Normally, I’m not a huge fan of slick, Silicon-Valley-ish terms like “biohacking” and “the quantified self” (gag). But recently, I’ve found myself slipping deeper and deeper into the world of techhie health gadgetry.
I mentioned last week how I’ve been using a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to see how my food and exercise affects my blood sugar and may be helping or hurting my ketone levels. Not a lot of surprises so far, except for the fact that, despite the oft-heard assertion that wine is a “glass of sugar,” I’ve found that a dry Pinot Grigio will actually lower, not raise, my blood glucose for a little while. More research and experimentation to come — woo hoo!
But in the meantime, I want to talk about my latest toy, the Oura ring. If you’re familiar with the Fitbit, Apple Watch or any of the other “wearables” (ugh) that have gotten popular in the last few years, then you can think of the Oura as the next go-round — a tiny computer that sticks to your body and telegraphs everything about you to an app on your phone. Like those others, it tracks sleep, exercise, and a bunch of other fun things. The twist is that instead of wrapping around your wrist, it goes around your finger, making for an impressive amount of hardware in an impressively small package.
Now, I must confess that despite my sarcasm, I’ve been a wearable wearer for several years now. I’m already on my second Apple Watch, and before that I wore a Fitbit into the ground. So I’m used to obsessing over steps, calories, minutes, rings, and so on. I like to know “the score,” however you define it, and how my day stacks up.
You, on the other hand, might feel that all of this wearing and measuring these days is ludicrous and somewhat mentally unhealthy. You wouldn’t be wrong. After all, Fitbit has been around for 10 years, and despite selling 100 million of these babies so far, they still haven’t put a dent in the obesity epidemic. If you feel that way, then the below review is probably not for you. No offense taken!
But if you are a slightly obsessive person interested in tracking your every move and sharing it with some faceless Silicon-Valley corporation, how does the Oura stack up? Here’s what I’ve found over the past month:
every step you take
Like those other trackers, Oura measures the wearer’s daily activity and exercise. Honestly, this is probably its least impressive feature. Thing is, the instructions specify that it’s not a great idea to wear it during weight-lifting. Being a ring that contains delicate electronics, I guess it doesn’t stand up too well to repeated battering against a knurled iron bar. And even though it’s waterproof, I decided to extend that precaution to my other major form of exercise, rowing. That means that I can’t vouch for the Oura’s reliability or usability as an exercise tracker.
Instead, I wear my Apple Watch and track my workouts that way. And because both devices connect to the Apple Health app, my workout data crosses over right into the Oura app on my phone, so I can still take advantage of the first of Oura’s three assessments of my life and worth as a human, the Activity Score.
What I like about Oura’s approach to tracking is that unlike the completely arbitrary goal of 10,000 steps, your “Activity Goal” (a phrase that Dr. Ben would approve of) varies from day to day, depending on how “ready” you are for a lot of exercise that day. Yesterday, for example, the app challenged me to burn 750 calories, which I met through a combination of rowing, walking, and an hour-long physical therapy session, on top of my normal life. My goal on Thursday, on the other hand, was a modest 400 calories, which only required my regular dog walks and daily movement, plus 30 easy minutes on the rowing machine. You might well wonder, how does the ring determine just how active you should be?
ready freddy
One of the unique features of the Oura is the “Readiness Score,” a prediction of whether you can expect that day “to perform at your mental, emotional, and physical best.” Is it a good day to go for an all-out 5k? To tackle a big presentation? Or is it a lay-on-the-couch-and-binge-watch-Ted Lasso kind of day? The ring will let you know just how badly you should beat up on yourself for skimping on your workout, or how justified you are in making excuses to slack off. This, I suppose, is useful.
But, as the old Thermos joke goes, “How does it know?” According to the website, the Readiness Score is an algorithm (ick) of 8 measurements that the ring takes, including resting pulse, body temperature, heart-rate variability (HRV), previous day’s activity, and previous night’s sleep. All of these are factored into the recommendation on how hard you can push yourself that day without overdoing it.
sleeping to the top
Of all the whiz-bang functions, though, it’s Oura’s sleep tracking that I really like. The ring detects not just your total hours in bed and movement during those hours, but also factors such as heart rate and body temperature to tell you stuff like how quickly you fell asleep, how deeply you slept, and how consistently you’re getting good sleep.
Most wearables do track sleep, but I find that Oura goes above and beyond, providing a ton of data, but more importantly, synthesizing that data into a simple, easy-to-understand score. I’ve also found — and this is just personal preference — that wrist trackers are uncomfortable to wear at night, and that their optical heart-rate sensors give off a weird green light that can be annoying while you’re trying to sleep. As a non-jewelry wearer, it took me a couple of days to get used to wearing the Oura, but once I did, I found that it didn’t disrupt my sleep at all.
As I have mentioned before, lack of sleep is one of the biggest concerns when it comes to living with epilepsy. And as Matthew Walker, PhD, shows in his surprisingly fascinating book Why We Sleep, modern humans are actually pretty bad at knowing how well-rested or how sleep-deprived we are.
I will note that Walker has stopped short of endorsing any particular sleep tracker, or even trackers in general, but he admits to using one himself, and says that these devices can be useful in finding “trend lines,” and in noting “marked deviations from the trend lines” when a problem arises.
I can say that based on my own forensic soul-searching, each of my last seizures has come after an extended period of less-than-ideal sleep, whether from too much work or too much play. Walker says that all of us “will come to learn that sleep is the universal health care provider: whatever the physical or mental ailment, sleep has a prescription it can dispense.” And I believe it’s particularly important for me, as a person living with epilepsy, to know and respect my sack time.
So overall, I have to give the Oura Ring high marks after my first month of use. If you’re going to wear a mini-computer to track anything, I’m convinced that sleep is the thing to track. And if you’re going to track your sleep, this nifty little device is a great way to do it. Now if I can only get it to shut off the TV, slap the cheddar Whisps out of my hand, and drag me to bed on time, we’ll be in business.
Note: The ramblings published on this blog are the opinions of the author alone and shared for entertainment purposes only. The author is an English major with no medical or scientific background; thus, his words should never be taken as medical advice. Consult with your doctor or medical professional before undertaking any diet or exercise program.