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I rarely do product reviews or ‘pump’ a product but this particular one deserves some serious attention.

If you are active, wanting to become more active, or just have an interest in your health, the Oura ring is a must for you.  The engineers from Oura have brought to the market their second rendition of a ring that maps your sleeping patterns, activities, and heart metrics and puts them together in a simple and easy package.

Using the data from the ring and linking to your iphone or Android, you are given a TON of information about how  your body is functioning.  And yes, it’s highly accurate.

An example is HRV, or Heart Rate Variability.  HRV is probably the most scientifically validated way to assess the health of your autonomic nervous system (ANS).  The ANS is made up of your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.  The sympathetic is your ‘flight or fight’ part and the parasympathetic is the ‘rest and digest’ side.

Most of us have stress in our lives and this makes our bodies more sympathetic dominant.  When this occurs, the parasympathetic portion of the ANS does not function as it should.  Due to this, the sympathetic ‘runs wild’ and we can end up with serious health issues.  Those who monitor their HRV can determine what changes will upregulate, or increase parasympathetic tone.

For many, it’s getting more sleep or partaking in exercise.  For others, it’s adding CBD (truthfully, a must).  No matter what you do, you want to maximize your HRV as it tells you that there is a balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

If you are unfamiliar, HRV is a measure of the difference between each heart beat.  We might think that a consistent heart beat is healthy, but in actuality, that is incorrect.  With each beat, there should be a slightly different time between each beat.  This indicates that the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are playing off one another.  When we lack parasympathetic tone, then the sympathetic controls everything and the heart beat remains very constant with the gap time between beats.

Athletes use HRV as an indication of recovery from sport.  They know that a great HRV means that their bodies are preparing for more activity and that they will compete better.  Athletes need to have a large amount of HRV.

For all of us, we can use HRV for determining the health of our neurological system.  The data the Oura provides helps to establish goals to achieve  and teaches us ways to recover better.  It gives us data we cannot otherwise obtain.  The HRV is only one health index the Oura provides but oh, what an important one it is.

I have spoken with Oura because we are seeing amazing changes in HRV with our patients who are using CBD and are making lifestyle changes (several of our athletes already have the Oura ring).  It’s great to be able to objectively track the changes using the Oura ring.

I wear mine as my wedding band now because it looks professional, is light, and feels great on the finger.  It only needs to be charged once every 6 days and this makes it almost hassle free.  You can, of course, wear it on any finger (they send you a sizing kit to be sure you order the correct size).  I awaken every morning and the first thing I do is check my phone for my sleep data.  The ring has made going to bed earlier, easier, as you feel better when the sleep score is higher (it is based on far more than just the HRV).

Sure, the Oura does a lot more and I’ll be documenting that soon.  The Oura ring in one piece of technology you should not be without if you are interested in tracking your health metrics and sleep patterns.

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