Living with the Oura Ring 5 for 48 Hours

After eying the Oura Ring for years now, I finally pulled the trigger and picked one up. I've been using it for just about 48 hours, and I have some mostly good but also a few bad things to say about it. 

First off, I love the fit. Oura recommends wearing the ring on your non-dominant hand on either your pointer, middle, or ring fingers for the best reading and fewer scuffs and marks on the ring itself over time. Between the 3 fingers, the pointer finger seems to be the best option, but I went with the middle finger for mine. That's where it felt the most comfortable for me. So much so I forget I'm wearing it. The fit is truly seamless.

It takes about 2 weeks to a month for the app and the ring to get a solid reading and baseline on you. I find it's doing a good job with me already. I can't say any of the readings I'm getting are truly off in any way. To me, it's more that I am someone who never really thinks about how I feel. Like no matter my sleep or stress or whatever, I'm going to handle my day the same way. So to see a "Readiness" stat is kind of cool. As a gamer, it's interesting to have what feels like a stat sheet for a character. 

The app does a good job of conveying a solid amount of information to you quickly and lets you dive deeper if you would like. The feature in the app I did not expect to use as much but has completely been a game changer for me is the meal tracking. From the moment I put the ring on, my eating habits have changed for the better. Just knowing that the apps going to tell me the pizza is bad for me is enough for me to not eat the pizza. The psychological effect of something holding me accountable is working. Last night I was really hungry and was going to order fries and wings, and right as I was about to hit order, I canceled it and made tuna sandwiches. My diet has been made up of fruits, vegetables, eggs, fish, coffee, and tea since putting on the ring. If I can keep this up, this will be a lot of money saved in the long run with fewer Uber Eats orders. 

I got to try it out for a workout, and it went well, but I do have issues. It's not too much about the Oura Ring 5 as what I am used to. Which is an Apple Watch. I am far from fit or an athlete, but I have been working out somewhat regularly as of late. I have a good thing going, and I am noticing results. Something I like with the Apple Watch is being able to actually see my time and heart rate right there on my wrist. It makes tracking the workout easier when I am gassed out with sweat in my eyes. Being able to just look at my wrist and know how much longer I need to go, as well as see my stats, is convenient.

With the Oura Ring is all in the app, and the last thing I want to do is open that up when I am gassed out mid-workout. Because of that alone, I think I would recommend the Apple Watch or any watch like tracker alternative if you are looking to track your workouts. Especially if you are trying to make progress with goals in mind at the gym. The Oura Ring makes more sense to me if you are already a very active person who works out regularly, and maybe your goals aren't things like weight loss but just keeping active and having the ring track things in tandem with all the other stats it tracks.

The numbers themselves from the Oura Ring 5, when it comes to working out, do seem to be very accurate. Well on par with the Apple Watch. But the Oura Ring is much more an all around life tracker than the Apple Watch, which feels more like a workout activity tracker. I personally think it hasn't removed the Apple Watch from my life. I think I will stick to using it to track my workout in tandem with the Oura Ring. But to give a quick difference between the two, you live with the Oura Ring whereas you wear an Apple Watch. 

The last thing I want to touch on is the Oura Ring's sleep tracking. I am not the best sleeper and have been having problems with sleeping for a while now. I have found that the last 2 nights with the Oura Ring have made my sleep a little worse. Just knowing my sleep is being tracked gets in my head and makes me sleep worse. It is still early, and I need time to get used to it so I can stop being pressured by it. The positive effect, though, is that it is making me feel more conscious about my sleep timing. Still too early to say, but I hope it gets me to bed earlier and keeps me more consistent. 

Overall, it has been an interesting experience. Somewhat even life changing in a way. Just knowing I have stats now is really cool. Which naturally makes me want to mid-max my character like it's a video game. The character this time being me. I just hope I can keep my general paranoid nature in check and stick with it. 

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