For a long time I’ve had an activity tracker, 16 years ago I started with the little nike pod that went in my shoe and had a sensor that attached to my iPod. At the time I ran, a lot, and I loved having statistics to show my activity, whether it was distance, speed or time, it gave me something to improve on and fuelled my passion and my motivation. Perhaps an obsession grew from there? it was certainly a tool I used a lot during my triathlon days, and over time I’ve tried them all, Nike, Fitbit, Garmin, Apple, and with each one there have been elements I’ve focused on, whether it was getting faster, going further, meeting self made targets, competing with friends or just closing my rings so I got the virtual pat on the back from my watch. I appreciate that this has been beneficial for me in the past and is what motivates many, but for me right now it no longer helps my health and fitness to focus on such metrics.
If you’ve followed me for a while you’ll know I’ve had issues with sleep. I’ve tried using the sleep tracking components of my watches and the apps that work alongside them and they’ve all fallen short, I’m seemingly able to trick them into thinking I’m asleep, I can lie and watch the minutes and hours tick by on the clock and yet my watch tells me I had a great sleep - um.. No.
My continued lack of rejuvenating sleep and starting each day feeling exhausted made me put more thought into what I was putting my body through, it made me tune into my body more so that I honor my energy, and move it both accordingly and appropriately. I stopped looking at the stats on my watch, stopped worrying about closing rings and started feeling my way through what is right for me. I decided to flip the script on activity tracking and put my focus on recovery and readiness instead, to do so I’ve invested in an Oura ring.
It’s a party on the outside, business on the inside, and claims to help more accurately track and optimize health. I’m pretty confident I know my body well, can read its signals and act appropriately so I’m super intrigued to see what this ring reports and whether it can help improve my relationship with sleep for a healthier more productive and energized version of me.
It has all the bells and whistles that my activity tracker doesn't.... It’s ability to track my body temperature variations and Heart rate variability (HRV) should help me understand how well I recover from stressors and I’m hoping that the little tale tell signs that I'm overdoing it and am run down become things of the past!
We slept together for the first time last night and I didn’t sleep well (surprise) yet my ring gave me a good sleep score, disappointing, BUT, it does say it takes a few weeks to get in sync with your body and establish your baselines. I will keep you posted.
Health and happiness
Jen