breaking up with my oura ring
you can't optimize your way into wellness
I spent ten days in Turkey and it was magical. Travel gives you so much perspective. We spend so much time thinking about our own lives and jobs and cultures. It’s easy to forget there’s a whole world beyond the tiny sliver of life you’re zoomed in on.
I told everyone that the trip would be a Great Reset Button. a) What does that even mean? and b) It implied my pre-vacation state was so awful that it warranted some sort of comprehensive cleanse. Actually, nothing was wrong with my life and I was just fantasizing about a post-vacation existence of effortless joy.
Anyway, I promised myself not to think about work or adulting or the things that usually occupy real estate in my brain. The trip was lovely, but sorry to break it to you: there’s no such thing as a golden ticket to relaxation.
In fact, the pressure to “catch up on rest” can be counterintuitive. I realized this as soon as the trip began, on the plane to Istanbul. I intended to use the 10-hour flight to repay some of my sleep debt, but setting this expectation for myself led to disappointment. I sat awake staring at the seat in front of me. We landed at 5am and headed straight into a packed day of sightseeing. The Hagia Sophia was lovely, but admittedly I don’t remember much because I was sleepwalking through the city.
During the trip, there were some nights where I slept very well. But then I’d expect the same for the next night, so I could start a streak of adequate rest. Instead, when I ended up tossing and turning under my hotel sheets, I felt like I had blown my chance at relaxation. Time was running out to “fix myself” before I had to return to my real life in New York.
(I’m massively privileged to be a generally healthy person, and I realize it’s quite silly to complain about not sleeping well on vacation. I also know I can be pretty aka too rigid about my health, but that’s a whole other story. Anyway.)
On our last day in Turkey, in a bout of sleep deprivation-induced frustration, I turned my wrath to my Oura Ring. It’s supposed to arm you with insights so you can build better sleep habits, but it was starting to feel like a digital disappointment log. I was never burning enough calories, even after sightseeing on my feet all day. I didn’t feel as well-rested as I wanted to.
“You get performance anxiety?” my coworker, a fellow Oura user, gently suggested when I told her about my wearable tech detox.
I took off the ring for my flight home. I knew the change in time zones and my jet lag would tank my scores, and I didn’t care to see it. Bare-fingered, I had an epiphany: did knowing all these health metrics actually improve my life? I couldn’t point to any positive habits I had built because of my ring. But I did start feeling guilty for sitting all day at work, not getting enough deep sleep, or failing to hit my activity goal. Not because those things made me actively unhealthy, but because the numeric scores felt like a verdict on my wellness.
(I feel like a Revolving Door. It’s not the first time I’ve broken up with my Oura Ring. In fact, I wrote v1 of this piece in the early days of emotional cabbage—see “too much wellness”)
Since returning from Turkey, I’ve been ring-free and more at peace. I feel less under surveillance and more like a person simply going about my life. More than once, I caught myself thinking, Is this what my friends and family feel like every day? Acting with free will (philosophy debate aside), with no readiness score defining their day or calories to burn hanging over their head. It’s so obvious in retrospect! I was giving so much power to my daily scores, but they were not adding to my health. Maybe I’ll put my Oura Ring back on one day? Or maybe not… I mean, this is our third breakup.
(Obviously, most people have an Oura Ring and find it beneficial. But I guess wearables are just not the best idea if you tend to get obsessive.)
I write about trying to be more intuitive all the time, but it’s hard to practice what you preach. I guess what I write about on emotional cabbage is what I need to hear the most. Health and wellness is quite elusive and it can’t be forced nor optimized with too much information.
Write soon x
excited to hear about this detox! i actually love the way you represented it as a “surveillance.” i wonder how much better you’ll sleep or organic exercise you’ll get through instinct or acting on what feels good for your body instead of the Oura Regime’s bidding. (also maybe the grass is greener because i’ve spent the past couple weeks thinking i need some sort of way to add quantification/structure/rigor to my very shapeless living habits so pls fr keep me updated on this!!!!)