An Oura Ring. Photo Credit: Oura Ring, directly from their website at www.ouraring.com
Here’s what happened when I meditated for one month.
The Beginning: Week One
I want to go revitalize my meditation practice. You may recall I mentioned I stopped meditating little bit ago and I really want to get back into it. I decided to try to track my progress with using the different scores collected by my Oura ring, and by writing blogs to not only hold myself accountable to the daily practice, but also track and trend progress. Of course my main aim is to share with all of you!
My Oura ring is amazing. An Oura Ring is a fitness and health tracker. I first found out about the Oura Ring when I was home nursing my neck back to health the first time my cervical discs were giving me problems. An add for the ring was in a holistic care magazine my mother in law had brought over for me to peruse. I was intrigued by its unique shape and its sophisticated collection of data. I have been wearing it and collecting data for over 4 years. It has shaped my routines, especially my sleep.
The meditation app within the ring allows capture of three critical relaxation statistics- your lowest HR during the meditation, your average HRV (heart rate variability) a measure of how your body is responding to stress and skin temperature, a warm hand indicates relaxation. While the HRV is highly personal and should not be compared against others, you can track and trend it yourself to see how you are responding to daily life. A higher HRV normally indicates a sign of general health and wellness.
I’ve decided to include my morning statistics each day as well. The Oura Ring calculates a Readiness Score to indicate how well you will handle your day- this would demonstrate if you should take a rest, not exercise, try to incorporate restful light activities, or take on a challenge. It also indicates a daily Sleep Score to let you know how well you slept.
So, here we go. I am fascinated to see where this takes me. I hope you will join me over the next few weeks.
Day 1 June 18 Sunday, at home.
Evening meditation after a very active day- a walk with my friend, a fun outing afternoon for Father’s Day, and then two intense hours in the garden weeding garden beds and planting vegetables. I stacked the resting time with an ice roll to my neck as my hands and fingers have been going numb for days and laid down on the needle mat as well. I did a guided meditation from my Oura ring app so that I could collect the data and trend it to watch my progress. The guided meditation was excellent. You concentrated on your breath, observing it to start flowing out of your low belly down around the end of your spine, up your back and then over the top of your head to your forehead on the in breath and then on the exhale you noticed your breath going down your face, chest and into your low belly again. It was cyclical, very relaxing, part of it was guided, and then other breaths you did on your own. I felt very good.
Stats: Lowest HR: 70 bpm (nighttime baseline 59 bpm)
Average HRV 18ms, Max 22ms (nighttime baseline 26ms)
Skin temperature variation- elevated but then tapered to moderate
Morning Stats
Readiness Score 69, resting HR 65 bpm, HRV 20ms
Sleep Score 75, deep sleep 10%
Day 2: June 19, at home.
Morning Meditation. I awoke early after a busy, active day yesterday. I feel more refreshed than I have in days, probably because I slept through the night for the first time in two weeks! I got up, peed and then got comfortable in the chair in my bedroom under a blanket. I did an unguided meditation through the Oura app so that I could get the stats. The meditation I performed was the one that I learned on the Ziva on line course. Start with deep breaths, then go through each of your five senses and just observe the present moment. Then I repeated the mantra Om for 10 a minute session. I was given a mantra back in 2019 when I took the online course. I have to review Sanskrit words to see if I can remember what it is!
Stats: Lowest HR 56 bpm
Average HRV 53ms, highest HRV 55ms
Skin temperature: Nice curve upwards levels off towards end after inclining the entire time of the meditation
Morning Stats
Readiness Score 66, resting HR 54 bpm, HRV 32ms
Sleep Score 89, deep sleep 27%
I may have found my mantra word that I was given during my online course, from The Yoga Journal online, but I am not sure. I will see if it sticks tomorrow when I meditate.
Day 3: June 20, at home.
Wake, Pee, Meditate. It’s my mantra when I first get out of bed so that I don’t forget my mission for the next 27 days. I awoke at 4:30am. I slept through the night again! Amazing! Jason was beside me, so I tiptoed downstairs, peed and made it without getting too entangled by the dog, who clearly had missed human contact all night, to the comfy chair in the living room, pulled on a blanket and got going.
I used the Oura app again to track my stats. I totally forgot my mantra word, so made up a sanskrit like word after I did my deep breathing and five senses. Perhaps my mantra word is not for me? Perhaps I have changed ever so slightly and it doesn’t have meaning any more? I have to look into that a bit. I have heard it is very specific to you and to what you are going through. It is so specifically supposed to belong to you that when you receive it you are not supposed to write it down, you are only supposed to verbalize it and chant it while you are meditating. Now, I seem to have forgotten it, and it does make me a little sad. To tell you the truth. I am going to do a little research…
Stats: Lowest HR 53 bpm
Average HRV 44ms, Highest 53ms
Skin Temperature: Nice curve upwards levels off towards end after inclining the entire time of the meditation (similar curve to yesterday)
Morning Stats
Readiness Score 84, Resting HR 58 bpm, HRV 32ms
Sleep Score 90, deep sleep 25%
Day 4: June 21, at home.
Terrible nights sleep last night. Felt like I woke up every half an hour after 2am. But, nonetheless when my Hatch started brightening, I woke up and meditated. I performed a meditation inside the Oura Ring app called Planetary Orbit. It is a Daoist meditation which controls the breath in an orbit, starting in the lower belly, down and around the bottom of the spine, up the back to the crown of the fore head for the inhale and then down the front of the body to the belly for the exhale. I like this meditation because it forces your brain to think only about the breath.
Stats: Lowest HR 59 bpm, curve had two bell curves in it, so it had an initial dip, then went back up, then down again
Average HRV 33ms, highest 40ms at the beginning of the session
Skin Temperature: halting curve upwards, looks almost like steps
Morning Stats
Readiness Score 74, resting HR 56 bpm, HRV 34ms
Sleep Score 85, deep sleep 16%
Day 5: June 22, at home.
Better nights sleep, slept straight through till 4am. I call that a win! I am still not waking up refreshed, but at least I feel a little bit better. Woke up with lots of stuff on my mind. I may want to add a second meditation right before bed to see if that helps with sleeping more soundly and longer.
Stats: Lowest HR 57 bpm, curve had the large dip and then trended upward and ended at 62bpm.
Average HRV 46ms, highest 50ms, the line graph was almost straight across 46ms.
Skin Temperature: Sharp rise to a nice curve to high.
Morning Stats
Readiness Score 82, 57 bpm, HRV 33ms
Sleep Score 84, deep sleep 20%
Addendum: Best laid plans often… what is that saying??? Anyway, I wasn’t able to complete a second meditation. It just wasn’t in the cards. I am going to try to hold myself to the once a day and not feel badly for being unable to squeeze in another one just yet.
Day 6: June 23, at home.
Morning meditation, right out of bed. Rise, Pee, Meditate. I have a comfy, old chair in my bedroom, I have decorated it with a lovely blanket, and with the shades open in the morning, and because 5am is so bright, it is delightful to sit there, meditate and greet the day.
You may be wondering about the stats- specifically, skin temperature. The Oura ring measures skin temperature because when you are relaxed, you hands tend to be warm. This is related to increased blood flow to your extremities, which naturally occurs as your blood pressure lowers. The changes in your skin temperature can indicate how well you were able to unwind during your meditation. If you relax during the session, your hands begin to warm and the graph will have a nice curve upwards.
Stats: Lowest HR 62 bpm, nice curve downwards
Average HRV 45ms, highest 50 ms, nighttime baseline is 26
Skin Temperature: nice tall curve immediately, then levels out for second half, but stays high
Morning Stats
Readiness Score 73, resting HR 58bpm, HRV 28ms
Sleep Score 88, Deep sleep 18%
Day 7: June 24 Farm Store, then in travel to Maine
I wasn’t able to meditate today. Insert frowny face emoji here.
Today was a baking day, up at 4am, baking till 7:30am, prepping myself (getting dressed, eating breakfast) packing the car, setting up the farm bakes, then serving customers till noonish. Then, jumped in the car to drive to Maine for a few quick days. I needed to drive so that Jason didn’t fall asleep at the wheel, so no relaxing for me! Of course the trip took longer than we anticipated because of torrential downpours, traffic and accidents (minor fend benders, but they still caused all those rubberneckers), so we arrived just in time for dinner and bed.
Saturday’s at home, I should be able to achieve an afternoon relaxing meditation or an evening one before bed but it was not in the cards for today.
No meditation stats to share from today
Morning Stats
Readiness Score 73, Resting HR 56bpm, 29ms
Sleep Score 85, Deep Sleep 19%
Day 8: June 25, in Maine
Woke up early, despite telling myself last night, “Sleep as late as you possible can!!! You are on vacation!” Up at 4:30am again, resting in bed, did the meditation before I even got out of bed…
Despite not sleeping late, and barely getting 6 hours of sleep, I still feel really good.
I did a unguided session today and thoughts kept creeping in. It was a little hard to stay focused on my breath. I think I am excited about being on vacation and eager to get going with some fun adventures! I have to remind myself to relax! That is part of vacation too.
Stats: Lowest HR 57 bpm, curve was weird today, curved up then a nice curve down to the lowest HR right before the meditation ended.
Average HRV: 40ms, highest 45ms
Skin Temperature: Nice curve upwards indicating despite feeling like I couldn’t turn my brain off, I was still able to relax.
Morning Stats
Readiness Score 81, resting HR 55bpm, HRV 35ms
Sleep Score 80, Deep Sleep 20%
I hope you will stay with my while I forge ahead on this meditation journey. Join me if you want! You can use your health tracker to track some stats, or simply track how you are feeling and sleeping! I am not sure that my stats show any improvements yet, but I am excited to see what happens!
Be well,
Teresa
Additional Readings and Resources:
Oura Ring www.ouraring. com
Stress Less, Accomplish More: Meditation for Extraordinary Performance, Emily Fletcher
Ziva meditation by Emily Fletcher at www.ziva meditation.com