It's been good, except that Aunty Josephine weighs on my mind throughout. I cannot imagine how tough it is for Ranie and family. Gotto keep praying and believing for a miracle.
Anyway, one of the most interesting things I have gotten my hand upon recently was the Oura Ring. I must say I really didn't think I would be such a die-hard. Every morning I wake up, I check my stats. Every time I do sports, I dutifully key in the activity and its duration. It's been pretty interesting stats to me.
The Oura Ring is basically a sleep tracker first and foremost, and then an activity and overall wellness tracker. I have never really owned any of such wearables before - the max I've gone is to use the phone and apps like Strava to track my running and steps, but that's it. I dunno whether I'd like the feeling of a fitbit on my wrist, or whether I would have the tenacity to keep tracking. So it took me a few months to decide whether I should get it and in the end, I did. :)
And I am lurving it.
First, the oura ring box, and the charger - it arrived last Sat; smallest ring size for me. Before the actual product came, there was a test kit, basically for ring size testing.
This is how it looks like, and it comes with a small charger in a sleek box. And it being pretty and non-bulky - was one reason why I like it. :-D
And, it is water-resistant to 100m, which means I can track my overall activities including swimming. I've taken it into the pool a few times and it's great. No problem at all. I just wonder how it does the tracking of activity to calculate readiness - the algorithm and science behind. I've had it for only barely 1 week, so certainly, there's a lot more understanding of the data behind it.
So, some interesting findings of myself after week 1.
(1) I found myself ridiculously and religiously chasing "crowns". Basically the ring allows you to clock a max of 3 "crowns", if your sleep, readiness and activity all register a score of at least 85 each daily. To my great dismay, I only manage a full 3 crowns the day after I returned to Abu Dhabi.
I learnt that even while I clock daily exercise, I might not get a crown for activity too, because apparently, I didn't factor in many other things, like recovery, and sleep time, etc.
Yikes - fail liao. Where are my crowns? But one thing I learnt - sleep is very very important. I will try to sleep more.
(2) My resting heart rate is insane, and sometimes, (gasps), the ring cannot detect my heart beat.
Steve's one is more normal (pretty flat) and doesn't have such variations up and down. Mine is like stock market every night. Why? And - my heart stopped beating at times? haha. Actually, Oura Ring website says that there are several reasons, including an exceptionally low resting heart rate, the sensors are unable to detect the pulse, etc.
I thought maybe - it's because I dream more and I always have exciting dreams? But - they don't quite coincide with the REM periods (which dreams occur in).
(3) My sleep latency (time taken to fall asleep) is quite terrible.
Aka - I fall asleep immediately most days. So Oura Ring greeted me with this - "Are you overtired?" on the particular day my latency registered 0 seconds. Ideally, falling asleep shouldn't take more than 15-20 minutes, but if one falls asleep immediately, it is a sign that there's not enough sleep generally.
It's pretty incredible to me. Steve's latency is about 10-over minutes,
I suppose this is quite accurate. On weekdays, because of differing time zones and meetings, I sometimes sleep lesser. How can I get a crown this way???
There are many other things I want to observe from my data, e.g. how well do I sleep if I am travelling on a plane; how would my sleep efficiency be just before a major meeting; how will I sleep if I am travelling for work or on vacation; after a heavy meal, after some drinks, etc, etc. :)
And as I type away, the day too is coming to a close, the long weekend is ending, and we are all still hoping and believing for the very best for Aunty Jo and Mr Tan. It's been pretty unreal really.
I just got off a zoom chat with Ranie, and got some further updates. We will still keep believing for good news.
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