Why Oura is My Ultimate Health Tracker
FAVOURITE THINGS
Written by Rachel Mehaffey
Your Personal Health & Wellness Coach is on your finger!
We all know about The One Ring from the epic tales of Middle-earth, the ring that Hobbits desperately wanted to seek and destroy. It had the ability to read the truth of the human soul and bring the most honourable man to his knees. Well while not the same in its core intent there is another ring out there with huge potential and power for good. A ring you'll covet just as much as Gollum did, but for what it can tell you about your health and wellbeing.
I'm a sports scientist so I play sports. I love the science behind physiology and human performance so i've always been one to use fit tracking kit. I can honestly say I've never owned an apple watch preferring the more direct sports tech of the suunto or the garmin but, I have used all means of monitoring from the heart rate monitors to the breath analysis kits because your body is telling you at all times what it needs and where it needs support if you just start to listen. Of my tech I love the Suunto watch for is diagnostic capabilities but I hate to sleep with anything cumbersome on. Don't wear jewelry to bed and in fact sleep naked! So trying to sleep with a watch on was just disturbing my rest. Insert the RING. I cannot feel it while its on thanks to the personalised fit when buying so its perfect for someone like me!
As someone who believes health is our most valuable asset, I've been on a journey to better understand my own physiology. This quest led me to discover the Oura Ring, an extraordinary piece of technology that's revolutionising health and wellness tracking. Born from a Finnish health technology company in 2013, the Oura Ring is not just a stylish accessory; it's a sophisticated tool that provides deep insights into our bodies far deeper than any tech I have seen before. So, I invested. It wasn't cheap but hand on heart it has been worth every penny so far.
A Marvel of Modern Technology
The ring is equipped with advanced sensors, including infrared photoplethysmography sensors for heart rate and respiration monitoring, a negative temperature coefficient sensor to continuously track body temperature, and a 3D accelerometer to capture every movement. Now all of that makes sense to me as a scientist but in short - it packs a punch in its tech to read your body.
How it reads you
Sleep Tracking: Oura's advanced algorithms analyse your sleep stages, including light, deep, and REM sleep, providing detailed insights into your sleep quality. Each morning, you receive a sleep score that helps you understand how well you rested. You can delve deeper into the possible contributors to any sleep disruptions and be guided through the app to some solution strategies for better sleep. Any big disruptions and the ring will let you know if there is reason to seek some medical advice.
Activity Monitoring: The ring tracks your daily activity levels, from steps taken to calories burned, offering a daily activity score to guide your fitness goals. Yep just like most watches these days but because it is directly connected to your active pulse in the index finger it gives a far more accurate reading and also combines the basal metabolic temperature based on your height and weight to be specific in its analysis of your activity levels.
Readiness Score: This unique feature assesses your overall readiness for the day, combining data on sleep, activity, and body signals to suggest whether you should push yourself or take it easy. Like a personal coach it is there to tell you when you need to take things a little easy based on your stress levels or deficit in rest or, push you to use your energy when your optimal in score. It is intelligent not just blindly pushing you to move more.
Temperature Monitoring: Continuous body temperature monitoring helps detect subtle changes that can indicate potential health issues or track menstrual cycle phases. this is golden for women. It has accurately spoken to me of changes in my menstrual cycle indicating the onset of perimenopause based on the fluctuations on my body temperature in any given cycle. It is spot on and helps me anchor this back to my energy levels, moods changes and general disposition based on my hormones.
Heart Rate Variability (HRV): Oura monitors HRV, a key indicator of recovery and stress levels, providing insights into your autonomic nervous system's balance. Always connected to your pulse with its placed there is not the same level of variability that comes from a sports watch that moves when you get sweaty can be bumped off the pulse points and tends to be not as accurate.
The more you wear it the better the tracking
One of the standout aspects of the Oura Ring is its personalized approach to health tracking. The more you wear it, the better it understands your unique physiological patterns, delivering increasingly accurate and tailored insights. This level of personalisation makes the Oura Ring not just a tracker but a dedicated health coach that adapts to your needs. You can integrate it with other apps like strava, insidetracker and more. It all sends data to the oura app that sends you detailed reports from its own data as well as the connected apps. It is like having a physiologist at your fingertips!
Seamless Integration with Daily Life
What I love most about the Oura Ring is how it seamlessly integrates into my daily life. With its sleek design and powerful technology, it feels like a natural extension of my daily wear. The ring's companion app transforms complex health data into easy-to-understand scores and insights, making it simple to make informed wellness decisions. It looks cool while it is working for you!
A Small Ring with a Big Impact
In essence, the Oura Ring has become an indispensable part of my health and wellness routine. It goes beyond mere tracking; it's a proactive tool that helps me understand and improve my health in a personalised, intuitive, and stylish way. For anyone looking to take control of their health with cutting-edge technology, I can't recommend the Oura Ring enough. It's a small ring with a big impact on how I live and take care of myself and it is specific to me.
The confusion often comes when we invest in tech we don;t understand and either misuse the information or we don't make the most of the data we are being sent. That is not the case here thanks to the support app. yep when you invest you also sign up to a monthly subscription for your ring because it is a health coach literally on your finger not only sending you the data you need about your lifestyle and health but also how to understand it!
Truly am an advocate for this baby so if you want to learn more or get yourself one grab the discount on this link. If there is a piece of tech I would tell anyone to invest in, it is this.
Hey, I'm Rach. I'm a Life Coach, Podcaster, Digital Course Creator, Writer, Educator, Single Mum & Science Nerd.
I started coaching for interest sake then left my 20 year Big Corporate Gig to make it my life's work. Now I'm helping people all over the globe with mindset & teaching how to access the life you want.
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