Sleep Series Finale: What I've Learned from Tracking My Sleep Data

What I Learned From 2 Years of Tracking Sleep With an Oura Ring

A few years ago I was constantly shifting my bedtime routine, from playing pickleball at 7AM before work to working out at 9PM the other days. I found myself going to sleep around 12-1AM and waking up at 6AM to play pickleball and 9AM the other days (life of a remote job where most of my team was PST). Needless to say my sleep schedule wasn’t the best and I wasn’t able to recover like I did despite being more active with less sleep during my college days.

My teammates at the time were talking about their fitness wearables from the Apple Watch Ultra to the Premium Garmin Models and how they were tracking their activity levels and body battery and all that. Since I was active, I didn’t need a wearable to tell me how much exercise I was getting but rather how poverty my sleep quality was.

I researched different products and at the time the Oura Ring was #1 for tracking sleep data. I’m honestly still impressed at how it knows exactly when I lay down in bed to the second I fall asleep and even in the mornings, how long I lay in bed awake before finally getting out of bed.

With the power of tracking my sleep down to the T, I wanted to learn which of my habits were significantly hindering my ability to recover and which subtle lifestyle changes would help me feel a lot more energized.

Here’s a recap of all the bad:

• Work out in the evenings (8-10PM) → Even later dinner (11PM) → Bedtime (12-1AM)

  • My Oura Ring yelled at me and even said: “it looks like you’re eating a big meal before bed, try eating dinner earlier so your body is recovering and not digesting when you’re trying to sleep”

  • Because my body was digesting, my body temperature was elevated and it took longer to feel cool enough to go under the blanket

• Excessive screen time in bed, like many of us who brain rot before bed, if I found myself doom scrolling for too long (+15 minutes) then I found myself tossing and turning

  • My Oura Ring would give me an F- on my Sleep Latency score.

• Since my body was so used to sleeping after midnight for most days, I found it really difficult trying to sleep at 10PM when I wanted to wake up at 6AM the next morning to play pickleball.

  • My Oura Ring consistently gave me an angry face on my Timing score since I wasn’t sleeping in line with my circadian rhythm, largely due to the random shift in my sleeping windows.

Here’s what I did for 2 weeks to consistently obtain A+ on my sleep scores:

• Bedtime Routine: At 9:30PM take 240mg Magnesium Glycinate, read for 30 minutes with low light (and no looking at my phone), lay down at 10PM. I consistently fell asleep within 5 minutes.

• Morning Routine: Wake up at 6AM then Caffeine + Gym by 7AM

• Workday: Second caffeine anywhere between 10AM-12PM around lunch

• Evening: Early Dinner (5-7PM) and then I feel myself physically starting to wind down

Mentally I had less brain fog, physically I felt more consistent energy due to higher quality sleep, emotionally I felt a lot more productive with the post workout endorphins and more consistent energy throughout the day.

Your body craves routine, so any few simple bedtime habits that you can stick to will do wonders. When it comes to fitness wearables for tracking sleep, do I recommend you get one? Only if you feel like crap while maintaining good sleep habits. The major insights I learned aren’t ground breakthroughs but rather simple reminders that maybe eating chicken breasts before bed isn’t the best idea.

BUT if you geek out on health data and are considering a fitness wearable for tracking health and sleep data and all that then the Oura Ring is still considered the Gold Standard for sleep tracking, but it comes with a $6 monthly subscription which isn’t so fun. And honestly when I simultaneously tracked my sleep with my Oura Ring and either my Apple Watch (series 4) or Garmin (Forerunner 165) they were still pretty good and their activity tracking (for calories burned) are known to be more accurate compared to the Oura Ring.

All this to say, fitness wearables aren’t necessarily going to make you more healthy, but it will remind you if you ARE being healthy and getting your daily steps in and getting adequate quality sleep every night.

Here’s the TLDR:

• Get a fitness wearable if you LIKE to look at your health data, but healthy habits are more important than tracking if you’re healthy

• Develop a sleep routine, one that you can stick to, even just incorporating a few of these:

  • Pick a daily bedtime, just like you have a daily alarm

  • Consume your last caffeine 8 hours before bed

  • Consume your last meal 3 hours before bed

  • Send that last goodnight text to your S/O, boss or homies whoever you want 30 minutes before bed and then put your phone away

  • (Optional) Supplement with Magnesium Glycinate ~200mg 30 minutes before bed (for the extra deep sleep)

I promise I won’t exclusively be talking about sleep hygiene, consolidating my learnings and thoughts into series helps me compartmentalize and segment all the useful info that you guys would benefit from.

Up next I’ll be talking about stress management and how I kept my inner peace with a toxic boss working 80+ hours a week…