Oura ring knows: Are you more stressed on the weekend or during the work week?
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Oura scores for each day of a week.
This article uses interesting real-life examples to look at the Oura ring´s heart rate, heart rate variability, and respiration rate.
We look at how the measurements vary depending on the day and what kind of correlations we can find.
The examples presented in this article illustrate averages of about 50-200 weeks of Oura data.
As data accumulates, you may begin to notice, for instance, whether you are more stressed on the weekends or during the workweek. This knowledge could provide new ideas to reduce stress and improve recovery.
With Olonio Insights service, you can learn about stress on weekends, working days, and much more.
Heart rate and heart rate variability mirror each other but move in opposite directions.
A higher than average heart rate is often a sign of stress in the body. On the other hand, a lower-than-average heart rate indicates a better-than-average recovery.
The heart rate variability (HRV) correlates strongly with heart rate but in the opposite direction. You can see this clearly in the image below.
A higher HRV reading usually signifies a better recovery, while a lower heart rate variability means more stress.
The figure below shows the average values for each day of the week based on several years of Oura use.
1. More stress on the weekends than on the working days?
A common trend in long-term Oura data is that the body is, on average, more stressed on the weekend than during the work week. Heart rate is higher than average, and heart rate variability is lower.
In the example above, heart rate averages 59.5 beats per minute on a night between Friday and Saturday. The weekly average heart rate is 55.8, so the heart beats on average four beats more per minute compared to the average.
Weekend nights, in this case, mean the night between Friday and Saturday and the night between Saturday and Sunday.
Of course, the difference is subtle, but if the same thing happens every weekend night, the load can increase in the long run.
There can be many reasons for higher stress on the weekend, but sometimes this may be due to a few doses of alcohol in the evening.
You can learn from your Oura data how stressed you are on the weekends compared to the work week. Find out what additional information you can realize about your well-being with Oura data.
1.1 Another way to look at the stress on the weekends with Oura.
Using the same Oura dataset, let’s look at HRV values over the weekends and other days.
In the image above, the X-axis represents the dates. The y-axis represents HRV values. Each point depicts HRV value on a specific night.
The left side of the image shows the HRV values for the weekend nights from Friday evening to Sunday morning. The average HRV for these nights is 21.8. On the right, you can see the remaining five nights, i.e., from Monday to Friday. The average HRV for these nights is 25.1.
Also, presented this way, the weekend seems more stressful for this person. On the weekends, the HRV is about 13% (3.3 points) lower than during the week.
On weekends, HRV values are also farther from the mean than on days of the week.
2. Heavy exercise late at night can hinder recovery.
A heavy weekly training session may differ negatively from the recovery charts in a higher heart rate.
The image above shows data where an Oura user has done a heavy workout every Tuesday night. Oura values for Wednesday mean the values for the night between Tuesday and Wednesday.
Compared to the averages of the other days, the recovery in the night after exercise has been repeatedly weaker than on the other nights. The night after your workout, the heart rate is well above average, 46,4. The heart rate variability is the lowest of the week, 80,3.
Read also: How to achieve the best result with Oura Workout HR.
2.1. Listen to yourself, don’t just stare at Oura scores.
Even if the stress on the body the night after exercise is higher than average, training can still be positive for well-being.
A higher heart rate after exercise is not a reason to quit a sport. But suppose the heart rate is always higher after a particular activity. In that case, listening to the body carefully the next day may be a good idea. Does the workout still impact the next morning?
Some people can exercise late at night without problems, but it’s good to know if you’re one. If you are not feeling the best, it may be good to consider doing the heaviest exercises earlier. Combining HRV with your body knowledge can help optimize your training schedule.
The effect of a single exercise on your heart rate may not be readily noticeable. But when you combine tens of weeks of Oura data, the consequences can be more easily distinguished.
3. Can stress be noticed in the Oura respiratory rate?
Breathing is one of my primary interests, so I have also explored the relationship between respiration rate and other values. Now we look at whether the respiratory rate correlates with stress, in this case, the lowest heart rate of the night.
When looking at heart rate on different days of the week with more than 100 weeks of data, the correlation between heart rate and heart rate is surprisingly high quite often. If one night the heart rate is higher than average, the same happens with respiration rate.
Respiratory rate is a less sensitive measure of heart rate and heart rate variability, which means that the changes in respiratory rate are less noticeable.
The average respiration rate in the data may be 16.24 on the most stressful night, while it is 16.10 on the most relaxed night. In the second dataset, the highest value is 15.15, and the lowest is 14.54.
Such changes are not readily apparent in the daily use of Oura. However, many have noticed that during the flu or fever, for example, both heart rate and respiration rate increase.
The relationship between respiration rate and heart rate only begins to show up over a more extended measurement period, like 50-100 weeks. The connection is much weaker when looking at only 25 weeks of Oura data.
In this example, we've looked at long-term data as average values over seven days of the week. You can usually find a 0.3-0.45. correlation between respiration rate and heart rate by examining the correlations in Oura Cloud. But in that case, we look at hundreds of pairs of data.
Oura calculates respiration rate from a heart rate measurement, which may affect the high relationship between the two values.
These findings are based on quite a small amount of data, but I will investigate the topic in more detail in the future. I hope it clarifies whether this is a coincidence or a general trend.
4. How stressed are you on the weekends?
Oura's app doesn't currently differentiate data by day of the week.
The Olonio Insights service tells you about stress on working days and weekends. You will also learn how stress varies in summer or winter and which day of the week you wake up late or sleep the longest.
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