like when I should abstain from YouTube or TikTok in the evenings because I'm behind on quality sleep).
2. Depth of Sleep Data
Beyond tracking the actual details of your sleep, the Oura Ring captures a bunch of other vitals at night to help you understand how your body is resting and recovering. This includes things like resting heart rate, heart rate variability, and even body temperature.
Over the years, I've learned how different things (even one drink in the evening) can affect specific aspects of how my body recovers during sleep, and how those aspects make me feel the next day. Seeing these patterns have helped me introduce different things to improve my quality of sleep, like blackout shades, upgrading my pillow, and regularly meditating.
3. Way Beyond Sleep
While sleep tracking is the most important aspect for me, the Oura Ring also accurately captures a ton of additional data throughout the day. These include things like how often you're stationary versus active, how many calories you're burning, and it does a pretty incredible job of identifying if you were doing specific activities so you can log it (such as walking, yard work, cycling, etc.).
This helps me keep an eye on how active I am throughout a day or week, giving me a bit more motivation to get moving when I haven't been active enough.
4. Are You Ready??
Each morning, you receive a readiness score that measures your recovery, indicating how prepared your body is to perform at its best. The score is calculated based on multiple data points, including resting heart rate, HRV (heart rate variability), sleep quality, and previous day's activity levels.
I've found it to be surprisingly accurate in predicting my energy, focus, and motivation levels for a day. If my readiness score is particularly high, I'll try to get a particularly hard workout in, or make sure I'm tackling an especially hard challenge at work that requires a lot of sustained focus and effort.
5. Worry-Free
The Oura Ring is also something I don't even notice anymore. The battery life is awesome (up to 7 days…), it's waterproof, and it's very lightweight. After a week, you don't think about it at all.
It's also crazy tough - I will lift weights with it on, mountain bike, go backpacking, shower, swim, etc. I only take it off to charge, when I'm cooking certain things, and if I'm surfing or swimming in the ocean. Wild how much it has survived over the years.
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So, there you have it: The Oura Ring in all its glory. Highly, highly, highly recommend.
Like many other of my essentials, it is an investment. But the increase in my self-understanding and quality of life far exceeds that of the ring and the service subscription fee. So, whether you're looking to improve your sleep, better understand your body's readiness for exercise or focus, or just keep tabs on your daily health metrics, the Oura Ring is a sophisticated, unobtrusive companion that makes personal health monitoring both effortless and impactful.
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The Oura Ring comes in a variety of styles and sizes to ensure a comfortable fit. If you decide to use the links I share, you'll still get the lowest prices that I'm aware of, but I will get a small bonus for helping with the sale! Thank you!
