Oura Ring Review

I went off of birth control in January 2022 and honestly, life was never the same. My body went a little crazy; my cycles were all over the place, my PMS turned into PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder), and my mental health plummeted. 

It got better after about 8 months but then things started getting weird again this past summer. My anxiety was pretty bad again, my cycles all out of whack and my sleep was not good. After some googling and enough sponsored posts, I decided to take the plunge and buy an Oura Ring.

I've been an avid user of activity trackers for years but none of them were ever exactly what I was looking for. Eventually, I stopped using them all and thought that was it - I would never use one again. I think the thing I didn't like about any of them was the fact that they were being worn on my wrist. I love jewelry but sometimes I just don't want to wear a bracelet.

However, rings are my favorite piece of jewelry and I never get sick of them so the Oura Ring seemed like the perfect solution. I knew it was going to be more accurate than wrist trackers, and the major selling point was the cycle syncing. I thought that if I was more aware of my cycle and the different phases, I'd be able to handle it better.

Oura Ring is synced up with Natural Cycles, which is a period tracking/fertility app, that takes your temperature every morning and can predict the start of your period. It seemed to be exactly what I needed.

What is the Oura Ring? 

The Oura Ring, if you've never heard of it, is a wearable activity tracker that tracks your sleep, your 'readiness' which means how rested you are, your activity & workouts, your temperature & cycle, your daily stress, and your heart rate. Stress is a new feature that I'll get into in a minute but I think it's by far my favorite metric. All of this data gets looped into the Oura Ring app and your ring will sync with the app to update the metrics whenever you open it. 

You can read more about how the Oura Ring tracks everything on their website but I really want to get to the review.

I purchased the Oura Ring in June 2023 and have been wearing it ever since. I think the only time I took it off was for a wedding in July but otherwise, I wear it everyday and night. I do take it off to shower and wash my hands, though it is waterproof for up to 330 feet. 

I bought the Oura Ring Heritage in silver because I'm cheap and I didn't want to shell out the extra money for the gold one. I do kind of regret it but it's not a dealbreaker for me. My silver one is just fine.

The Oura Ring does have a membership for $5.99 a month that gives you access to every feature, but there is an unpaid version that only gives you access to readiness, sleep and activity. I think the $6 per month is well worth it for the full experience.

Sizing the Oura Ring

If you're going to buy an Oura Ring, please order the sizing kit. It is not the same sizing as a regular ring and you want it to be a completely accurate fit so the ring works properly. Oura suggests wearing the ring on your index or middle finger because it'll be able to track more easily. I'm a size 7 on my ring finger and about a 7.5 on my middle finger, but for the Oura Ring, I ordered a size 9 and wear it on my middle finger. You want the ring to fit snuggly but not too tight because the 'computer' inside of it should be able to rest comfortably on your skin.

Oura Ring Metrics 

As mentioned above, the Oura Ring measures a bunch of different things but the main scores are Readiness, Sleep and Activity. 

Readiness

You receive a readiness score in the morning after Oura syncs your sleep; it ranges from 0-100 and takes into consideration your sleep time, your resting heart rate, your activity score from the day before and temperature. Readiness equals how ready you are for the day and from there, you can adjust your activity, sleep, and schedule as needed.

Depending on what your score is in the morning, Oura will suggest different ways to spend your day to give your body time to recover. It's a score that gives you permission to rest or be active which is interesting. 

An average readiness is probably 80-90, something I don't hit most days. My average readiness score is probably around 70, with the lowest I ever received being 45. That usually happens whenever I don't get a good nights sleep or am very stressed. Readiness scores do increase if you work out during the day, or if you take a nap which is nice.

Sleep

The sleep score is my favorite metrics because it's fascinating. Unlike other trackers, Oura really dives deep into how much good sleep you're getting, not just when you close and open your eyes. You get insight into how much light, deep, and REM sleep you're getting, as well as how much you're moving in the night, or when you wake up. Sometimes I see 'wake up' points in my sleep that I don't even remember which means that my body isn't getting as much rest as I think it is. If you happen to take a nap during the day, your sleep score will increase, based on when in the day you slept.

Oura will track your heart rate variability and if your temperature spikes during the night, which is helpful in predicting your period or if you're getting sick. It's scary how accurate the ring metrics are.

Activity 

When you sign up for Oura and enter all your information, they will give you a 'baseline' activity goal, and based on your readiness, Oura will set your goal for the day below or at the baseline. For example, my baseline is 350 but if my readiness is below 70, my activity goal is usually around 250. Depending on your workouts and steps throughout the day, Oura will calculate your score and at the end of the day you'll find out if you exceeded or fell below the goal. It's a nice way to keep you on track without putting an immense amount of pressure on you to hit goals.

Daytime Stress

As I mentioned above, Oura recently added an update to the app where your ring now measures your daily stress by calculating your heart rate, HRV, temperature and motion. It tracks it on a scale from stressed, engaged, relaxed and restored, and is so wonderful at providing an overall look at your moods throughout the day. It's very interesting to see when during the day you're stressed -- for example, I wake up very stressed and when I'm around a lot of people, stress tends to go up. 

Oura will let you know at the end of the day if your day was overall stressful or relaxing, and give some tips to help manage. This has been such a helpful thing to look at on a daily basis for me and I've really tried to make some changes to level out my stress levels.

Cycle Tracking   

Oura and Natural Cycles have a great partnership where you can automatically link your Oura account to Natural Cycles, and instead of having to take your temperature daily, the ring does it for you. This helps the apps figure out when you're ovulating and when your period is going to come.

In a recent update, you can now see your cycle predictions directly in the Oura app and each day it gives you a recommendation based on where you are in your cycle. 

Lately, my cycles have been very irregular so I've been really depending on the app to help guide me and it's scarily accurate. TMI but... the other morning I opened up my app as soon as I opened my eyes, and it told me that my period prediction day was today. I went to the bathroom and what do you know, I had my period. It's insane and a little scary, but super helpful. 

To me, the Oura Ring is a wellness, lifestyle tool and not necessarily an activity tracker because it takes a holistic look at your health - not just the amount of calories you're burning. That's really what I needed at this point in my life, and if you're looking for something to help you improve your sleep, activity, and just get a wider look at your overall health, I think you will love the Oura Ring.

xoxo
B