How To Track Everything From Sleep To Movement, And Even Your Period With Caroline Kryder From Oura.

TFM-OURA2-FINAL

[00:00:00] Jeremy: 

[00:00:00] I got famous for tracking 

[00:00:01] sleep now with eating research on COVID-19 women's health and so much.

[00:00:05] Zach: This week, we're talking with you again about the aura

[00:00:07] ring, mostly because we love it, but also because it's loaded

[00:00:11] with a lot of new features, making it, and even more important tool you 

[00:00:14] can use to improve your health and wellbeing. 

[00:00:16] Jeremy: Our guest is Caroline Krider. She's the science communications 

[00:00:18] lead for aura. She'll share 

[00:00:20] why, when it comes to fitness trackers, there really is one ring to rule them all

[00:00:24] This is the fit mess conversations with world-class experts in the fields of mental, physical, and emotional health. And this episode 

[00:00:33] Caroline Kryder: health has this really long journey. And oftentimes we're always like, what did I get yesterday?

[00:00:38] What did I get today? But, or as a big believer in how are you doing This year? How you doing this month? Like it's a pandemic year. your HRV might be completely different than it was four or five years ago.

[00:00:50] Now, here are your hosts, Zach and Jeremy. 

[00:00:53] Zach: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the fitness. Thanks for listening while you're doing whatever it is 

[00:00:56] that 

[00:00:56] you're doing right now. I'm Zach, he's 

[00:00:58] Jeremy. We've been through 

[00:00:59] all kinds of 

[00:01:00] struggles and ended 

[00:01:01] up 

[00:01:01] stronger because of them. And we want to help you do the same. 

[00:01:04] If you're sick of your own 

[00:01:05] shit and ready to make a change, 

[00:01:07] you're in the right place. 

[00:01:08] Jeremy: Today, we're 

[00:01:08] talking about how tracking your health and wellness can help push you to make important changes to 

[00:01:12] improve both. 

[00:01:13] Or to at least be aware of why you're not performing as well as you'd like and 

[00:01:17] how you might be able to change that.

[00:01:18] Zach: Many improvements have been made to the aura

[00:01:20] ring. Since we spoke with the company CEO last year, this is especially exciting for women because there are huge updates that focus specifically on women's 

[00:01:28] health. . 

[00:01:29] We'll get into all of those details with our guests, Caroline 

[00:01:32] Krider from aura. 

[00:01:33] Jeremy: One thing 

[00:01:34] I'm really 

[00:01:34] loving about the ring is the new daytime heart 

[00:01:36] rate monitor. I love that at any point in. I can sort of check in, see how things have been going, 

[00:01:41] see what maybe stress events may have caused my heart rate to spike, or maybe seen when I was a little 

[00:01:46] bit, uh, chill, you know, and things were fine. And with that information, I can make 

[00:01:50] changes to 

[00:01:50] my day. I can go into 

[00:01:52] a, you know, interactions with coworkers or interact interactions with 

[00:01:55] my family, knowing when I'm 

[00:01:57] likely to be stressed out, based on the information I've gathered just by wearing 

[00:02:01] the 

[00:02:01] ring.

[00:02:02] Zach: Yeah, I liked that part too. I mean, 

[00:02:03] especially like the part where it shows me that my heart's still beating in the middle of the day. I mean, that's really, it's very

[00:02:08] consoling, very, very consoling. It makes me, 

[00:02:12] makes me feel better, but you're right Certain situations that you're in, that 

[00:02:17] you 

[00:02:17] just don't realize stress you out and 

[00:02:19] having that ability to look and wait, why did my heart rate go up?

[00:02:23] This is, this is incredible. 

[00:02:24] Like having that, that intimate knowledge of what situations 

[00:02:28] you should be avoiding or 

[00:02:30] changing 

[00:02:30] or doing something different. I think it's amazing. 

[00:02:33] Jeremy: the one thing I will say. 

[00:02:35] Is that, you know, everyone says, when you first wake up in the morning, don't look at your phone, don't look at it for an hour. Don't react to the world. 

[00:02:43] I can't help it. The 

[00:02:44] first thing I do is I open my aura app to see, how did I do, how did I win? Did I get the unicorn? Did I get to a hundred points on my readiness?

[00:02:52] No, I've failed every time, but so I need to get over that habit. I need to give myself that hour, but I'm just so excited every morning to see how well I 

[00:03:01] did on myself. 

[00:03:02] Zach: Yeah, well, at least you're not opening up

[00:03:03] Facebook,

[00:03:04] Jeremy: Right. That's true. 

[00:03:06] Zach: I mean, if you, if you pull out your

[00:03:07] phone and open up Facebook or Instagram, that would be a different 

[00:03:10] Jeremy: What do I need to be pissed off about today?

[00:03:12] Zach: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:03:14] I like this ring. It not only

[00:03:16] does it like, really provide you some incredibly useful data to change your habits, but I think it looks really good too. 

[00:03:24] Jeremy: It looks great. And

[00:03:26] like you said, the habit change. That's what, that's, what we're all about here is finding ways to improve your life, to

[00:03:30] actually take action on the things you're trying to. And a lot of times we take that action without the

[00:03:35] data, without information, without knowing what it is we're trying to do or what actually needs the help.

[00:03:40] And this is such a great tool because it's not

[00:03:42] just numbers. They give you advice. They give you guidance on things you can

[00:03:46] do to, improve your sleep, to improve your activity. or maybe there are certain days, maybe today's one of them where you're supposed to back off a little bit 

[00:03:54] because you overdid it a little bit yesterday.

[00:03:56] You, you may not 

[00:03:56] be aware of those things throughout your day, but because of the help of this technology, you're able to make better informed decisions

[00:04:02] for your health. 

[00:04:03] Zach: So Jeremy, with all that data and you trying to get to go hundred, get that 

[00:04:06] unicorn. You gotta be feeding your body appropriately in order to get those best 

[00:04:11] scores, right. In order for your body to rest and recover all the way. 

[00:04:14] So 

[00:04:15] how are 

[00:04:15] we going to feed your body appropriately? we 

[00:04:17] love athletic greens, right?

[00:04:19] Jeremy: Absolutely. 

[00:04:20] Zach: I started taking athletic greens because I really needed to have a sufficient. That tasted great, gave me all the things that I needed. , and I didn't want to have to take 10 pills a day or, spend all of my time cooking all the meals.

[00:04:34] I try and get my nutrients from food, but let's face it. We don't get everything we need every day from food. So athletic greens was a great solution for me. It tastes great. Gives me everything I need for more energy, better gut health optimized immune system. 

[00:04:48] It has less than a gram of sugar and there's no nasty chemicals or artificial anything. And it actually does taste good. And for what you get, it's less than $3.

[00:04:57] and right now is the time to incorporate better health and athletic greens is a perfect start to make it easy.

[00:05:02] Athletic greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athletic greens.com/fit mass. Again, that's athletic greens.com/fit. Mess to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance.

[00:05:22] that link will be on the show notes and it's plastered all over our website@thefitness.com.

[00:05:26] Jeremy: . All right, well, if we haven't 

[00:05:27] convinced you that the ordering is what's missing from your fitness tracking routes. 

[00:05:31] Perhaps our 

[00:05:32] guests can help. Her name is Caroline Krider. 

[00:05:33] She's the science communication lead for aura. We had a chance to talk to her

[00:05:37] about what's under the hood of the aura ring and why it's a powerful tool. You may want to add

[00:05:41] to your wellness. 

[00:05:42] Caroline Kryder: the ordering is a smart ring? 

[00:05:45] that helps you track a lot of different information about your health. So it's a ring and an app that's helping you. How your body is doing and how your sleep is going activity. So it's a holistic wellness tracker That's on your finger. 

[00:05:58] Zach: There's been some significant changes, a new version of the ring has come out. Can you talk about some of those enhancements or, new features that you brought. 

[00:06:07] Caroline Kryder: Yeah, absolutely. I'm not sure if either one of you had the gen two ring. , But it's kind of one of those cool things where if you hold them up side by side, it might be hard at first to tell what the differences are.

[00:06:17] Our engineering team is really, really good at fitting things in less than a half centimeter of space. , but because they're so tiny, it does help to talk a little bit about The differences. So the gen two ring was really focused on, you know, sleep tracking and optimizing all of these measurements. Nate is a great time to, read all sorts of information about your body, but we heard again and again and again from our members that, Hey, we want to measure stuff during the day.

[00:06:44] We really want to expand all sorts of features. So the gen three ring we took the same size, but we packed in a bunch of. So we put in different types of LEDs that help us measure different things. We added a bunch of temperature sensors. So now we have seven temperature sensors and we expanded the app as well.

[00:07:02] So if you're looking at the gen three rings, sort of the biggest hits are we expanded into the So there's daytime heart rate you can look at how your body is doing throughout the day, Are you getting restorative time or not? We're going to have workout heart rate rolling out later this, year. and then a couple other features sort of came with that We're going to have blood oxygen in the ring. There's our first official women's health feature period prediction. and then inside the app, there's a new tab. That's chock full of a library of a lot of different content that you can use to meditate and learn about 

[00:07:35] Zach: your health. 

[00:07:36] Jeremy: I've definitely been taking advantage of the, of the new content for meditation. That is really cool. There was some before in gen two, but you've got you guys have added a bunch And it's been really, really helpful for me. 

[00:07:45] Zach: What have 

[00:07:46] Caroline Kryder: you learned about yourself as a meditator? Any

[00:07:49] Jeremy: Uh, you know, it, it's more 

[00:07:50] just the resources, right? Just, I use it a lot at night to.

[00:07:53] help me sleep. And there are everyone that I've used. I have, I haven't heard a single one all the way 

[00:07:57] through because I'm just out within, within minutes of starting. 

[00:08:00] So they're, they're fantastic. , I wanted to talk a little bit about 

[00:08:03] the, uh, the women's health stuff.

[00:08:05] There's, that's a big, big part of this update 

[00:08:07] and I was surprised and, and reading about 

[00:08:09] this, how much temperature plays a role in a lot of 

[00:08:12] the women's health features? So can we talk 

[00:08:14] about. It helps predict what's going on with women's. 

[00:08:18] Caroline Kryder: Yeah, absolutely. So, or measure skin temperature. , you have your core temperature, which a lot of people are used to thinking about, which is where you put a thermometer under your tongue, but your skin temperature changes a lot more than your core. So your body wants to hold your core temperature, constant. and to do that Your skin needs to change. So if you, go on. a run, your core, heats up your skin flushes, same thing, where if It's cold outside, the first thing to get cold would be your hands. So your skin changes a whole lot, um, and its temperature fluctuates, and there's all sorts of cool patterns that you can read with that.

[00:08:51] So ordering has always had temperature and our users have always written into us and say, Hey, I could tell I was getting sick early. you know, I realized this medication changed this. I had something wrong with my thyroid, but we have finally built a feature that is official for all of the users that had written into us saying, Hey, I'm actually tracking my menstrual cycle using the temperature feature. and it's a really cool pattern where estrogen causes you to Progesterone heats you up. and so the first half of your cycle is estrogen cold. the second half after you, ovulate is progesterone warm and it creates this wave that you can follow. So period prediction is just getting to know your personal way.

[00:09:33] Not all cycles are the same length and might have a, cycle That's a little longer or shorter. And so it is able to look at what has happened for your body in the past and what is happening right now, so that when you see that transition from hot to cold, you can say, Hey, that is exactly when your period's going to start. 

[00:09:48] Zach: I can't speak personally about that, that feature, but my other half has been using the gen three ring and , she told me that it was incredibly helpful for her. , and just like her, her readiness score and like what she should be doing and shouldn't be doing because she is, , for her entire life.

[00:10:07] She's always, I don't feel good today or I don't feel right. Is it something I hate? Is it my sleep? Is it PMs? Like, is it those things? So it does it actually differentiate between, you know, you didn't sleep well or you'll, your cycle is. about to start where your cycle is, is ending. Like, is that, does it tell you That granular detail of 

[00:10:29] Caroline Kryder: what the feature does right now?

[00:10:31] And she is so right to be picking up on all of those changes. the feature right now is specifically to help you predict your periods. It's helping you pick up on one, are those changes occurring, you know, okay. in the next, you know, three days and the next five days, you're going to have this big hormonal shift.

[00:10:49] But for the longest time we have had the ability to read all those other metrics that you're talking about. Your sleep is going to change based on your cycle, your HRV, your heart rate, variability, your respiratory rate, your heart rate. and so a lot of people use the trend graph, which is where you can see those long-term patterns to look at.

[00:11:07] What's changing between the first and second half of their cycle, because those hormones do cause a lot of shifts and you might be sleeping differently. you might be training differently. , and it's nice to kind of have that confirmation of what you were feeling in your body.

[00:11:22] Jeremy: My wife's been using it to track. , I would, I shouldn't call it sleep, but let's call it lack of sleep. She does. She's up very late, always working on whatever the projects are.

[00:11:31] that she's got on her agenda. And it's so 

[00:11:34] funny because we compare, you know, I, my typical night of sleep I'll score, you know, readiness and sleep scores are usually like between 85 and 

[00:11:40] 95. And I'm like, man, 

[00:11:43] what, what am I missing? How do I, how do I hit that a hundred? What else do I need to do? I'm always thinking 

[00:11:48] about like, there's gotta be some other little hack. Cause I do all these, 

[00:11:51] like this list of things that I do. And then, you know, she rolls into bed at two or three in the morning and falls asleep in four seconds And gets up at 

[00:11:57] six.

[00:11:58] But her number is around seven. 

[00:12:01] And it says good. 

[00:12:03] And she's like, well, okay, I'm 

[00:12:04] good. That great off we go. I'm 

[00:12:07] just going to keep doing what I'm doing. So, I mean, I suppose whatever 

[00:12:11] works works, but so I'm to, I'm going to be selfish. I'm going to make this about me 

[00:12:16] first. How do I, how do I close the gap? How do.

[00:12:19] I get that five or 10 more points that I need?

[00:12:22] Caroline Kryder: Well, we can definitely talk about how to close the gap and get that, 

[00:12:25] magical. Like our users call it. the unicorn 100, like people are like, oh, if 

[00:12:30] Jeremy: it on Instagram and I'm like, oh, I just want to do it once. Just to know, that I did it, like I did it perfect. One time. 

[00:12:35] Caroline Kryder: but the ultimate thing that we would tell you, Jeremy, is that, um, we have finished fruits and we're finished company, and it's very American of you to be like our God to get a hundred, actually 85.

[00:12:46] And above is amazing. it's fantastic. You don't have to be a perfect sleeper to be getting fantastic sleep. So if I were you traditionally, the way that your sleep score works is you kind of watch that score from zero to a hundred. And when you're starting to ask the question that you're asking, like, why isn't it higher?

[00:13:03] You're looking for what your sleep sins are in those contributors. So everything that falls below it So, um, that is different elements of your sleep VR. Are you getting enough? REM is it that you take too long to fall asleep And your wife falls asleep like that? Um, so do you happen to know which contributors for 

[00:13:19] Zach: you 

[00:13:20] Jeremy: think it usually in, uh, I know we emailed a little bit about this. Usually points to my, HRV, which

[00:13:26] is odd because, And so tell me if I'm just reading it wrong, cause that's entirely possible. But when I look each day, you know, one of the first things I look at is my HRV and the number will be like in the twenties, like, the mid twenties. and I'm

[00:13:38] like, wow, I want to get that up higher. That's not good. But then when I look at like the weekly trend, it's like oh, no, you're like 60. so how, how has my 

[00:13:46] daily number so much lower? And then my 

[00:13:48] weekly number is fine.

[00:13:51] Caroline Kryder: Yeah, good question. So I would say that or takes a different approach to HRV and a lot of other tools. So, um, a lot of fools will give you one value and they will say, congratulations, this is your HRV. Like this is it for today. Or does it we give you a ton of information for you to play with. so on that sleep screen, even more than just focusing on one number, you have a bunch of different tools you have, what was your average for that night?

[00:14:15] What was the lowest possible HRV that you got? and then you have that, trace. So one of the things that we could start to do together as. So, what is what's off here? Is it like your body's capable of getting to a really high HRV, but it doesn't get there until, you know, 6:00 AM right before you're about to wake up or is it that you're getting in and out of the range that you want to be in?

[00:14:37] So you can start to use that graph at least as your, your real tool for what's happening in, your body. What a lot of people discover is, , you want that pattern of restorative you want it's climbing higher and higher and higher throughout the night. So looking for, when are you not hitting that?

[00:14:54] Is it like, partway through the night? Something happens, maybe you're eating chocolate before bed. Maybe you take a medication before bed and it's not hitting your digestive system until a couple hours in. If you have pets, maybe your wife who is a night owl is coming to bed at a certain 

[00:15:09] Jeremy: Yeah, I'm going to blame her. I'm going to blame her entirely for 

[00:15:11] this. 

[00:15:13] Caroline Kryder: But It's just another, another tool rather than just looking at the averages. And if you are seeing something in your trend graph, you're kind of looking at those weekly patterns, but we would also recommend is like, wait a couple months. Because health has this really long journey. And oftentimes we're always like, what did I get yesterday?

[00:15:31] What did I get today? But, or as a big believer in how are you doing This year? How you doing this month? Like it's a pandemic year. your HRV might be completely different than it was four or five years ago.

[00:15:43] Jeremy: that's true. And then for my wife, who's, who's happy 

[00:15:46] with a 70 should, should she be okay with that? Or should I encourage her to get 

[00:15:50] to bed on time?

[00:15:51] Zach: I 

[00:15:52] Caroline Kryder: love that you you guys sound like you probably have different thresholds for what number sounds okay

[00:15:57] Jeremy: I think so.

[00:15:57] Caroline Kryder: Um, it's sort of like, how do you feel when you operate at 70? Because a lot of us know, that there are times in your life where you might be a 40 sleep score. Maybe you are a new person. New job, something else is, going on.

[00:16:11] You're moving across the country and 40 is the best that you can do So it's really what else has to give in your life. Um, And if she feels great at a 70 and she's staying up and doing something that fulfills her great more power to her, but it may mean that when you guys go on vacation, there's a really candid discussion about which days are the drinking and Cabo type of vacation days.

[00:16:34] And which days are like, we're going to. There will be no, lights. There's no cell phone usage. And we are just going to hit 85 and above of our sleep score for four days.

[00:16:45] Jeremy: All right, I'll leave her alone about it. Uh, I 

[00:16:48] suppose It's fun.

[00:16:49] Zach: Well, that actually kind of leads me into my question because I I'm I'm not a great sleeper. I get good quality. But the time I spend in dentists, there's 

[00:16:58] a little bit lower, so I'm curious, , my typical, Readiness score is usually like 70 to 75 And it says good. But I also, like, I go, to CrossFit four to five times a week.

[00:17:12] I do hot yoga four times a week. And um, you know, I move a lot and I've got a pretty stressful job. So like I see 75 And I go, Hey, go good. Yay. Good for you. Am I am I interpreting that right? Or should I be really worried? Yeah, 

[00:17:31] Caroline Kryder: no, you are interpreting that.

[00:17:33] right? Zack And I'm smiling because the CrossFitters, the readiness score is designed for people like you 

[00:17:39] because it's meant to be this holistic score.

[00:17:41] That's got these three components to it. If you only look at one score in the day, a third of it is related to your. A third of it is related to your activity. And the third of it is how is your body doing? So your HRV off your temperature, off your respiratory rate. So for you, you happen to be somebody who's extremely athletic And you are working out many, many, many days a week and asking a lot of your body.

[00:18:05] So what you might actually find is When you look at your readiness score, That is the third of it that is responsible for getting you down to 75, because aura is a tool that's definitely built with, , a holistic version of movement in mind. and one of the things that does is it rewards you for rest.

[00:18:22] So if RSCs that, you're not taking two consecutive rest days a week. It's going to say, Zach, you can't possibly be a hundred. You're much closer to 75. We'd like you to take more rest and recovery. So what it may be is that. you get a little bit off for sleep because you're not sleeping as long as you'd like, and a little bit off for activity.

[00:18:40] But again, it's the same conversation as maybe staying up late and going for a 75. If you feel great at that, and you're fitting in the athleticism And the movement that you want more power to you I think a lot of people, wonder, like is a low readiness score, always bad. And the answer is you could be at a 30 because you have the flu and you feel absolutely terrible.

[00:19:02] Or you could be at a 30 because the concert last night was amazing and you stayed up late and it was the best. and you had a couple of drinks and, you know, so on And so forth. And so readiness is a capacity that's meant to be used up for whatever you want it to be used up for. So it sounds like you're at a good balance for you. 

[00:19:21] Zach: yeah. I will say that the one time. I was going to go for a bike ride. I had planned like 25, 30 miles of just, , biking. And my ring, told me like, Hey, something's off. Like, I didn't feel bad, but my score was really, really, really low. So I, I decided to bail on the bike ride and I just sat and watched TV for the day.

[00:19:41] And sure enough, I woke up The next day, sick, like. warned me at a time. I was so amazed. that's 

[00:19:50] Caroline Kryder: Awesome. That's what so many people tell us is that they're used to like making it all the way to the office or making it into their day before they realize they feel bad enough to take it easy. So when, when you have that flag, that's like, Nope.

[00:20:03] Day on the couch is ready to go. It's much better it. Then doesn't turn into three, four days on the couch, you know, much worse. 

[00:20:11] Jeremy: See, it's funny. I've only in the last three weeks or so I've incorporated a 

[00:20:15] daily, like actually dragging my butt into the gym and actually physically working on. 

[00:20:20] And there have been a couple of days when it's like, okay, you're, you're doing awesome, good job and stuff, but you should rest 

[00:20:27] and I've resisted it because I've gone.

[00:20:29] Well, if I, if I do, that's all You need to do is tell me to sit down and do nothing and I will sit down and do nothing and I will not get back up. That sounds great. That's what I'm here for. But there've been a couple of days when I pushed through and I'm like, no, You're wrong ring. I got to do this. I got to show up or I'm going to, I'm selling myself short and then it takes like a couple days of like, okay, now I gotta, I hurt myself.

[00:20:50] I gotta rest and get better. So it is, it is amazing how much it really does know you in some ways, better than yourself.

[00:21:00] Zach: It's 

[00:21:00] Caroline Kryder: nice. It's like a lot of us were used to only having a calendar to make a lot of plans, especially for working out. Most people are like, okay, I do my long runs on Thursday. I hate myself, you know, in the cycling gym on a Tuesday in the class. But if you have that freedom to say yes, today is the data, ask my body to do this, or no, the individual activities feel better to like, rather than it just being a punishment, you can actually enjoy the movement itself because you know what your body is ready 

[00:21:27] Zach: for.

[00:21:28] Jeremy: Let's talk about your wellness. What, what do you do to make sure that your numbers represent the way you hope that.

[00:21:34] Zach: Yeah, 

[00:21:34] Caroline Kryder: that's a good question. I would say that I used to really lie to myself about sleep. Um, I would lie in bed for a cool eight hours and maybe six of them were actually focused on sleeping. I would be angry. In bed reading, reading, saying here I am, I haven't fallen asleep yet. So I committed all of the sins.

[00:21:56] Um, am I sort of bedtime routine has been fully optimized and then something that I found personally that works for me is excellent. So for me, magnesium is really great for sleep and soaking. My feet has become like the nighttime ritual for me and has made a huge difference. And I am a big believer in, it's not weird if it works like whatever works for you.

[00:22:20] Doesn't matter if you can explain the mechanism, if it's that I'm relaxed because I'm soaking my feet. If it's the magnesium, if it's the smell, the ritual doesn't matter because I am, you know, in the nineties for awhile 

[00:22:33] Zach: now.

[00:22:34] Jeremy: Nice. I've never heard that one. We always hear the, you know, the dark room. Cool temperature, no screens an hour before bedtime. Are there other sort of, uh, sort of off the wall, things that people maybe have not have heard of?

[00:22:46] Zach: I 

[00:22:46] Caroline Kryder: mean, it really depends. You'll hear some people, one of the fun experiments that I, I like to encourage people to run is take a cold shower and take a hot shower and see which one works for your physiology. Some people are big believers that you take the hot shower, and then when you get out, your body starts to cool itself down and your body naturally cools itself down to sleep.

[00:23:05] So maybe you kickstart the process. Other people are like, no, I take the cold shower. So I get myself cold. We skip all the way straight to the cold part and then I get into bed. So I think that's a really good tip. And it's a fun experiment to see what works for you personally.

[00:23:20] Jeremy: Yeah.

[00:23:21] Zach: So I'm sure you've heard hundreds, if not thousands of success, stories or life change stories.

[00:23:29] , just due to the data that people are seeing with this written, do you have one or two That really stick out in your mind is like these gigantic changes that people made because of. Yeah, that's 

[00:23:41] Caroline Kryder: a good question. I definitely want to celebrate the small changes that a lot of people make.

[00:23:45] Um, I feel like a lot of people get a tool like this and expect some incredible transformation when really 15, 30 minutes more. Or, uh, a better awareness of their body could be enough and those should be celebrated, but there have been some big moments. , some of the joyous ones are definitely around people discovering that they're pregnant, thanks to the temperature data.

[00:24:08] So we did a pregnancy study. Where we invited a bunch of users who had been wearing the ring while they were pregnant to share the patterns that they'd seen in their data with UCS. And we found that your temperature increases five and a half days after conception. And that is really, really fast. And that is really meaningful for people who are waiting and weeding for that type of information.

[00:24:33] So I think there's some joyous stories like that. And then there've been some scary ones for sure. Somebody writes into us and says, something's wrong on my heart rate graph. My heart is, you know, 20 beats higher than it was last week, or my ring is no longer showing me data. And that's because it can't read their heartbeat and arrhythmia hasn't occurred and they need to go to the doctor or their heart is actually doing something differently.

[00:24:58] So I think a lot of us are used to spot checking our health. You go into the doctor when something's wrong, and there have been a lot of cases where people see that something is. in advance because now they're just more in touch with their baselines.

[00:25:11] Jeremy: That's incredible.

[00:25:14] Zach: Yeah. It's huge.

[00:25:16] Jeremy: You mentioned earlier some of the things that are coming later this year, one that, that my wife brought up and again, maybe this is something that exists and we don't know how to turn it on, but, uh, she was saying that particularly when she's at work during the day, if like she suddenly, like, she's like involved in some heated thing with some colleague and it's really stressful, she was saying, wouldn't it be great if the, if the app said, Hey, your heart rates rate. Chill

[00:25:39] Zach: Kel.

[00:25:40] Jeremy: Is, does that exist or, or is that on the horizon?

[00:25:44] Caroline Kryder: That's a really good question. , some people have maybe written in about having some sort of alert or, you know, haptic feedback, some vibrating or something with the ring. But I think one of the big things that differentiates or a right now is the voice of the product and everything, and the way that it helps you care for yourself is no screens, no flashing, no notifications.

[00:26:05] The only notifications that you'll get is like, charge me. And to stretch your legs. So in the moment feedback, , hasn't been prioritized just because we want you to, you know, go about your day naturally or sleep naturally. , but it's definitely something to consider and it is, you know, the feature where you can meditate during the day.

[00:26:26] The idea is that maybe you get enough body awareness that you start to recognize that in yourself and then are able to care for yourself. But the chill out ring is probably something a lot of us could use at some point in time. That new feature, the daytime heart rate graph, you can start checking your data with your wife.

[00:26:44] What it will do is kind of give you the journey of your heart throughout the day, and then it will color code the time that you were in restorative time, where you were actually, you know, um, gaining back those points and really taking that time for yourself. So you could look at her graphs presumably and see if there is no restorative time.

[00:27:03] Maybe the chill out is, you know, throughout the day.

[00:27:06] Jeremy: Yes, it's funny. I was looking at mine just before we got on this call and there is this spike, like just a dramatic spike at seven o'clock. And that's when it's like kids, we got to get out the door or you're gonna miss the bus. And it just, and I remember being very frustrated this morning when, when that, uh, when that happened.

[00:27:22] Zach: And 

[00:27:22] Caroline Kryder: you feel free to use that against them when they come home, this is what you do to.

[00:27:26] Jeremy: fault.

[00:27:28] Zach: Uh, I do want to say it my, my better half. , she did comment on the fact that she's always worn. , trackers on her wrist. And while, , I've got one on too, like they do, they notify you they're active throughout the day. And she was just so ecstatic that she had all of this data with no notifications whatsoever and that it was benign.

[00:27:51] She forgot that she was wearing it yet. She was getting all of this information. And I just want to comment on that. Like, it's just such a great feature. , but the one notification that I get on my phone that I love is when the ring is fully charged. So like my watch, I always put it down and then I realized three days later that I never put it back on. So I really appreciate that about the ring that it tells you, Hey, go, go put it back on. It's done. 

[00:28:20] Caroline Kryder: I'm glad I'll tell the product team because they never get feedback. Nobody writes it, a technical support ticket to say, I love that you tell me that you're fully charged, but I

[00:28:29] Jeremy: Keep up the

[00:28:30] Caroline Kryder: think it's great. I'm glad that your, your partner feels that way though.

[00:28:33] I think there are quite a few people who've written into us who said, wow, I didn't realize until this was my primary activity tracker. How much my run was focused on and how fast am I now? And then my meeting the time and how many calories. And I said, I was going to do two and a half miles. So I got to get to two and a half miles rather than just going and experiencing your body and maybe going for a run for the joy of going for a run instead of metrics and maybe checking afterwards how you did.

[00:29:00] So hopefully more people have that experience. I'm guilty of both sides.

[00:29:04] Jeremy: Yes. Uh, I promise I have a question, but I also, uh, just a comment. Um, my wife doesn't like to wear rings and she has to take her wedding ring off at night because her hands can swell up and it hurts. And so she takes it off. And when she opened the box, she's like, oh my God, it's really pretty. Like, and that is like, she loved it.

[00:29:22] And I see her, she wears it all the time. So it's so well done on the. But, uh, the question that I'll get to you, you've also speaking of changes and things that are new, there's now a membership model with the ring. So tell us about the membership model. Why that now as part of this and sort of how it works.

[00:29:38] Zach: Yeah. So 

[00:29:39] Caroline Kryder: that's a, that's a great question. We are moving to a membership model. So, um, there's a monthly fee and we're pretty excited because we take the writing in and the comments and the ideas from our user base really seriously. There are a lot of requests on the roadmap and a lot that people want us to build in.

[00:29:57] Um, so what we've done is. That membership is going to be fueling more features coming out faster. Um, some of the research that we want to do, you know, we've launched a couple of research studies in the app, like our COVID study Tempur-Pedic and then content. So we added that whole tab, the explore tab.

[00:30:15] You were saying, Jeremy you've maybe tried a meditation or two. So that is going to be expanding every month with more content. So whether that's guided meditations and changing up what's available, so you can try a new technique and new breath work style, or a new meditative style, but also education content.

[00:30:33] That's number one thing that people write into us saying. Give me more and more and more and more and more. So they're going to be educational slide shows in there. That'll help you learn about topics. Like how does caffeine impact your body? What does melatonin do? So definitely excited to see how that expands and if we can have sort of a more responsive conversation then with our members who are saying, we want this, okay, here you go.

[00:30:55] Based on our innovation.

[00:30:57] Jeremy: That's awesome. , I want to leave it there. Is there anything else that we didn't touch on that you want to make sure we mentioned about the ring to make sure people are.

[00:31:06] Zach: Sure. I guess 

[00:31:06] Caroline Kryder: I'm a couple of other things that maybe you guys have, have played with that trend view or not. , I think a lot of people maybe don't know that. Go into that view. So clicking on the hamburger menu, those three lines in the top left and hitting trends. , and then you can turn your phone into landscape mode.

[00:31:23] And a lot of people are only looking at their data in portrait and not looking at weeks and months. And I think turning it sideways, a lot of people have some aha moments, , about those larger life changes. So I think that's a really special view. so I definitely would want people to know about that.

[00:31:39] , I think than that, I hope neither one of you has had breast mode engaged, but it sounds like, 

[00:31:46] Zach: okay.

[00:31:47] Jeremy: been recommended a couple of times and I'm like, no, no, no. Rest for me. I've, I've got things to do.

[00:31:53] Zach: I did the one time I got sick, that, 

[00:31:56] Caroline Kryder: that I think is a really critical piece where, you know, if your temperature changes and it's your personal temperature, you know, some of us run hot. Some of us run cold. If your temperature changes, you get this mode triggered rest mode where it's not only going to mute your activity goals, which is really important.

[00:32:14] It sounds like, especially. Zac for people who have, you know, a couple of different CrossFit classes, maybe in the week, it says, don't, don't worry about activity, focus on recovery, and then it helps you track your symptoms and gives you different insights on recovery. And so I think that's a, that's a pretty cool offering that we have that people might not know about.

[00:32:33] And it's such a powerful use of the temperature data that if people are looking for that, I think it's really, really special.

[00:32:40] Jeremy: Now that you say that I remember the time that it did suggest rest mode was I got my, my booster, my vaccine, uh, my COVID booster. And it was like, oh, you might want to. And it's funny. I actually, instead I went and did some breath work and like in an hour I was like, oh, okay, good. I feel great now and moved on with my life.

[00:32:54] But, uh, but

[00:32:55] Zach: That's what you needed.

[00:32:57] Jeremy: yeah. But again, like it just made me go, oh, okay, well maybe I should do something. So again, just that awareness that it helps bring to your wellness, I think is just literally an amazingly powerful tool. So, so I'm

[00:33:07] Zach: That's awesome.

[00:33:08] Jeremy: for it. So, uh, well, great. Thank you so much for your time.

[00:33:12] Where do we learn more about the ring? Where do we get it? All that kind of stuff.

[00:33:15] Caroline Kryder: Yeah. Uh, we have a website. Um, I would say let's, you know, attach the URL, um, rather than me reading it off. But, um, if you just Google search for aura ring, we have our blog up there as well. Um, so lots to learn and dig into on there.

[00:33:31] Zach: That was Caroline Krider, the 

[00:33:32] science communications lead for aura. You can find links to aura in the show notes for this

[00:33:36] episode@thefitness.com. 

[00:33:38] Jeremy: So many takeaways 

[00:33:40] from that interview for you, if you're interested in the aura

[00:33:42] ring, especially if you're a woman it's So many of the updates are focused on 

[00:33:47] women's health, something Zach, and I know nothing about, however, this was an opportunity for us to be able to get our wives, 

[00:33:52] to participate in the show for the first time. So that's 

[00:33:54] been fun,

[00:33:56] Zach: Yeah, it was, 

[00:33:57] Jeremy: But, like I said, I'm loving the daytime heart rate monitor. That's a huge,

[00:34:00] upgrade for me. 

[00:34:01] It's something that I'm using every single day. I'm 

[00:34:03] like I said, obsessively, checking it first thing in the morning to make 

[00:34:06] sure that I've, I've slept the way that I needed to, to get the recovery that I need so that when I go to the gym, I know how hard 

[00:34:11] to push or how much I need to maybe 

[00:34:13] back off that day and maybe most.

[00:34:15] The 

[00:34:15] app replaces so many other wearables and trackers and other apps. I've literally deleted three other apps off 

[00:34:21] of my phone because of everything this one has to offer. And, uh, in addition to 

[00:34:25] that, so many 

[00:34:26] educational tools, so you can learn about your heart rate 

[00:34:28] variability and all of the things that you need to do to make sure that 

[00:34:31] your body is performing the way that you want it to 

[00:34:34] Zach: so I'll throw this out to the 

[00:34:35] community. If you're using an or a ring, or even if you're using anything 

[00:34:39] else to track your health and wellness, we would love to 

[00:34:41] keep this conversation going . by joining us in our Facebook group where you and fellow fitness listeners can

[00:34:46] stay connected, participate in monthly challenges and

[00:34:49] find accountability to help you reach your goals. Like

[00:34:52] getting that 100

[00:34:54] on your aura score, 

[00:34:56] Jeremy: unicorn, the great white Buffalo, whatever it is I'm going to get one of these. 

[00:34:59] Zach: do it. 

[00:35:00] Jeremy: All right. That link is also at our website, the

[00:35:01] fit mass.com, where we will be back

[00:35:03] next week with a brand new episode. Very excited about

[00:35:06] this one, featuring the man behind the P90X home workout program.

[00:35:09] and so much more. Tony Horton joins us

[00:35:12] going to talk to him about how he motivated

[00:35:14] me to finally take action on some of my own

[00:35:16] fitness goals. We'll see you then.

[00:35:18] Thanks for listening 

[00:35:19]