Transmutable Explorations

Tag: Breathwork

  • Sauna Protocol and Benefits of Sauna Use

    Sauna Protocol and Benefits of Sauna Use

    Fairly early on in my journey toward better health, I kept running into all the research touting the benefits of sauna use.  None of these prescribed a specific sauna protocol, but noted that there seemed to be many benefits that correlated with regular use of sauna.  Sauna use wasn’t really foreign to me.  I had traveled to Ukraine where it was a part of the culture.  Some Russian-American friends of mine had also introduced me to the ‘Banya’.  I always sort of dreamt about having my own traditional sauna, but the cost and other considerations just always made it seem so impractical.  Would I really use it often enough?  How would I find the time to incorporate it into my schedule?

    Traditional vs Infrared

    Research started to show the mechanisms of action for why sauna seemed to have such positive health benefits.  Most of this was done using a ‘traditional’ Finnish style sauna.  These are often wood fired and include steam.  I kept looking into what it would take to build and maintain one of these and kept deciding that it was too much for me to take on.  A spa that I went to for my regular massages had an infrared sauna and I started to add that into my routine.  I noticed that my massage seemed to be much more effective when I started with a sauna session.

    An infrared sauna is different from a traditional sauna in that they are ‘dry’ saunas.  No steam is used.  Instead of the air being heated via convection, these saunas used near and far infrared to heat your body directly.  In addition to the lack of steam, these saunas stay at much lower ambient air temperatures compared to a traditional sauna.  More and more people were using infrared saunas, but it was unclear if these had the same health benefits.

    Eventually, studies started to show that infrared saunas not only conveyed many of the same benefits as traditional saunas, but in some cases, provided even more!  At this point, I started to seriously investigate this style of sauna.  During 2020, I ended up purchasing and constructing one that my research showed was one of the best models available at the time.

    What are the Benefits of Sauna Use?

    So what was I trying to accomplish with regular sauna use?  Originally, I wanted to use it as a recovery tool.  I was hoping to ‘destress’ and heal my sore joints and muscles from upping my workouts.  I had known from my use at the spa that it seemed to be very effective at this.  While researching infrared saunas it seemed that this was likely due to the ability for them to lower inflammation.

    There were also numerous studies touting the cardio protective effects of frequent sauna use.  Lowering my blood pressure was something that I also was very interested in doing… Especially through ways that did not involve pharmaceuticals.  There was conflicting information early on about using infrared sauna for detox purposes.  It seemed reasonable though, that if were causing you to sweat, it was likely helping in some ways with this.  More recently, research into sauna’s ability to raise human growth hormone production has been very appealing in terms of taking my workouts to the next level.

    There are many other benefits of sauna use, but these were the main ones that initially interested me.  Many research papers now have been focusing on how sauna upregulates the production of Heat Shock Proteins and the cytoprotective benefits that they convey.  It seems like regular sauna use is one of the best things you can do in order to create a better healthspan.

    My Sauna Protocol

    Initially, I just sat in my sauna and listened to music or podcasts.  Soon I was spending between 20 and 40 minutes 4+ times a week in there.  My productivity obsessed mind started to preoccupy itself with other ways that I could be making the most of this time.  Moving my meditation practice to coincide with sauna time was a natural progression, but I quickly developed a sauna protocol that I follow just about every time I use it.  This protocol centers around a few central themes:

    • I want to make the most of the time that I spend in the sauna.
    • Most of the time, I want my session to focus on maximizing my recovery.
    • I want to enhance the benefits of my work out.  To me, this is still focused on losing fat, while maintaining/building muscle.
    • I want to make the most of any detoxifying benefits that the sauna provides.

    With all of this in mind, my sauna protocol begins even before I turn on the sauna.

    Before Sauna Protocol

    With very few exceptions, I almost always workout before I use the sauna.  Most days, I work out in a fasted state.  On days that I don’t, I still make sure I’m at least 2 hours fasted before using the sauna.  This is so that I can go in with lower blood sugar levels and to help maximize fat burning.

    About 30 minutes before I get into the sauna, I drink a large glass of water loaded with the following supplements:

    • Taurine
    • Trimethylglycine (TMG)
    • TUDCA
    • Niacin
    • Artichoke Extract
    • Liquid Zeolite

    Along with this pre-sauna drink, I take a few capsules of Calcium D-Glutarate, and liver supportive herbs.  Milk thistle has become one of my favorites for this.  The purpose of most of these items is to get my liver in a state where it’s a toxin processing machine.  The others are for binding toxins for excretion later.  The TMG is because I’m a poor methylator and optimal methylation is important for great liver functioning.  The niacin should be taken in an amount that is just large enough to induce a flush response in you.  This helps to liberate toxins from your fat tissue.  Side note for anyone looking for a great place to buy supplements… check out my link for BulkSupplements on my affiliate page for a discount!

    During Sauna

    Once I’m in the sauna, I continue to hydrate.  Some days I’ll sit in the sauna starting at 80 degrees F while it warms up.  Most days, I’ll wait to enter the sauna until it’s over 150 degrees inside.  There is research that shows different benefits using both of these approaches.  Warming up with the sauna seems to convey more noticeable tissue related benefits.  The higher temperatures encourage heat shock protein production and is a cardio mimetic.  This also more closely approximates what is seen in the traditional sauna studies.  Either way, I’m staying in the sauna for at least 20 minutes and most of the time go for 30 minutes plus a cool down period.

    I still listen to music/podcasts while in the sauna.  Depending on the day, I may do a meditation practice or some stretching/yoga during this time.  Most days a breathwork routine is also included.  This is either Kapalabhati or Nadi Shodhana pranayama.

    After Sauna Protocol

    When the sauna ends, the protocol continues… sometimes I’ll prepare a cold plunge for as soon as I’m finished.  Most days, I’ll just hop in a shower.  It’s important to get all of the excreted toxins off your skin.  If I don’t do a full cold shower, I always end with a few minutes of cold.  Studies have shown this hot/cold contrast to impart even greater benefits.  Note that it’s very important to always finish with cold.  No matter which option I choose, I drink another glass of cold water with added electrolytes.  I drink this with either activated charcoal or chlorella (more binders).

    Additional Benefits

    So is all of this ‘worth it’?  I still use the infrared sauna 4+ times a week.  My biomarkers related to the items I was looking to improve with sauna have all trended in the right direction.  Based on before and after readings using my BPM Connect, my blood pressure was lower.  I’ve also noticed some additional benefits.

    It Feels Great

    The sauna/cold plunge combination just generally makes me feel like a million bucks.  My overall mood has improved dramatically since I’ve started using the sauna.  It’s guaranteed that no matter how I go into the sauna, I’m going to feel better when I leave.

    Improved Sleep

    I’ve noticed (and Oura confirms) that my sleep is much better.  This is especially true if I use the sauna later in the day.  Something about the raise in body temperature about 2 hours away from bedtime that really makes me sleep great.

    Better Skin

    After months of following this sauna protocol, I continually had people that have known me for years comment on how great my skin looks.  When strangers find out my actual age, they often say the same.  Since I don’t really do any thing that’s focused on improving the look of my skin, I attribute all of this to the sauna.

    Heat Tolerance

    This has been most noticeable on my backpacking excursions.  I used to dread hiking in the heat of the summer, but it doesn’t really bother me anymore.  In general, I never really liked doing anything outdoors in the heat.  I can tolerate the heat much more now.

    Improved Immunity

    There’s no doubt that I’ve had fewer colds since I’ve started using the sauna.  When I did get sick, the duration has been shortened compared to prior years.  Recently, I’ve started using the sauna multiple times a day for shorter periods if I feel a potential cold coming on.  This seems to have had a positive impact on the course of any illness.

  • My Daily Ritual

    My Daily Ritual

    The thing I am asked about most often is some variant of “How are you able to do everything that you do?”… It’s usually buttressed by things like: “You have so many interests.”… “You’re married with kids, how do you have the time?” or “Do you ever have down time? I just want to watch Netflix when I get home.” I never really know how to respond to this… it really is just the way I live my life.  It has been for a long time.   After talking to people a bit about this and enduring constant quizzing, it seems that it might come down to my strict adherence to a daily ritual.

    The Daily Ritual

    I call this a ‘ritual‘ because it really is something that I’ve built up over decades with an explicit outcome in mind… to live the life that I live. It’s not a routine (a sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program.), and it’s not set in stone. I’m constantly iterating on this daily ritual to make it better for me. That’s also part of the key… this is FOR ME… it’s been iterated on for most of my life. It’s been adjusted to fit years of medical tests and customized for what I know about my genetic makeup.

    Every part of it has been vetted and tweaked to make it overall positive for my biochemistry. This ‘ritual’ likely won’t work for you.  In fact, it will be a horrible thing for many people.  Maybe by documenting it, there is something in here that you will find useful. Possibly, you will be inspired to start on the journey of creating you’re own. At least, you will get to see how things change over time because I plan on continuing to update this post as my process evolves.

    My Daily Ritual is an Evolution

    This is a LONG post. Everything documented here is the current state of my practice.  This arose from years of iteration from collecting data about myself in great detail and experimenting with things to improve various aspects of my life. I’m always experimenting and this post WILL NOT document experiments. There were many failures and I don’t discuss those here. This is only for things that have become part of my permanent daily ritual. If you want to know about my latest experiments, ask me about them the next time you see me. At any given time, there’s usually only one thing that I’m experimenting with.  This makes it easier to identify positive or negative correlations and eliminate additional variables that could be skewing results regarding my experiment hypothesis.

    Before Ritual Comes Analysis

    How do I collect and analyze this data? I’ve used tons of things over the years, but at this point it’s essentially custom software that uses the Google Fit platform as central storage. I use several commercial apps and hardware for data collection and everything that I use integrates with Google Fit. This makes for an easy integration point since the additional software that I write just needs to be able to use the Google Fit API to enter or consume data.

    For many years, I manually analyzed everything. Over the last few years, with the advancements in Machine Learning, I’ve been slowly building software to help with my analysis. Everything that has become a part of my daily ritual arose out of a desire to make a positive change to some monitored data point that I felt a need to improve. I won’t really dive into the details about specific data points for every single thing in this post.  If you’re curious about anything specific, feel free to ask.

    The Morning Ritual

    I tend to wake up about the same time every day. No alarm necessary as I try to never schedule anything so early that I would need one. I have a skylight in my bedroom.  This is useful for slowly nudging me to wake up as the sun comes up. Embracing my own personal Circadian Rhythms has been very beneficial for me.

    Getting good quality sleep is also critical to me. Sleep experimentation was probably one of the very first things I played around with in order to increase my productivity. I followed a polyphasic sleep schedule for years, but no longer do that since it’s not really compatible with having a family or a traditional job. It was likely useful in training myself to make the most out of the sleep that I get. This practice taught me how to fall asleep fast, get into a state of REM sleep quickly and spend more time in deep (delta wave) sleep.

    The Wake Up

    The first thing I do upon waking, is the same thing I do right before going to sleep. I lay in bed for a few minutes mindfully breathing and doing a series of eye movements. The purpose of both of these things is to get the day started right by allowing me to reflect on what I’m going to do and essentially ‘turning on’ my brain. This morning breathing takes on different forms (meant to energize me for the day) unlike my nightly version which always follows the same pattern and purpose (to get me in the right state for sleep).

    My sleep quality dictates how the rest of my day progresses. Most of the time, my sleep quality is high, occasionally things go awry and I have ritual adjustments for when this happens. I won’t really go into the specifics of the adjustments since it is a pretty rare occurrence… I do so many things to make sure that my sleep quality is always rock solid. I’ve used many products to monitor sleep quality over the years, but my current choice is by far the best, least intrusive method for me. I use the Oura app to check the details on my sleep quality right after completing my morning breathing routine.

    Hydrate

    I get out of bed and drink a glass of water to rehydrate. It also helps with getting consistent body related measurements.

    I take measurements with a bluetooth smart scale. The one I use measures weight, BMI, and mass for body fat, muscle, and bone. It also tracks percentages for everything including visceral fat. The app has it’s own trend tracking, but I ultimately settled on this model because it integrates with Google Fit.

    Get Moving

    I get moving soon after this in an effort to get the lymphatic system flowing after sleep. My morning starts with a quick yoga routine. This changes daily and is focused on increasing flexibility. The daily variance is mainly to focus on areas where I may be having issues or feel that I need improvement. The constant here is that there are certain ‘whole body’ flexibility enhancing postures that I do no matter what. In addition to these, the other constant is a mix of moves to sync the two hemispheres of my brain. The basic gist of how this can be done is described as the cross-crawl.   Finally, I do a quick rebounding routine that I’m still playing around with.

    Turn on Your Red Light

    At this point I get in a quick bout of red light therapy. Most days, this is a 10 minute HRV raising meditation using the ‘moments’ feature of the Oura Ring facing the Joovv followed by another 10 minutes that is focused on rehabbing any body part that feels like it could benefit from some photobiomodulation.

    I make a giant pot of tea that I sip on throughout the morning. I rotate between green, oolong and pu-erh teas. If I need an extra boost, I’ll make a cup of espresso as well. It’s important for me to get a healthy dose of caffeine early in the morning as I benefit greatly from Ben Greenfield’s Strike-Stroll-Shiver routine. I make sure to drink a few cups before getting a few steps in and then I throw on an ice pack vest for the first 20 minutes of my work day in order to bring on the ‘shiver’.

    You might notice that my morning ritual doesn’t include breakfast. I used to be a big advocate of ‘grazing’, but over the last few years I’ve become a complete advocate of pursuing Metabolic Flexibility.

    My work day

    At this point, my work day begins… I’ll do a quick scan of email and some dashboards that I have to see if there are any immediate fires that need to be put out. Usually there is nothing, but I find it great to get these out of the way ASAP. Notice that I don’t spend any time on non-essential email, social media, political news, etc. That can wait for another time since the mornings are for Getting Things Done (GTD).

    Getting Things Done

    The rest of my morning consists of complete focus on completing two objectives. One personal objective and one ‘work’ objective. I decide what these are at least a day before I start working on them. They meet the ‘next action‘ criteria from GTD… that means that I know exactly what needs to be done, there is no investigating, there are no unknowns at the time that I decide to work on them.  There is just a set of straight forward steps to actually get that objective done that requires some uninterrupted time to do them.   Most of the time, these are easy, sometimes they take longer or ‘unknown unknowns’ are discovered.

    Deciding What to Work on

    I mentioned above that I have at least two main objectives to focus on during the day.  Additionally, whatever I do is driven by the following:

    • At least once a week, I force myself to come up with one ‘new business’ Objective. This can be a new approach to lead generation, new source of revenue, or a new investment strategy. The time to do this is often spread throughout the week, but at the end of the week, I should always have a new Objective in this class of work that is mostly ready to be worked on. This serves to constantly get me thinking outside of the box with regards to diversifying revenue streams in order to insulate my lifestyle from any unforeseen circumstances that can jeopardize any one existing source of income.
    • Any remaining time I spend reading… I currently use Pocket to keep track of anything that I’d like to read that isn’t a physical book or stored in Google Play Books.

    If I finish early, I’ll dig into some email at this point (always time boxed) or review other objectives that are ready to be worked on and pick one of those. During this time, I try to remain focused on my task except for one allowable interruption…

    The Importance of Movement

    Another great feature of the Oura ring is that it will alert you if it feels that you haven’t moved enough over time. I’ve always felt that moving while working was extremely important.  This has been reenforced over time with all of the research into Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT).

    I’ve used standing desks for more than a decade.  Since standing wasn’t enough, I also purchased a FluidStance.  The FluidStance is a balance board that you can stand on at your desk and based on what I’ve seen it is way more effective at increasing your activity/calorie burn than just standing alone. I’ll alternate using it and just standing flat on a mat throughout the day and my Oura ring will never alert me to get moving while doing that.

    Occasionally though, I will sit while working and I’ve developed a few quick routines to run through on Oura ring activity alerts that are designed to get my heart rate to ~80 percent of my max for 3 to 5 minutes. A mini trampoline near your desk is a great investment for meeting this need!

    Workout

    Even though I’m a huge fan of Incidental Activity as the majority of my exercise, I run through a vigorous short but dedicated workout routine.

    Most days, I finish the ‘workout’ portion of my day with 20 – 30 minutes in the sauna.  I use an infrared sauna and find that it helps both my recovery and sleep scores.  If you are interested, I have written about the benefits of my regular sauna use.

    The Mid Day Transition

    By the time mid day approaches, I’m almost always done with my two major objectives for the day. I mark the transition by taking a few minutes to stimulate my brain differently by learning another language. I use duolingo for this daily practice. You can find and follow me there by searching for my name. I’ll do another quick email checkin and then update/review my GTD lists. The goal here is to get any pending problems front of mind for the next part of my day.

    “Lunch”

    Now it’s time for my lunch… this is normally around 2PM unless I’m meeting someone for a more traditional lunch time meeting. My rules for what I eat aren’t extremely strict… just a balanced meal that minimizes processed foods and sugars. I tend to keep it low-carb since I like to save my carbs for beer 😀 There is a ritual for how I break my intermittent fast though.

    Breaking the Fast

    I break my fast by drinking an Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) cocktail. This is simply one tablespoon of ACV (with the mother) in a full glass of water, with a pinch of sea salt and cinnamon (sometimes I had a touch of lemon juice or an electrolyte powder instead of the salt). I do this for several reasons, but it started for the same reason I started TRF… I have a history of diabetes in my family and both of these practices have been shown to minimize insulin spikes and resistance. Further research and analysis has also shown evidence supporting an increase in gut health leading to enhancements in nutrient extraction for the food I’m about to eat.

    Additionally, ACV has been shown to support an alkalizing effect on the body. This prevents leaching of calcium from your bones, has been shown to support your immune system and is generally beneficial for many endogenous processes within your body. The morning breathing techniques that I use are also designed to maximize this alkalizing effect.

    After consuming this drink, I’ll eat a handful of algae tablets. Good fiber, high in magnesium (more about this later) and generally starts to make me feel full and helps prevent over eating empty calories during my ‘feeding window’.

    Supplements

    I’ll then wash down my morning supplements with another glass of water. I’m always experimenting with new things based on the data that I’m tracking and areas that I want to improve, but the current required items include (not all at the same time, or consistently every day):

    • multi mushroom blend ~150 mg of each (Currently using Host Defense – Stamets 7 Multi Mushroom Capsules and a custom blend)
    • custom NAD+ boosting capsule
    • 1000 mg fermented chlorella
    • 2500 mg Micronized Creatine Monohydrate
    • 1000 mg Curcumin
    • 3000 IUs Vitamin D3
    • 1.2g of Omega 3s
    • 80 mg Hyaluronic Acid
    • 300 mg Nicotinamide Riboside Chloride
    • 200 mg Tongkat Ali
    • 420 mg Phosphatidyl Choline
    • 1 g Berberine HCl
    • 300 mg Alpha-Lipoic Acid
    • 3 mcg Boron
    • 20 g of Collagen Protein Powder
    • 20 g of other protein (either grass-fed whey, pea, hemp or straight EAAs… I change daily based on my workout/diet plans for the day)

    The main goal here is to increase blood flow, enhance my immune system, reduce inflammation, build/maintain lean muscle and stimulate the production of BDNF.  Shameless self promotion… you can purchase high quality versions of many of these supplements at a discount at BulkSupplements.

    Fat

    The only other daily thing here is adding some high C8 Capryilic Acid Content MCT oil to my meal. This can be mixed into just about anything, and makes a decent salad/sandwich dressing just by itself. This is done again to decrease blood glucose levels and has the nice side affect of increasing blood ketone levels which gives me a mental boost for the afternoon. I’ll go through some of my less pressing emails while eating lunch and prep for making the remainder of the day productive.

    Walk

    Another basic thing that I’ve been doing for a very long time is a ‘lunch time’ walk. This started out mostly as a way to get some movement during the day and to get outside of the office on nice days. These are great reasons, but I’ve evolved this into an informal mindful walking practice. I get outside no matter the weather and walk for at least 20 minutes. I’ve built an infinite labyrinth trail at my house that I walk for this purpose. I focus on the changes that occur to the trail day by day and let my subconscious churn on problems and the upfront items from my GTD list that I’ve recently reviewed. Some of my best ideas arise out of this practice or immediately after… plus I get another 20 minutes of exercise in during the day!

    Time to Learn

    Afternoon is all about learning and idea generation… most of the time I focus on getting more items in my GTD lists to the ‘next action’ state. This might involve investigating alternative approaches, digging into unknowns, but often requires learning something new.

    5 Hour Rule

    I started a basic practice that became my afternoon routine after reading about the 5 hour rule. I’m pretty sure I first heard about this through an interview with Warren Buffett. I did start out struggling to find my 5 hours a week to do this, but with practice and dedication, it eventually became the more like ’25 hour rule’ that it is for me now. This approach to learning, coupled with GTD, has really allowed me to supercharge my productivity over the years.

    During this time, I still pay attention to my activity levels the same way that I do during the morning and follow a similar routine for increasing my activity levels. The number one underlying goal for this time is to…

    Prep for tomorrow

    I never want to wake up questioning what is most important for me to do in the morning. It’s a waste of time when I’m in the best state for working on the real tough problems. This uncertainty often leads to poor sleep since I’ll ruminate on all of the things that I could possibly work on trying to weigh the pros and cons of each.

    Identify ‘Next Actions’

    Because of this, I want to end my work day by figuring this out. I review all the objectives that I have that are high priority items and pick the ‘next action’ tasks that have the highest ROI for at least one personal and one work related item. Barring any emergency that occurs over night, these will be the things that I focus on most in the morning. This eliminates any procrastination-related churn in my mornings and sets me up for a good night’s sleep with a defined set of items for my subconscious to ruminate on.

    Pre-Dinner Prep

    I’ll do a some quick body weight exercises to lower insulin-like growth factor a few minutes before eating dinner. Dinner, like lunch, is balanced from a macro-nutrient perspective, minimizes processed foods, but otherwise anything is game.

    After Dinner

    After eating dinner, I’ll usually take another short walk, but my ritual is much more fluid. This is time for friends and family. Hanging out, conversation and fun. There’s no real focus on working out since I’ve almost always met my goals during the day. I’m not thinking about tomorrow because I’ve already figured out exactly what I’m going to do (and I’m confident that it’s something that I can get done).

    Feeding Window Finish Line

    The only real thing that I do at this point is pay attention to the finish line of my feeding window. As this time approaches, I’ll take another few grams of glycine to drop my body temperature and encourage good sleep. If I feel any indication that good quality sleep may be a problem, (e.g. muscle soreness from working out, anything else weighing on my mind) I’ll take some CBD oil and eat two tablespoons of raw almond butter. This is a magnesium bomb, and done at the right time, increases Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA). GABA is effective at promoting relaxation (i.e. better sleep) and the magnesium also promotes muscle recovery.

    Minimize Blue Light

    Sometimes work bleeds over into the evening.  When that does occur, I want to do everything to minimize any detrimental impact to my sleep quality. I use wellness settings on all of my electronic devices to minimize interruptions, dim brightness and alter color hues after a certain time. If I spend any time in front of a screen, I use blue light blocking glasses. I go to bed when I’m ready to sleep. I do my bedtime breathing exercise and start the whole process again when I wake up.

    Conclusion

    So there it is… the daily ritual post. I’ll update it as things evolve. I’m more than happy to answer any questions about why I do things the way that I do. I held off on going into the many reasons why things have evolved the way that they have to keep this readable.  Believe me, there is a method behind all of my madness.  I’m more than happy to discuss it if you really want to hear it! I could write just as much about why I DON’T do certain things or the experimentation involved in arriving at my conclusions.  If you’re curious about either of those things inquire as well. Most importantly, if you decide to go down this path for yourself, I’d love to talk through your process and share some of the things that I’ve found.

  • Oura ring review

    my oura ring

    I’m fanatical about tech gadgets, but even more so for wearables and things that reliably fulfill my needs as a “Quantified Selfer“. Good quality sleep data has always been elusive. Many devices that I’ve tried were so intrusive as to ruin any chance of actually getting good sleep. Others just did a terrible job of reliably collecting the data that I wanted. I backed a Kickstarter for the Hello Sense. This was one of the first devices that really generated useful data. Not only did it track my sleep activity, but the base unit also collected data about my bedroom light levels and air quality. Sadly, the company went bust and the device ultimately became unusable after the cloud servers were shut down.

    Multiple Generations of Oura

    While looking for a replacement for my sleep tracking fix, another Kickstarter project caught my eye… the Oura ring.   I initially held off on backing the project since I’ve been burned by so many crowd funded tech gadgets in the past.  Despite this, I kept a close eye on its progress and saw many great reviews on the original ring from people I trusted. When Oura announced a gen 2, I jumped right in to purchase one as soon as I could.

    I used the Oura gen 2 for years and immediately purchased a gen 3 when it was released.  Many people panned the gen3 initially because it required a subscription in addition to the cost of the ring.  Fortunately, as a long time backer, I was given a lifetime subscription.  Both the gen2 and gen3 have experienced pretty much everything I can throw at it…. I am a HUGE fan of this thing! There isn’t much that I can complain about and I feel that it is worth every penny.

    The Oura Ecosystem

    The Oura ring system consists of the ring, a mobile app, and the Oura Cloud.

    Oura Cloud

    Oura Cloud is a web based equivalent of the mobile app which allows you to dig a bit deeper into the data.  It also includes an API that you can use to write apps for the Oura Cloud or pull the data collected by your ring into other systems.  You can also participate in crowdfunded research projects through apps that are written for the Oura Cloud.  I’ve participated in a few of these.  The most notable was in using the Oura ring as a COVID early detection device.  Ultimately, this lead to the ring being used in the NBA and UFC for this purpose.

    Oura Hardware

    The ring looks like… a ring… much more so than the first generation.  It doesn’t make you the focus of a room like wearing Google Glass did.  This is a pretty amazing feat considering all of the sensors that it packs and the fact that you can go days without needing to charge the battery. It’s waterproof and fairly resilient… I’ve definitely pushed mine to some limits that I probably shouldn’t have and it’s survived. 

    Oura Mobile App

    The ring connects to the app on your phone via Bluetooth.  You can put it into airplane mode and still have it collect data for quite some time before needing to sync it.  The Oura App displays a timeline of your data summarized by day.  The Oura app is divided into four sections: Readiness, Sleep, Activity and a Dashboard that surfaces your ‘scores’ from the other three.  You can then drill down into each section for more details.  There is also an ‘Explore’ section that contains meditations, breathwork and sleep exercises as well as additional learning material.

    Sleep Tracking

    The sleep tracking of the device is rock solid. I’ve done tons of things to wreak havoc with my sleep in order to test the ring’s ability to detect it. Every morning after destroying my sleep in the name of science, I’d check the app. It would basically tell me, “Dude, go back to bed, you need it”. There really was no fooling its sleep detection.  This has continued to improve with the third generation device and they are now beta testing a new sleep algorithm that seems to improve things even more.

    I bought the Oura Ring mainly to track sleep time and sleep quality (as measured by the amount of time spent in the different stages of sleep), but the ring is so much more than ‘just’ a sleep tracker. The Sleep section tracks a few additional items above and beyond what I bought the ring for. These include a resting heart rate trend and sleep latency.  The latest version of the hardware also includes breathing regularity (blood oxygen sensing).  After using the ring for a bit, a ‘body clock’ which displays your personalized sleep chronotype is generated.  You can use this to better align your circadian rhythms.


    Activity Tracking

    The Oura Ring is also an activity tracker. I’ve been wearing various activity trackers since the first versions were commercially available. I’ve never really been a fan of wearing anything around my wrist since they always seem to get in the way, but I’ve always overlooked that in order to get the activity data. The Oura app has recommendations for how much activity you should be getting (this changes daily based on your ‘Readiness’ which I’ll discuss later). It also tracks your progress toward your daily goal and the intensity of the activity that you do. You can also turn on notifications in the app to remind you to get up and move on a regular basis.

    For activity that gets your heart pumping, the ring does a pretty good job of tracking. I’ve noticed that it doesn’t always do the best job of tracking activity that is less vigorous. The app has the ability to manually input this type of activity.  Additionally, the Android app has Google Fit/Health Connect integration.  Most of the activity I want to track tends to get picked up by the ring, but there are certain activities (i.e. impact martial arts) where I remove the ring and need to manually track the activity. I like the fact that I can get near real time feedback about my activity intensity. This has allowed me to develop a routine that I can do frequently throughout the day that gets me into a high intensity level of activity very quickly (this is a must for any practitioner of High Intensity Interval Training).

    Readiness

    The ‘Readiness’ section of the app really pulls together information from the other two sections to give you a general idea of how much you should push yourself on any given day. It takes into account how well you’ve been sleeping and how active you’ve been and combines that with trends regarding your HRV, body temperature and respiratory rate in order to provide a suggestion for ‘pushing your activity to new levels’ or just ‘taking it easy’ on any given day. I’ve found this to be great for me to figure out when are the best times during the day for me to workout and also what supplements seem to help me recover faster. It’s also pretty effective at giving me a heads up when I might be coming down with something and gives me an extra verification point to rest instead of pushing through it.

    Expl-Oura

    The ‘Explore’ section of the app contains several guided meditations and breathwork routines that are categorized by goal.  You can also configure ‘unguided’ sessions.  This is useful if you use other meditation apps like I do.  In either case, the Oura ring tracks your HRV, Heart rate and skin temperature during your session.  There is also a ‘Learn’ section containing videos and slideshows containing information on how to use the many features and improve your scores.

    One of the most valuable features for me is the ability to add ‘tags’ throughout the day regarding things that I do with the aim of improving my scores.  You can then filter based on these in order to see the impact of these practices on your scores over time.  I would LOVE to see alignment between the Oura tags and similar functionality in Google Fit in the future.

    Conclusion

    So there you have it… my Oura ring review. It’s an awesome piece of hardware. Besides the fact that Android functionality often lags behind iOS, my only other real complaint is that I wish it came in half sizes… that would make it even less obtrusive than it already is! If anyone is interested in getting an Oura ring, let me know, I have a few discount codes that I can provide.

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