Wearing an Oura Ring While Sick
I don't need an app to tell me I'm not feeling well....but it's kinda nice
I've written about my Oura ring before. I think it's the best wearable tracking device on the market. It's small, comfortable and accurate. It's really everything you need to get serious about tracking your health data.
But last week I truly appreciated an underrated aspect of wearing a health tracker. The way that it gives you data when you're not feeling well.
My “Oura while sick” experience
It's never fun to be feeling under the weather. And obviously we're all capable of knowing our bodies and realizing when something is off. But there is something oddly comforting about a fitness app telling you that it also doesn't think you're feeling well.
It's like you're getting a second opinion from a virtual doctor who nearly knows you as well as you know yourself. Or that feeling of your mother feeling your forehead as a kid and confirming that fever you suspected.
Let's get back to my specific instance. Having a toddler in preschool means that our house is really a revolving door of germs. There is always a chance that something is "going around". And in some cases it seems to skip right over the toddler and impact the parents more. It's good to be vigilant and aware of all your metrics that could be indicative of a cold.
My Oura ring alerted me that I didn't have the best night of sleep one night. That's fairly common. A dog, cat, and 3-year old tend to wake me up and disrupt my sleep from time to time, nothing out of the ordinary for a parent. But beyond the lack of sleep, the Oura ring noticed an uptick in my overnight temperature. It was nothing that made me think I had a fever, but it was enough of a jump to make me think something was wrong.Resting heart rate has been another metric that I've kept my eye on. That same night where my body temperature increased, my resting heart rate also jumped up from 42 to 64 beats per minute. Another red flag brought to my attention by the Oura app. If it isn't obvious, resting heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute when you're at rest. This number is very personal and can range anywhere from 40-100 bpm and still be considered normal. It's less about the actual number and more about seeing big swings in that number which could indicate that something just isn't right.
The third big indicator that signaled something was off was my respiratory rate. This is the average number of breaths you take while sleeping. A typically healthy range here is between 12-20 breaths per minute. Again, it's not so important to hit a specific number each night, but it's important to look for fluctuations after you've established a baseline number over the course of a few weeks. My number had jumped from 13 to 16 breaths per minute. Three more breaths each minute feels like a lot to me!
These indicators compounded to give me a low Readiness score of 41 when my number is typically in the high 80s or 90s. Don't get me wrong, I don't think we all need an app to tell us when we're sick, but these numbers were really eye-opening to me. More importantly, it was nice to be able to monitor my numbers over a few days to see how things were improving as I was getting over my cold.
How do these numbers help?
We don't need to let health numbers run our lives, but I found it extremely helpful to keep an eye on the app to let it guide me through my recovery. Oura does a great job of suggesting switching over to "rest mode" when you're sick or have been training too hard. I accepted this suggestion and it encouraged me to get more down time and sleep for a few days while eliminating any fitness goals or step counts for me to hit. After a few days, I could see that my numbers had improved and I was ready to go back to normal active mode and resume my physical activity.
This isn't a commercial for Oura and there are plenty of other trackers that probably give similar insights when you're feeling sick. But I find these personalized numbers to be super helpful and even liberating when you're not feeling well. You're presented with clear evidence to back up the way that you're feeling. These are also similar to certain readings that you'd be given when you go to see a doctor when you're first feeling ill.
No, I don't think a ring on your finger can replace your doctor. But it certainly can give you a quick snapshot into some important values that could indicate if you actually do need to go see your doctor or just rest for a few days.
Has anyone else had a similar experience when looking at health metics while feeling sick?
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
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