Table of contents
🌙 Personal Judgement vs. Objective Measured Data
Recently, I set a personal goal to sleep at least 8 hours every night. Initially, I was convinced that I had been meeting my goal successfully. However, during my weekly accountability meeting, I discovered a surprising deviation between my perception and the objective data measured by my Oura Ring 3.
It turns out I slept on average only 6 hours and 55 minutes per night! This experience has highlighted the importance of relying on hard data rather than solely relying on our subjective judgment.
⚖️ The Power of Measurable Data
Data, especially when objectively measured, has immense value. I'm fascinated by devices like the Oura Ring 3, which tracks more than 20 body signals and presents them in easily understandable graphs and visualizations.
But remember, data isn't truly useful until you take action based on it.
💍 The Oura Ring Gen3: A Full Review
This is a review of the Oura Ring 3, Heritage Silver, which I wore continuously for the past 6 months.
I will talk about the effects on my sleep hygiene but also show the things I am not 100% satisfied with.
The Ring Size
The ordering process: Order and pay, get the sizing kit and then receive the actual ring. You should wear the plastic ring you received from your sizing kit for 24 hours to test if it feels comfortable while doing your daily tasks.
I went for size 11.
➕ What did the Oura Ring Gen3 contribute to my sleep & overall health?
My total sleep time increased.
Past me was thinking that he slept 8 hours a night. When hopping into bed at 10 p.m. and waking up at 6 a.m., obviously, I slept 8 hours. Wrong.
Sleep Efficiency
What the Oura Ring showed me, however is that my sleep efficiency is 81%. This means that I am awake 19% of the time in bed. This is when I fall asleep, wake up during sleep, or lie in bed in the morning. If you don´t track your sleep and only look at the clock when you go to bed and wake up, you might have to subtract "non-sleep-time."
I relax in the evening to improve my sleep quality
The heart rate variability taught me the importance of relaxing my mind in the evening for a couple of hours (honestly, maybe 2h) before going to sleep.
If the heart rate variability reaches its lowest value in the first half of the total sleep time, you are recovering well.
If the lowest point is reached in the second half of the total sleep time, something penetrates our rest. For me, these are often factors like eating in the evening or watching YouTube before bed.
This I found out by the Tag function, which is an amazing feature oura has. More on it later.
➖ 2 cons of the Oura Ring Gen3
1. Synchronizing the ring every day
Unfortunately, I could not track the 10 days of the Vipassana Meditation Seminar, even though my ring was fully charged. When I synced the ring with the app after the seminar, it only showed me my daily activity, nothing about my sleep and daily performance.
2. Monthly membership fee
Paying a monthly fee of 6.99 USD is somehow a con, but it also serves as a pro. I tell myself to actively check my data and use it to improve my health because I pay for the monthly membership. Similar to a gym membership, the monthly pay serves as accountability.
#️ Tag Function
The Tag function is a great way to determine which activities and habits influence your daily performance and sleep.
Oura detects over 30 activities automatically. Mostly, it is running, walking,, and sleeping. Other activities like eating late and sauna it can't detect obviously and unfortunately.
This you have to add manually. I haven't established a routine yet to #tag daily, which is a shame. The tag function is great for detecting trends and experimenting with how your body reacts to your actions.
Summary
I genuinely love the Oura Ring Gen3. With the easily understandable Oura App, which has integrated helpful graphs visualizing your collected data and excellent explanations of every parameter it stores, I gained some great insight into my sleep and how to optimize my overall health.
Get $40/40€ off any Oura Ring when using my referral link.