Oura Ring: My One Year Review
Photo by Jerry Kavan on Unsplash; Design by Jodie Parris
Last year (February 2024) when my girls and I had a Galentine’s Day Celebration we were sharing our new years resolutions and goals. During the prior months at the end of 2023 I had been really looking into how to simplify my workout routine and overall approach to wellness. One area of my health I had never really prioritized or looked into much was my sleep hygiene.
Everywhere I was looking at it felt like I kept seeing the importance of sleep and it’s impact on the body and mind. As a long time insomniac I know how precious those hours are each day, and how the lack of them would make me feel physically and mentally drained. My Apple Watch at the time was over five years old, and barely making it through the day without an additional charge, and from what I had read online it wasn’t the best of the best when it came to tracking Sleep Metrics.
Enter the Oura Ring.
What is an Oura Ring:
You typically will see the Oura Ring in categories as a Fitness tracker, but I like to refer to it as a Wellness Tracker. Unlike most Fitness Trackers out there, like the Apple Watch, Oura ring is HSA/FSA eligible because it’s truly seen as a tool for wellness. The Apple Watch focuses on movement but very little on recovery. With Oura Ring it’s all about observing how your body is truly doing.
The Oura Ring monitors your sleep and tracks how restful it is. It observes how long it takes for your heart rate to lower and stabilize at night, in addition to measuring your heart rate variability to see if your body and mind are truly recovering. Your sleep score has a direct impact on your Readiness Score, which takes into account your two week trend and compares it to your three month average.
In addition to Sleep Tracking, Oura ring will track your steps throughout the day, Stress Levels via your heart rate, Cardio Age and Health, and Monthly Cycle for all my female friends out there. Just in the one year of me having it they released the Cardio Age and Health feature, as well as Symptom Radar which can detect when your body is under strain and may be getting sick.
Another cool thing about Oura is how it can build reports for you to share your data with your Doctor, or to just observe your wellness over time.
Why I decided to get the Oura Ring:
Like I mentioned above, recovery has never been a strong suit of mine. I am known to my family and friends to push through pain, sickness, and injury to meet workout goals and my 7 Years (and counting) of 10,000 steps a day step streak. With most fitness trackers taking on a motivational “get your butt in gear” approach, it matched me perfectly for so long. However, throughout the year 2023 and being burned out in regards to health and wellness, I decided I needed a different and more softer approach when it came to how I track wellness.
I loved the approach of Oura so much I officially retired my Apple Watch 6 months into using the Oura Ring.
Having the Oura Ring tell me to “take it easy” after the not best night of sleep, or the intense workout the day before is something I will admit I’m still getting used to. The biggest thing change is I take true active rest days now, where all I do is take casual walks as well as daily yoga to stretch and breathe it out. This has been a huge shift for me but was long overdue.
Besides the amazing sleep tracking features, one of the features that I was drawn to the most with Oura is the Resilience Metric, which is where it measures you body stress levels throughout the course of the day. I found out a few years ago just how sensitive my body is to stress. So sensitive that it was not only impacting me mentally, but physically with showing up in my yearly bloodwork. Seeing the impact stress could have on me with my physical health I knew I needed to do a better job at monitoring it. The Oura Ring has been a pivotal tool in helping me check in with my mental health, and trying to make daily decisions to take better care of it in conjunction with my physical health.
What I have learned through it:
I have been using the Oura Ring for a little over a year now, and I feel like I am just starting to scratch the surface with it.
Some of the initial thoughts I had is I have more restful sleep than I thought I did. I remember in the first few weeks of wearing it being amazed at my sleep scores, especially with being the insomniac that I am. This was encouraging to me and almost like a pat on the back. Now on the flip side when my sleep scores aren’t great, I try my best to reflect on why and if it’s something I can change and learn from. I feel much more in tune with what my body is lacking, and it’s easier to see it with the data my Oura Ring provides.
Another discovery I have found throughout the year is that late screen time like watching Netflix is not truly relaxing to my body (or mind) but is actually stimulating. Typically my stress levels are in an engaged level after watching TV for a while. I have also found that writing, and reading are some of the most restorative activities for me outside of meditation and sleeping. This has been truly informative with me making more time to read, especially during the workday to just calm my stress levels down.
I have also found that eating a super heavy meal or late at night makes my body work overtime with digestion throughout sleep. This isn’t always avoidable, but my husband and I are trying to really work on eating a dinner before 8:00, which we were known to do on the weekends. I also found that consuming alcohol also impacts how restful my sleep is.
Drawbacks of Oura:
As much as I love Oura and believe everyone can benefit from it, there are a few things I think fall into the con category depending on the person.
1) The ring is slightly bulky and does stand out on petite hands. I wear my Oura Ring on my left pointer finger throughout the day, and middle finger at night. I was torn between two sizes but the advice was to wear it on the non-dominant hand. In the beginning I felt it “took away” from the beauty of my wedding ring set. However, in time I honestly didn’t give a fudge because of the great metrics and changes Oura was giving to my life. My Oura ring does fit on my dominant hand ring finger that I can always switch to it if needed, but 9/10 I just keep it on my non-dominant pointer finger. I have the Generation 3 and from pictures of the Generation 4 released last year it looks slightly less bulky and more seamless with the silver inner ring component.
2) Oura is not for the visual fitness tracking enthusiast. Though it does a good job at tracking activities, I found during cardio workouts really missing the visual representation of my heart rate which was a goal in my 2024 Workout Routine Makeover. I do think Oura is perfect if you want to take on a minimalist approach to wellness and are okay at not having that data visually during the workout. It still tracks workouts but sometimes I would have to manually log them. The Oura Ring is perfect for my yoga workouts though because it helps me not look or track the time until the Yoga video is over.
I spent 6 months just using the Oura Ring as my main fitness tracker. The only thing I missed regarding my Apple Watch was for when I would go out for a run to track my distance and heart rate. Other than that I felt like Oura did everything I needed it to do with tracking my fitness routine.
3) You have to pay a monthly/yearly price in regards to seeing all the health data and metrics. This was one of the things I saw many people complaining about on Reddit when I was debating about the Oura Ring. The price is around $6.00 a month, which is just the equivalent of a fancy latte. The monthly charge is to help in supporting and developing Oura to track even more metrics for the consumer. For me the monthly price pays for itself each month with what I can see and observe within the Oura app when it comes to my wellness.
However, with Oura being HSA/FSA eligible you are able to get reimbursed for the monthly/yearly expense of the membership.
Well friends there you have it with my 1 Year review of using the Oura Ring. I hope it was informative to you if you are thinking about hopping into the Oura life. It’s been one of the best investments I have made in my health and I look forward to seeing what I learn thought this next year.
Until next time,
