Adrienne Kmetz is a journalist, marketer, and editorial strategist with two decades of experience building brands and products that help people live better lives. She has managed growth and content teams which specialize in translating complex topics and data into real talk. Based in Colorado, she brings that deep experience and ski goggle tan to every article she writes.
Not all health influencers are created equal. These folks stand out to us as folks to follow who embrace the responsibility and ethos of “biohacking”: science-based, self-experimentation, bodily autonomy, research, documentation, and open source knowledge sharing, robust ethics yet innovative and testing mindset.
Who this list is for and why now
Between gurus, influencers, and science-backed experts, it’s hard to know who’s legit.
We’ve curated 50 of the most credible, data-obsessed, and self-experimenting voices in the space. Ideal for anyone who wants more depth than TikTok tips but less dogma than anti-aging cults.
Health isn’t about trends, it’s about science-backed habits that actually stick. Dr. Mike brings evidence-based clarity to fitness, nutrition, and mental health in a way that’s both Smart and relatable.
Quick tips:
Sleep is non-negotiable: aim for 7–8 hours with proper sleep hygiene.
Focus on progressive overload and recovery in fitness, not shortcuts.
Don’t fall for pseudoscience; always check the source and follow the data.
Or at least I was, until I went on a lil’ journey through insomnia-land and came out the other side with a few tools that really work for me.
The journey to get to sleep
Talk to your doctor about your symptoms.
Get a sleep test.
Buy a CPAP.
Add micronutrients.
Get outside for 10 minutes.
If you feel so exhausted you can barely function, you are not alone. Thousands of people every day are searching for ways to get ahead of their exhaustion and figure it out for good. According to the CDC, 1 in 3 Americans do not get enough sleep.
The day I told my boss, at 1pm, “I just need like… an hour.. to close my eyes.. then I can get you the copy”, I was too tired to see the look of utter confusion on his face.
Three hours later I woke up and asked for an extension. In our next 1 on 1, he said point-blank, “there is something seriously wrong if you can’t get through the workday without sleeping. I support you in finding out.”
That small entry led to an honest conversation about CPAPs, fatigue, getting older, stress, and depression. I walked away feeling empowered instead of feeling caught. I also felt a sense of urgency: I needed to figure this out, now.
Sleep deficit compounds until you’re totally spent
Years of interrupted sleep from apnea, insomnia, or stress, can add up and start to take a toll on your body. Over time, people with high sleep deficit could experience compounding effects on loss of focus, poor memory, and verbal stumbles (called “disfluency“).
It was a struggle to get through a day without a nap, often lasting 2+ hours. This wasn’t regular tired. It was zombie-land. I’d wake up after a full night’s sleep and still feel like I hadn’t rested. I was super motivated! And too depleted to do anything about it.
I blamed stress. I blamed hormones. I blamed myself (called maladaptive measures).
It turns out the real issues were:
Undiagnosed sleep apnea
Low micronutrient levels
A slow-creeping depression I’d normalized
No amount of napping or rain sounds was going to fix this.
Stressing about it is clinically proven to make it worse
According to a 2017 study of over 4000 participants by several researchers in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders:
“Many cognitive models of anxiety postulate that some individuals, more than others, are vulnerable to anxiety because they develop cognitive vulnerabilities comprised of maladaptive negative cognitive styles or beliefs.
These cognitive vulnerabilities presumably increase the probability that these individualsdevelop anxiety symptoms or disorders in response to stressful life events.
The more we stress about the events going on in our lives, the less capable we are of handling them. As I slept less and less, I found it harder and harder to find the energy to get ahead of it. Even though I had the full support of my supervisor, I started telling myself stories that started with, if I don’t figure this out soon…
Figuring it out: Snoring is strongly linked to apnea
I started snoring in college and it’s slowly gotten worse over the years. I knew I was likely apnic, but wasn’t sure how bad. The snoring is annoying, but least I’m breathing, right?
…right?
Get a sleep test
A sleep test will give you an overall score, called a Respiratory Distress Index. Calculate it by adding the number of apnea, hypopnea, and Respiratory Effort-Related Arousals (RERAs) per hour of sleep. The test I took also gave data on snoring, oxygen saturation, true sleep time, and sleep stages:
Source: Lofta
I decided to try a new health-tech company that sells CPAP devices online. The first step is to get a sleep test, as you can’t get a CPAP without a prescription. So I ordered their online kit and paid for expedited shipping.
Two days later, I was setting up an app, finger pulse oximeter, and pads to get my sleep score. In the morning, I submitted the sleep data to the app and received my report a few hours later.
The report is detailed in explaining the key metrics that show how little oxygen I was getting throughout the night: Over 250 events throughout the night meant that was waking up on average more than 40 times in an hour:
Source: Lofta
So basically no, I wasn’t sleeping at all. This kind of fatigue is very sneaky: You go to bed, you wake up. But your mind and body have not rested.
Buy the CPAP
With a prescription for a device, I did a little research on Reddit and ended up buying a popular, reliable model.
After wearing it for two years, I absolutely cannot sleep without it. I also receive a sleep score that helps me understand how I’m sleeping each night relative to the night before.
Add micronutrients
The typical American diet does not contain enough micronutrients to fulfill our daily needs. As we’ve moved toward eating mostly grains and meats instead of mostly vegetables, there has been an implication for our guts:
Michael Pollan says, “there are a host of critical micronutrients that are harder to get from a diet of refined seeds than from a diet of leaves.”
Daily, I take iron and vitamin D in the morning. Sometimes, I take magnesium at night, and a multivitamin, but not every day.
I tried to give blood in high school and was told I did not have enough iron content to participate. Then I never thought about it again until recently, when I learned that iron is a key nutrient that many women are missing. Even though I am a meat eater, and meat is a nutritionally complete food, I was not getting enough iron. Then my doctor recommended adding vitamin D, which I hadn’t thought of.
Since adding that combination to my daily morning routine, I have felt more energized in the afternoons to the point where I can sail through without even thinking of a nap. Now I nap for fun every once in a while, instead of compulsively.
Sunshine is literal energy
I am lucky to live in a place with lots of sunshine and access to the outdoors. The breeze through the aspen leaves, a nap in the sun, and actually touching grass has been shown to regulate and relax our nervous system.
Every day, I make a point to go outside, get a little sun on my face, and take a deep breath. I know how exhausting it feels to have someone tell you you need to walk or exercise or meditate or whatever. This is not that. I mean just open the door, walk outside, salute the sun, and that can be enough.
More support on your sleep journey
I’ve always valued exercise, meditation, morning and bedtime routines, blackout curtains, stress reduction, oils, noises, eye pillows, and whatever other method that helps me drift off and stay off. But it wasn’t until I added micronutrients and oxygen, that I was able to get through the night in order to get through the (whole) day.
It can be overwhelming to head to bed and not be sure how you’ll feel in the morning, especially when it can affect everything else. Hopefully you feel a little more confident to take the next step in figuring out a successful snoozing strategy.
In the tech industry, we love to use other tech. At one SaaS company I worked for, on Day 1 I got invited to over 30 different softwares they use to run their business.
Were they all necessary? Absolutely not. Were they going to find an all-in-one platform that did everything they need, from marketing to bookkeeping? Also absolutely not. Finding the sweet spot in between means knowing the key must-haves to make sure your body is supported.
Your health stack is the tools, apps, and even the self care methods, and tactics in your toolkit
A health stack contains the apps you rely on for data, like sleep and step counters, plus your primary care providers. It also includes all of the self care tactics, mental health support, exercise plans and recovery routines that you use on a regular basis to feel healthy. Your multivitamin? Part of your health stack.
We’re in an era where the way we manage our health is changing. We’re more committed than ever to preventive care, knowing how unpredictable and expensive the traditional health care industry can be in the U.S.
In includes primary care – I see my dentist every 6 months (and if you don’t, please do) but I might not get my annual checkup perrrfectly on time, and that’s OK because I understand my body and know the history and patterns of my bloodwork.
The rest of your toolkit is going to include all the routines and strategies you use for self care, daily micronutrients, sleep, your therapist for your mental health, maybe you use the Calm app or just like to sit quietly. My toolkit definitely contains strategies for my mental health, plus time out in nature, where I get something I didn’t realize I needed so much: total silence.
And most importantly, the apps and tools you use to get data and tie it all together: Health trackers like step counters and sleep, your Oura Ring, Fitbit, or a glucose monitor. All of these tools show you different views into your body’s behaviors.
What’s in your health stack?
Here’s a list of 20 ideas across each type of care. Like a picnic basket, pick and choose what works for you, until it doesn’t. Don’t be afraid to try something new and low-risk. And if you’re facing a chronic health issue that’s starting to impact your life, like ongoing lack of sleep, you will want to know when you need to make a major investment into that part of your health.
Apps and tools
Step counters like Fitbit or Apple Watch
Sleep scores like through your CPAP machine or sleep app.
Meditation apps like Calm
CPAP for sleep
Smart scales with body composition data
Health trackers like Oura Ring
Exercise trackers like Strava, AllTrails, and Fitbit
Diet and food trackers like MyFitnessPal or Weight Watchers
Workout subscriptions like Peloton
Routines and strategies
Body movement like stretching, yoga, or pilates
Breath work like the 3-4-3 method (Breathe in over 3 seconds, hold for 4, exhale over 3 seconds)
Cold therapies like cryo or cold plunges
Drinking a glass of water when anything feels off
Napping when you’re tired
Compression therapy
Daily micronutrients: A daily multivitamin; plus for women this may mean taking additional Iron supplements.
Supplements, topicals, and skincare regimens
Primary care
Pharmacy portals and prescription history
Your medical history, and all test results, like blood panels and blood pressure
Preventive care visits, dental visits
Blood sugar / glucose monitoring
Mental health
Online mental health providers like Betterhelp
Your visits with a therapist, psychiatrist or psychologist
Any medications you’re on to manage it
Journaling
Alternative medicines
New psychological therapies are being derived from long-feared drugs like ketamine and psilocybin.
I am not talking about races like the turkey trot I ran last fall right before sitting on the couch for 18 hours, or the three-legged one I ran at the company picnic. Or even the 12 mile trail run I did a few months ago.
She runs endurance races that are 250km over the course of six days. If you’re counting, that’s a marathon every day for four days in a row, a double marathon on the fifth day, and five miles on the 6th day as a cherry on top.
They’re races by a group called Racing the Planet, of which she’s completed three. They organize a series called the Four Deserts races, and she ran two of those – the Namibia Crossing through the Namib desert, and one through the driest desert in the world, the Atacama in Chile – plus one more in Patagonia.
She came in 64th out of 200 in Namibia. Next on her list is Gobi, which then makes her eligible to go to The Last Desert race, Antarctica. Absolutely wild.
And then some
Just to turn it up a notch, during Atacama, she guided a fellow racer – a blind man from Brazil – along the entire route, which meant that they were connected at the wrist with an 18-inch long string for the entire time they were running together. Vladmi dos Santos, who is involved with Brazil’s Paralympic Committee, ran his third 4 Deserts race as Erin guided him on her first.
Source: Racing the Planet
Why do people do this for fun?
Out here in the mountains we call it “Type 2 fun”. The kind that leaves you sore, sunburned, waterlogged, wiped out – and totally fulfilled.
“We decided early on that this race for us was not going to be about achieving a certain time or getting a certain place,” Erin tells Adventure World magazine. “It is about the struggle, the experience, the camp life… For me, it is soul nourishing. It is difficult mentally and physically, but it has been so rewarding.”
The 4 deserts race might be the most hardcore on earth
The 4 Deserts Ultramarathon Series is one of the most grueling endurance challenges on the planet. Organized by RacingThePlanet since 2002, it’s a set of four 250km (that’s 155 miles) self-supported footraces held in the planet’s most extreme environments:
Atacama Crossing (Chile) – the driest desert on Earth
Gobi March (Mongolia/China) – known for brutal winds and shifting terrain
Namib Race (Namibia) – the oldest desert, famous for towering sand dunes
The Last Desert (Antarctica) – freezing cold, windy as hell, and invitation-only
Each race takes place over 7 days, divided into 6 stages, with competitors carrying all their own food, gear, and supplies; except water and a tent spot provided by race organizers.
It’s an enormous and extreme challenge, testing mental toughness, physical endurance, and survival skills, and completing all four earns you the elite status of joining the “4 Deserts Club.” It’s not for the faint of heart, and she plans her trips and training at least a year in advance.
Training for an endurance race
How she does it? “Run, a lot.” She runs after work and on the weekends. We hike together with a pack of dogs, sweating in the Colorado sunshine and taking the steeps ’til we feel the burn.
But since we’re typical mountain folk, she doesn’t take it too seriously. Her endurance training regimen includes:
Running, a lot. Hiking, a lot. Gardening, cooking, weights, and kettlebells.
She has the benefit of living in high altitude near Aspen, Colorado, so she’s already training in a lower oxygen atmosphere.
She uses a smart scale that tells her a whole bunch of body composition data.
She links her sleep app to her scale data so it’s in one place and aims for at least 8 hours.
She tracks her miles, and runs a LOT, but doesn’t limit herself or push herself to hit a certain number each week. “It depends on how my body is feeling.”
She works on her mental state, bringing self awareness to her thought patterns and how she speaks to herself.
She takes time for recovery, and trains for the pain by sitting for up to 15 minutes in the freezing cold snowmelt of the Roaring Fork River.
At that extreme, it’s definitely mental
We’ve heard Tom Brady talk about how visioning is the key to making perfect connections with his wide receivers. We’ve heard Kevin Garnett tell us that “ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!” We watched in awe as Alex Honnold memorized every single hand hold on El Capitan before his free solo. We see article after article about how to train harder and smarter.
But the real driver might be how well you push through the pain, not how well you try to avoid it.
“A race that long, pain is inevitable,” Erin says. “Your best effort isn’t the same every day. Just have to show up using what tools you have and give it your best shot.”
As a former wildland firefighter, Erin knows how to haul a chainsaw up a mountainside in the heat of a forest fire. Enduring pain is part of the game for her.
“I’d keep a bag of chocolate covered almonds in my pocket and give myself just one every 20 minutes,” the absolute gem of a human being told me.
Finishing requires a good attitude because it’s gonna hurt
Says Erin:
“I literally crossed the finish lines because of a good attitude. I never once told myself I can’t do this or I am not a good runner or they’re better than me. Of COURSE they’re better than me, they are sponsored Olympic athletes from Spain. I’m just going to try, keep trying and never quit. Might be last, definitely not first, but I will be hospitalized before I get a DNF.”
Now that’s determination even during pain. It earned her the Sportsmanship award and Vlad agreed: “At the 4 Deserts, nobody is better than anyone.”
Source: Racing the Planet
Endurance racer research
We’re grateful that organizations like Racing the Planet take the space, time, and medical consideration to allow for research that furthers the field of studying our bodies under extreme and exciting conditions.
Overseen by by Stanford’s Emergency Medicine Physician Dr. Grant Lipman and connected to the Wilderness Medicine Fellowship at Stanford, there is not much else out there that looks into the effects of endurance racing on our bodies in such an applied way.
In their 2020 report, “Pain Is Inevitable But Suffering Is Optional: Relationship of Pain Coping Strategies to Performance in Multistage Ultramarathon Runners”, researchers found that at the conclusion of every race, pretty much everyone felt some sort of pain. But those who couldn’t cope, had a much harder time finishing than those who trained for the pain:
“Although increased pain intensity and pain interference was found in all multistage ultramarathon runners, successful event completion was significantly associated with less maladaptive pain coping. Training in coping with pain may be a beneficial part of ultramarathon preparation.”
In this context, maladaptive measures basically means, the person felt the pain was so much that they wanted to stop. Focusing on it, they “felt defeated by their pain.”
Those who finished, however, generally scored their optimism about their pain higher: It was a challenge rather than an obstacle. This is adaptive measures with environmental awareness.
The data brings confidence
“The data tells me that I’m on track,” Erin says. “I don’t necessarily make huge adjustments to my routine or diet… But it brings a ton more confidence knowing my body is ready, versus guessing.”
Whether you choose to micro-adjust your macros or just “go runnin’,” the distance and difficulty depends entirely on how well you can bear it.
Erin explains how she can not only bear it, but enjoy it:
“I do these hard things because I love the feeling of almost being done. The last two miles are my favorite. When you hurt the most, want to stop so badly, and you have to dig deep in your resilience reserves to find the energy to finish with your best effort. It only matters to you. I like it because we survive on hope and finish with our own level of integrity.”
The only way is through
Tom Brady was supposed to retire. Instead, he picked up and went double-or-still-five-rings and won another one. He asks himself an important question in 2020 that now feels like foreshadowing:
“The only way is through. If I don’t go for it, I’ll never know what I could have accomplished. Wanting to do something is different from actually doing it. If I stood at the bottom of a mountain, and told myself I could scale the highest peak, but then didn’t do anything about it, what’s the point of that?
I’m trying to do things that have never been done in my sport. That’s actually fun for me, too, because I know I can do them. When a team gives you the opportunity to do those things with them, well … if not with them, then who?
At some point, you have to throw your whole body into what you’re doing. You have to say, Let’s ride. Let’s see what we got.”
Are you pushing toward something that feels like a marathon a day for five days straight? Practice putting yourself to the test and sitting with the discomfort, so you can hold it for as long as it takes to win on your terms.
Cortisol is your body’s main stress hormone and one of the most important biomarkers for energy, recovery, mood, and long-term health.
You’ve probably heard of cortisol in the context of “too much stress,” but there’s more to it. Cortisol isn’t bad. In fact, it’s essential. It wakes you up in the morning, keeps your metabolism running, and helps you respond to threats. The problem starts when cortisol is out of balance: too high for too long, or too low when you need it most.
That’s why many doctors, fitness trackers, and biohackers are now measuring cortisol levels to understand how well the body is adapting to life.
What is cortisol, really?
Cortisol is a hormone made in the adrenal glands. It’s often called the “stress hormone” because it’s released when your brain senses stress, whether physical (like illness or lack of sleep) or psychological (like work deadlines).
Cortisol is a steroid hormone that your adrenal glands (the glands on top of your kidneys) make. Cortisol affects several aspects of your health and helps regulate your body’s response to stress. High or low levels of cortisol can impact your health.
Cortisol is part of your HPA axis (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal), a feedback system that controls your response to stress.
It follows a daily rhythm:
Highest in the morning, shortly after waking. This is the cortisol awakening response (CAR).
Lowest at night, allowing you to relax and sleep.
That pattern is healthy. When the rhythm is off—too flat, too spiky, or reversed—it can signal problems.
Cortisol ranges and what they mean
Cortisol is measured in micrograms per deciliter (mcg/dL) or nanomoles per liter (nmol/L), depending on your country and test.
Typical blood ranges:
Morning (8 a.m.): 6–23 mcg/dL
Afternoon: Levels naturally decline
Late night (midnight): Very low (often under 5 mcg/dL)
High cortisol signs:
Trouble sleeping
Anxiety or mood swings
Weight gain, especially around the belly
Blood sugar spikes
High blood pressure
Low cortisol signs:
Chronic fatigue
Depression or brain fog
Low blood pressure
Salt cravings
Poor stress tolerance
These patterns can only be confirmed through testing. Symptoms alone are not enough.
Thanks again to the Cleveland Clinic for this handy image:
How cortisol affects longevity
Cortisol plays a major role in metabolic health, immune regulation, and brain function. When it stays too high for too long, it can risk your longevity:
Insulin resistance and blood sugar imbalances
Suppressed immune function
Muscle breakdown
Increased risk of anxiety and depression
Accelerated cellular aging
Low cortisol, on the other hand, can reduce your ability to handle stress and increase your risk of burnout or adrenal dysfunction.
Balanced cortisol means better resilience and slower aging.
How to keep cortisol in the zone
The goal isn’t zero stress. It’s healthy stress recovery. Here’s how to help your cortisol curve:
Morning sunlight exposure to anchor your natural rhythm
Consistent wake and sleep times
Limit caffeine before noon
Movement, but not overtraining
Mindfulness techniques like deep breathing, meditation, or journaling
Balanced meals to avoid spikes and crashes
How to measure cortisol
Cortisol can be measured through:
Blood tests in medical settings
Saliva tests that show patterns throughout the day
Urine tests (DUTCH) that offer full hormone mapping
Wearables that estimate stress via HRV, sleep, and temperature trends
Saliva tests across multiple time points can give a clearer picture of your cortisol rhythm.
Why track cortisol if you’re not sick?
Tracking cortisol can help you:
Prevent burnout
Recover better from training
Optimize sleep and energy
Improve mental clarity
Avoid long-term hormonal imbalances
Whether you’re a parent juggling kids and work, an athlete training for an event, or someone just trying to feel better, cortisol is a useful check-in on your body’s stress load.
Your stress, decoded
Cortisol is like a biological stress journal. If you learn how to read it, you stop guessing why you feel wired, tired, or off. You start responding with smarter recovery, deeper sleep, and better habits.
Tracking it isn’t just for people with adrenal issues or hormone conditions. It’s for anyone who wants to stay sharp, strong, and calm under pressure.
TW: I talk about extreme stress in this article, and the bodily functions it impacts.
The cause of your ailment may be stress
According to researchers Mark Sullivan and Wayne Katon’s paper for the Journal of Pain, “Somatization: The Path Between Distress and Somatic Symptoms,” it’s “an extremely common and poorly managed clinical phenomenon.” This paper is from 1993 – so this is something we’ve known about for a while but still, more than 30 years later, don’t have a great set of empirical data for defining it, preventing it, or treating it.
That’s because it affects tons of people (get this – that same report tells us that in the “National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, 70% of patients with primary or secondary mental disorders presented a somatic chief complaint to their physicians.” That’s still from 1993, and things have only gotten worse), and we don’t yet have a wide consensus on the scientific definition.
We use it in clinical settings but not always in the same context, so there’s a risk of misdiagnosis and also using it as a catchall for functional symptoms for which we can’t pinpoint an acute cause.
The best scientific definition of somatization we’ve found so far:
According to Sullivan and Katon, somatization is “a psychophysiological process wherein cognitive and autonomic factors interact to produce distress that is interpreted as evidence of disease.” Basically, your body feels out of whack in a certain way, and it’s unclear what the physical cause is, because it’s actually a result of how we manage and react to the uncertainties and traumas in our world.
They argue that up until then, somatization was widely recognized as a psychiatric disorder and was referenced in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but that it actually could instead be a psychological product that has real affects on our physical body.
Source: Journal of Pain
Four theories to explain somatization
Researchers claim that the impacts of somatization is much more widespread than we think, it co-occurs with other diseases, and depending on the severity and source, we can treat, manage, and even prevent it.
Sullivan and Katon claim:
Somatization is among the most common of medical phenomena;
Somatization frequently coexists with medical illness;
There is a spectrum of severity of somatization, ranging from acute to chronic; and
Most somatization is transient and treatable through modification of physician behavior and proper application of psychological and psychiatric therapies
When you don’t know, you know
My sophomore year in college, I was a residential advisor, in charge of making sure 24 freshman students got home safely every night, and (hopefully) to class in the morning. I pretended it was no big deal – I’m the cool RA, I’ll let things slide but won’t tolerate anything sketchy.
Yet, halfway through my chemistry class I found myself running to the bathroom to vomit. As the semester wore on, the classes got harder, and my residents got more bold in exploring their new young adult world. And I got more and more overwhelmed by the pressures on me.
Every morning, I’d head to the bathroom and dry heave for 5-10 minutes before heading to class. Afraid to eat breakfast, it got to a point where my heartburn was so bad I thought maybe I, at the ripe age of 19 years old, had ulcers?!?!
I went to the doctor. I got an endoscopy. They said everything is fine. This symptom can’t be explained.
“It’s probably stress, to be honest,” the doctor said toward the end of the visit. “What are you doing to manage that?”
Physical symptoms of stress
Some of the impacts of stress on a body can range from insomnia to oversleeping, depression, anxiety, headaches, high blood pressure, blurry vision, hair loss, and low energy.
I experienced all of them, over time. Eventually I came to understand which physical response was a response to which type of stress.
When I had anxiety over a looming situation, I wander around my house at night ruminating and not sleeping.
When I was feeling overwhelmed by a demand or deadline I felt I just couldn’t hit, I’d get headaches.
And I knew that the vomiting was the worst end of the spectrum – if I was doing that, I was in an unsustainable, high-stress situation that needed to change.
How did I make permanent shifts?
Well for one thing, I decided to pursue a career outside of traditional 9-5 work, which enabled me to feel much more in control of my business, my income, and my company culture – aka how I treat myself. It required a few other tough decisions – winding down a volunteer position and saying “no” to many new things. And it was so worth it.
To make it stick, I turned these decisions into rubrics so I don’t need to overthink any decision in the future. I always do/never do projects with XYZ criteria, miss important family events for work, even eating – any meeting sent during lunch is declined with a note.
It’s one thing to recognize the alarms your body sounds. It’s another to sense them before they happen and avoid the situations that cause them altogether. I know, that’s a privileged, easier-said-than-done thing to do. But I’ve lost it all before, and there’s nothing worse than the slow decline of holding on for dear life. So I’ll choose the risk of growth, over the risk of staying stuck.
Doing your due diligence
Do not delay in pursuing proper medical evaluation and consultation through your primary care provider. When you get tests results back, they can tell you whether you conclusively have a physical disease that can be treated, or if your ailments may not have a clear physical source. In the case of the latter, you’ll know if you’re like me and under too much stress.
Long term stress management
Managing stress – and I mean really making a lifestyle change to remove the sources of the stress, not just sneaking in some “self-care” every once in a while or buying a health tracker – requires knowing your triggers and patterns.
For example, you might not need to do something drastic like sell your business, but you might need to make a key hire to make it sustainable for you.
As Dr. Huberman says:
Take care of yourself and take care of others. Daily investment in the 6 pillars is the way: morning sunlight, daily movement, quality nutrition, stress control, healthy relationships, deep sleep. Re-up every 24hrs so you can contribute and support others consistently too.
If you’re here, you’re probably close to buying an Oura Ring. Let’s break down what the Oura Ring actually does, how it holds up in 2025, and whether there are better options for your goals.
Who it’s for
The Oura Ring is built for health-conscious, tech-savvy users. It appeals most to people interested in improving sleep, recovery, and overall wellness, especially those who value unobtrusive wearables and detailed data.
A potential drawback
While elegant and packed with sensors, the ring isn’t the best fit for people who want full workout tracking or GPS capabilities. Also, the subscription model adds recurring costs beyond the initial device.
What the oura ring tracks
The Oura Ring covers a surprising range of health signals for such a small device. It tracks:
Sleep quality
Heart rate and HRV (heart rate variability)
Body temperature changes
Breathing rate
Recovery status
Menstrual cycle prediction
Stress signals
Activity tracking (light to moderate activity)
These biomarkers offer insights that go beyond steps and calories, making it popular among people focused on biofeedback and sleep optimization.
Oura ring specs snapshot
Best for: Biohackers, wellness-oriented users, sleep-focused trackers
Number of models: 2 active (Gen 3 Horizon and Heritage)
Starts at: $299 for the base model
Subscription required: Yes, $5.99/month
Waterproof: Yes (up to 100m)
Can I download my data? Yes (via Oura’s web dashboard for personal use)
3rd Party App Compatibility: Yes (Apple Health, Google Fit, Natural Cycles, etc.)
Users love how discreet the ring is compared to bulky watches
The sleep tracking is often described as “next level” for its depth and clarity
Long battery life (up to 7 days) is a major plus
Criticism:
The subscription requirement is a dealbreaker for some
It doesn’t work well for people doing high-intensity training
A few reviewers noted discomfort depending on ring size or finger swelling
Most reviewers agree the data is accurate and useful if you care about recovery, sleep, and readiness scores. It’s not for someone looking for a fitness-first wearable.
Alternatives: Oura Ring vs. other health trackers
WHOOP 4.0
Similar focus on recovery and HRV, but worn on the wrist
Offers more detailed training load tracking and strain scores
Also requires a monthly subscription
Less discreet than the Oura Ring
Very silly name
Confusing “age score”
Apple Watch Series 9
Full smartwatch functionality, including GPS and workout tracking
Excellent for people who want all-in-one tech
Daily charging required
Garmin Venu 3
Fitness-first focus with strong sleep tracking and GPS
Great for runners and athletes
No monthly subscription
Fitbit Charge 6
Budget-friendly
Offers solid sleep and activity tracking
Requires Fitbit Premium for full data
If you want clean, passive sleep and readiness tracking without a screen, Oura stands out. If your focus is exercise, GPS, or multitasking, other wearables might make more sense.
