Is the Oura Ring worth it? A 5-week review on sleep, stress and recovery

I have been on a health kick for about five years. Not a perfectly linear one. More a long-term commitment with the occasional disappearance, dramatic return and renewed sense of responsibility. Since October, I have been properly back on it. And then, last week, I turned 30.

They say 30 is the new 20. I would like to formally dispute this, on the grounds that at 20 I could sleep for two hours and show up to work the next day fresh as a daisy. At 30, sleep is operationally critical.

You really start to feel things at 30. Not emotionally, but physically. Your body stops letting things slide, sleep becomes non-negotiable, recovery becomes a topic and suddenly, a device that tracks your heart rate variability feels less like a gimmick and more like a sensible life decision.

Enter the Oura Ring.

A ring that watches quietly and judges politely

I have been using the Oura Ring for about five weeks now, and it has seamlessly integrated itself into my life, both aesthetically and psychologically. Thankfully, it does not look like health tech. It looks like a normal ring, blends in with my usual jewellery and does not announce itself. Which is ideal, because no one needs to know you are being monitored by Scandinavian wellness engineers.

It is also extremely comfortable. I forget I am wearing it until I open the app and realise it has been keeping a detailed log of my sleep, recovery, stress levels and general behaviour like a very calm, very observant accountability partner.

Sleep is the main event

I train more now, I lift heavier and I eat better, but sleep is the foundation. Always has been. And this is where Oura earns its place.

Every night, it tracks:

• Sleep stages including light, deep, and REM
• Total sleep and time in bed
• Sleep efficiency and restlessness
• Resting heart rate and heart rate variability
• Respiratory rate
• Nighttime blood oxygen levels

I have cross-checked the sleep data with my Eight Sleep system a few times, and the results are almost identical. That kind of consistency builds trust. If two separate devices are telling you the same thing, it becomes harder to argue with the data and easier to stop blaming Mercury in retrograde.

The three daily scores that now run my mornings

Oura simplifies everything into three scores out of 100, which is both helpful and occasionally humbling.

The Sleep Score tells you how well you actually slept, not how well you think you slept.

The Readiness Score tells you how prepared your body is to take on the day based on sleep, recovery, heart rate trends, and temperature signals. The Activity Score tracks steps, calories burned, and workouts, including automatic detection.

At 30, this becomes less about optimisation and more about awareness. Some mornings the app gently informs you that today is not the day to chase personal bests. Today is the day to behave responsibly. I find that level of honesty refreshing.

The features you do not realise you will care about

Beyond sleep and activity, the ring tracks a surprisingly wide range of health indicators:

• Continuous skin temperature trends, useful for spotting changes and tracking cycles
• Stress and resilience levels during the day
• Heart health markers like resting heart rate and HRV
• Women’s health insights including cycle predictions and fertile window estimates
• Metabolic health integrations for those going deeper into glucose and nutrition data

It sounds like a lot, but the app presents it cleanly. You can go full data nerd or just glance at the highlights and move on with your life.

What changed after five weeks

After five weeks, the value of the Oura Ring becomes clearer.

The data begins to arrange itself into patterns that feel both obvious and oddly confronting. Late dinners appear consistently. Alcohol appears consistently. Stress makes itself known. So do intense training days. On the other side, good habits surface just as reliably. Earlier nights improve recovery. Consistency shows up in higher readiness. The body responds exactly as physiology suggests it should.

There is nothing dramatic about how this information is delivered. No alarms, no exaggerated conclusions. Just a steady stream of evidence that reflects how adult health actually works: small decisions, repeated often, producing cumulative outcomes. It feels less like motivation and more like oversight, which at this point in life is far more useful.

Turning 30 sharpens your relationship with feedback like this. It stops feeling critical and starts feeling practical.

The verdict

The Oura Ring does not promise transformation, and it does not need to. Discipline, nutrition, training and recovery still do the heavy lifting. What the ring provides is visibility. A consistent, credible picture of how the body is coping with the pace, stress and structure of everyday life.

It looks good, it feels unobtrusive and the data is honest.

At this age, that level of clarity is exactly what I am looking for.