From the moment I slipped the Oura Ring onto my finger a few years back, I’ve been capturing my sleep and stress stats with a slightly obsessive dedication I usually reserve for high-stakes soccer games.
So, Oura’s latest announcement really caught my attention. As of October 10, 2023, the Oura Ring is getting another upgrade, and it's rolling out for members. This one is a facelift on its stress management tool, with three new features: Daytime Stress, Stress Resilience and Reflections.
Want to know more? Here’s what upgrade involves and what it means for its members. Read on for the latest Oura Ring stress management features and how they could impact you.
What are the new Oura stress management features?
The wearables market knows a thing or two about “mindfulness.” Pick up any device nowadays, and you’ll likely find daily readiness scores, breathing exercises and meditations at your fingertips. I’ve previously used my Oura Ring to manage stress, and I’m keen to find out how the latest features will work with the average user's lifestyle.
Oura has introduced three new features to the Oura Ring, all dedicated to stress — how to recognize it, its potential causes and how to reduce it. Want to know how your night out or workout has just impacted your body? Now you can. Expect a staged rollout process, starting with Daytime Stress.
Daytime Stress
The Daytime Stress tool began rolling out on October 10, 2023 to subscribed members only. Oura says this will be a staged process and members will gradually see updates to their homepage. That means you won't necessarily have immediate access.
The tool and aims to help you understand what causes your stress and how to manage it towards personal growth, “such as productivity, creativity and resilience.”
The app can detect stress by looking at biometrics like daytime heart rate variability (HRV), heart rate and body temperature and fluctuations that might indicate physiological stress in the body. The feature can then monitor ongoing insights to help you uncover potential triggers or patterns.
Signs might include a “lower than usual HRV,” increased resting heart rate or higher respiratory rate, indicating a stress response. In the Oura app, you’ll see four zones — stressed, engaged, relaxed and restored — along with readings to explain “which experiences add stress…and which ones help recover.” You can also access a daily summary for a brief overview of your day.
Reflections
Oura members will also have access to the AI-powered Reflections tool, currently in beta for iOS (unfortunately, we don’t know the outcome for Android users just yet), which allows users to detect “personal causes of stress and modes of recovery.”
Oura calls it journaling.
As we know, stress is personal, and not everyone reacts or responds in the same way. The feature, once released, will allow members to jot down moods and thoughts on their day. If you prefer, you can voice-record or simply type it out.
AI can suggest helpful tags, and over time, you’ll be able to access trends to help you identify triggers and times you might need to prioritize recovery. Oura says the tool will help users “connect the dots between the mind and body.”
According to Oura’s medical research team, there can be “Good” or “Bad” stress, but it still shows up similarly physiologically. Reflections could help members recognize patterns in context, reframe them and find ways to relax if necessary.
Stress Resilience
So, your Oura ring has detected signs of stress and helped you put a label on it. This winter, you’ll be able to map stress resilience and improve it. The feature will help you “understand your ability to withstand physiological stress” by taking a look at factors like Daytime Stress, daytime recovery and your sleep quality over time.
The aim is to help members find balance “by providing insights, education and recommendations to manage stress.” Basically, your ring is going to help you find chill time. Result.
[Updated 17.10.2023]
For now, members should be able to access the Daytime Stress feature in the Home tab, and we’ll update this story as and when we know more in the coming weeks.
You can also learn more about the Oura Ring and its previous upgrades below.
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