Cheryl Shops

My boyfriend is not exactly hard to shop for, but I definitely agonize over what to get him for his birthday or Christmas, and while gifts aren't his number-one love language, I always want to give him something that he'll use and enjoy. I will award myself a pat on the back for giving him an Oura ring last year at Christmas; he immediately loved it and I could tell that he was using the data it provided to help him make subtle improvements in his health. I decided to get one for myself after seeing him enjoy it so much, and while not every data point has been a big surprise, I've learned some interesting things about my health. 

I have the Oura ring in gold—as you can see, it's a little more yellow than the 14k gold ring on my middle finger.

How it works

It's pretty simple—you wear the Oura ring 24 hours a day (especially while sleeping!) and it communicates via Bluetooth with an app on your phone. It provides you with a daily assessment of your baseline health and tracks several key data points:

This is what you see when you open your Oura app

Readiness: This is an assessment of how much mental and physical energy you'll have for the day based on how well you slept, how much activity you did on the previous day, and some vital stats like body temperature and resting heart rate. 

Sleep: One of my favorite things about the Oura ring is its tracking of your sleep quality, including various stages, timing/consistency, how long it takes you to fall asleep, and the associated vitals. After a month or so, Oura will provide you with a chronotype, which gives you guidance in terms of sleep-wake schedule, physical activity, and mental alertness. For the record, I'm a late morning type. 

Activity: While I walk frequently and work out several times a week, I thought I was pretty sedentary until I got the Oura ring. It tracks all movement you do, including frequency and volume, and if you've been sitting too long, it sends you a push notification suggesting that you "stretch your legs a bit." I discovered that even blow-drying my hair counts as activity (I classify it as "housework") and in spite of not doing much cardio, my cardiovascular age is 5 years younger than my actual age. 

Cycle: If you've never tracked your body temperature in the name of natural family planning (a.k.a. the rhythm method), this may be the biggest surprise, but Oura is very accurate in monitoring your menstrual cycle from follicular phrase (your period and fertile days, roughly the first half of your cycle) to luteal (after you've ovulated but before your period starts, when your temperature spikes a degree or so). This may be TMI, but I've discovered I start my luteal phase a little late, around day 18, and my period tends to start on the 2nd day after my temperature drops. While I'm not looking forward to perimenopause, I feel like it will be somewhat fascinating to track!

Heart rate & stress: Of all the stats that Oura tracks, this one might be the most controversial, at least on Reddit. Oura doesn't disclose what exactly goes into the stress assessment, but I think it's mostly heart rate or as they call it, physiological stress. I've often found I'm "stressed" when I'm excited or having fun; I also got that warning when I had food poisoning. I'll go into a little more detail about this in a bit, but this is the vital stat that I try to pay the least attention to, because it's the one I have the least control over. 

Clockwise from top left: my readiness score, sleep score, cycle, and activity score

What I love about the Oura ring

The ring itself: It took me a couple of days to get used to it, but now I barely notice I'm wearing it (I put mine on my left index finger). I never take it off, except to shower and to charge it, which I do about every 5 days. It's so much more subtle than wearing a watch. My one quibble is that the gold finish I chose is a little too yellow next to my actual gold rings, but I think it's already mellowing out a little with time. 

The data tracking and analysis: I love that I can easily monitor all of the vitals I mentioned above, and that if I'm getting sick or if I slept like garbage, Oura gives me a plan of action—or inaction—for the day. It sounds silly, but sometimes I push myself too hard and "power through," and it's reassuring to have an informed source telling you that you need to take it easy—or conversely, to get out in the world and maximize your energy.

The mothering: I've known for awhile that if I have more than a couple of drinks, my sleep is negatively impacted. What I did not know was how much, and now I can see that my body temperature is elevated, my resting heart rate is high and drops late in the night, and I have less deep sleep (and am awake more). I then have data points correlating to why I feel like crap the next day. Maybe I didn't need a fitness tracker to tell me this, but I do feel that it holds me accountable for my actions, and I've been consciously making healthier choices. 

I like the little pep talks Oura gives you!

What the Oura ring could do better

I have one grievance with the Oura ring and it's very small in the grand scheme of things but worth mentioning nonetheless. Maybe it's because I'm very relaxed when I'm doing this, but nine times out of ten, Oura thinks that I'm trying to sleep when I stretch out on the couch to watch TV or a movie. Thankfully you can manually adjust the time you actually went to sleep—no, Oura, I did not call it a night at 8:30 p.m.!—but the moment of panic when you get a mediocre (and undeserved) sleep score is really annoying. 

The other thing worth mentioning is that Oura's stress tracking is a little nebulous. From what I can tell, it's physiological stress based primarily on your heart rate, and Oura is able to tell when it's elevated due to activity or for other reasons. I've found that mine rises when I'm drinking, especially during the day, and when I'm hot—on Labor Day weekend, when I was both very hot and day drinking, my stress level was elevated for like 8 hours straight, which was a little alarming. Sometimes it goes up when I'm having fun, or for reasons I can't figure out at all. Either way, I try not to get too hung up on this metric, but I do wish Oura would detail what goes into it—and maybe call it something other than stress. 

I was stressed on this day because it was a little warm outside and the bus was crowded

My honest review

An Oura ring likely won't tell you things you don't already know about your health, but if you let it, it will hold you accountable for changing them. I looking at my data, assessing it for the day, and adjusting accordingly. It feels gratifying when I get an alert that I've hit my activity goals for the day, and while I don't always have control over how well I sleep, I love waking up to an optimal readiness score. It helps me feel like I'm taking charge of my health and taking care of myself, and that, to me, is worth the monthly subscription fee—which, like the ring itself, can be paid for with an FSA or HSA, if you have one.

Where to buy the Oura ring

I got mine on Amazon, which tends to discount them frequently, but you can also purchase Oura rings on their official site, at Target, and at Best Buy. No matter where you buy yours, I highly recommend ordering the ring sizing kit first (its cost will be applied toward your ring), as I ended up wearing a bigger size than normal.