Your sleeping heart rate curve is your heart’s personal signature. A lower resting heart rate (RHR) is a sign of quality recovery and health.

By looking at your resting heart rate (RHR) curve in your Oura App, you can see the effects of late meals, evening workouts, alcohol, sickness, being misaligned with your circadian rhythm, and more.

What Is Your Sleeping Heart Rate?

Nightly average RHR varies widely between individuals. A normal heart rate can range anywhere from 40 to 100 beats per minute (BPM) and still be considered average. It can also change from day to day, depending on your hydration level, elevation, physical activity, and body temperature. As with many of your body’s signals, it’s best to compare your RHR with your own baseline. Avoid comparisons to those around you.

When looking at your RHR curve, pay special attention to these three things:

• Your trend: Does your RHR go up, down, or stay level during the night?
• Your lowest point: When is your RHR lowest?
• Your end: Right before you wake up, does your RHR change?

With these questions in mind, here are four patterns you may recognize in the night-time heart rate curves you can see with Oura:

4 Types of Sleeping Heart Rate Patterns

The Hammock: Relaxed in Bed and Ready to Rise

The hammock curve shows an optimal overnight heart rate journey. During your initial sleep stages, your body relaxes and your blood pressure and heart rate begin to drop.

In this scenario, your lowest RHR occurs near the midpoint of your sleep, when the amount of melatonin present reaches a peak. If you are perfectly in sync with the sun’s patterns, your body temperature drops to its lowest level around 4 a.m.

Your RHR may momentarily rise during REM sleep. This is normal and you can ignore these temporary spikes when looking for the hammock curve during your sleep.

As you wake in the morning, your heart rate begins to rise. The hammock curve is a sign that your body was relaxed during the night and is ready to rise after a quality night’s sleep.

The Downward Slope: Your Metabolism Working Overtime

The Downward Slope is a sign that your metabolism is working overtime. Did you have a late meal, a late workout, or a glass of wine before bed? If your RHR starts high and reaches its lowest point right before you wake up, you may start the day feeling groggy.

If you regularly see this downward slope, it may be wise to stop and reassess your evening routine. For example, if you normally work out late at night, exercising  1–2 hours earlier can result in positive changes.

In the morning, getting fresh air and sunlight as soon as possible can help you get started on your day.

The Hill: Too Exhausted for Bed

If your RHR increases right after you fall asleep, this could be a sign of exhaustion. Did you go to sleep on time? If it’s past your regular bedtime, you may start feeling the effects of increased melatonin – a hormone that aids sleep – and lower blood pressure. This communication from your body serves as a warning of sorts, reminding you to get to bed on time.

If you did go to sleep during your ideal bedtime window, it’s possible that your heart rate may be increasing at the start of the night for reasons you can’t control. For instance, your airways may have relaxed during sleep, causing you to snore, which raises your heart rate.

Try adjusting your bedtime or addressing possible causes of congestion if you’re consistently seeing this curve in your sleeping heart rate.

The Uplands: Under Strain

A consistently elevated heart rate while asleep can indicate strain that is preventing your body from getting optimal rest and recovery. After a night with a heart rate pattern that looks like this, focus on giving your body a break — turn on Rest Mode, give yourself extra downtime, or an early afternoon nap.

Tips for Improved Sleep

When you’re sound asleep, your body is wide awake. Welcome its feedback, listen closely to what it has to say, and take steps towards optimizing your sleep.

Use the following tips to help boost your sleep routine:

• Try to wake up at the same time seven days a week. (Yes, that includes weekends.)
• Time your meals mindfully; late meals may show up as the Downward Slope.
• If your sleep pattern is optimal (Hammock Curve), take notes. Think about what you did (or didn’t do) the previous day and continue to make similar choices.

Courtesy of OURA Team

Author: Oura Team  March 16, 2023

Resting heart rate (RHR) refers to the number of times your heart beats per minute when you’re at rest. It can be a helpful indicator of your sleep quality, recovery, and overall health. 

In general, a lower RHR is a sign of good physical fitness and overall health, while a higher RHR suggests potential illness, stress, or something else is challenging your body. 

According to Mayo Clinic, most healthy adults can expect resting heart rates to range from 60 to 100 beats per minute. But what about Oura Members? 

Here’s what aggregate data shows across Oura Members of varying age and gender.

Lowest Resting Heart Rate 

In the graphs below, we’re analyzing members’ lowest resting heart rate — a single number that takes into consideration members’ baselines.

Overall, Oura members’ resting heart rates range from the mid-50s to mid-60s.  This chart shows that resting heart rate increases slightly until about age 60, at which point it levels off and lowers slightly. 

For female Oura members, the average lowest RHR is 58.1 and for men, it’s 54.5. 

As these charts show, women tend to have a slightly higher RHR than men. This has to do with the size of the female heart, which is typically smaller than males. Because a smaller heart pumps less blood with each beat, the smaller female heart beats at a faster rate to match the larger male heart’s output.

Average Resting Heart Rate 

These charts look at members’ average RHR captured during the night. 

Average heart rate patterns tend to follow similar patterns to lowest heart rate across age and gender distributions.

What Factors Affect My Resting Heart Rate?

Your RHR is affected by a number of factors, both in and out of your control.

To lower your resting heart rate, the best thing to do is to get regular cardiovascular exercise — walking, jogging, cycling, or swimming all count. Other tips include: 

• Go to bed at a consistent time.
• Avoid alcohol, caffeine, and smoking.
• Stay well hydrated. 
• Practice stress management techniques such as breathwork or meditation. Find some follow-along exercises in the Explore Tab in your Oura App. 

Courtesy of OURA Team

Author: Locke Hughes  September 19, 2022

What Are the 4 Stages of Sleep?

Each night you take a rollercoaster ride through the different phases of sleep. Though you’re unaware of what goes on while you’re snoozing, your brain and body are in an active state.

Each stage of sleep plays a different role in how you feel the next day. Read on to learn which stage helps your brain, which restores your body, and if you’re striking a good balance between the stages each night.

There are traditionally 4 stages of sleep: awake, light, deep, and REM sleep. Each one plays an essential role in maintaining your mental and physical health.

As you’re reading about sleep, you may also see the terms “NREM” or “NREM Stages 1-4.” These are simply other terms for the phases of sleep.

• REM sleep stands for “rapid eye movement” and can also be called “stage R”
• NREM (or non-rapid eye movement) sleep includes light and deep sleep stages, and may also be referred to NREM stages 1-4, with light sleep being NREM stages 1-2 and deep sleep encompassing NREM stages 3-4

What Happens in Each Stage of Sleep?

Each stage of sleep plays a different role in preparing your body for the next day.

Why Awake Time Matters

It’s normal to wake up some times during the night, whether or not you’re conscious of being awakened. In the Oura App, you’ll see your amount of Awake Time shown in your Sleep tab. The nighttime Movement graph also gives you an idea of how many times you wake up during the night (find it by tapping the arrow just below Sleep Stages to expand this view). A tall, white line indicates excessive movement, suggesting you were likely awake.

If you feel refreshed in the morning and energetic during the day, you most likely don’t need to worry about your wake-ups or movement during the night. However, if you’re feeling fatigued, it could be an indication of something that’s affecting your sleep quality, or an untreated sleep disorder like sleep apnea.

Why Light Sleep Matters

Despite its name, light sleep is no lightweight when it comes to your health. It’s a key stage of sleep that delivers benefits to your brain and body, including codifying memories and boosting creativity. And that’s nothing to sleep on, given that about half of your time asleep — about 50% — is spent in this stage.

Light sleep actually occurs in two stages: NREM stages 1 and 2 sleep. Think of NREM stage 1 as “falling asleep.” During this time, your muscles relax, your heart begins to slow down, and your body temperature dips. Your brain waves slow down, moving from a regular, rhythmic pattern to one with less frequent, less regular waves. Stage 1 sleep usually only lasts a few minutes.

NREM stage 2 sleep makes up the bulk of your NREM sleep. During this stage of sleep, your muscles relax, and may jerk. Your respiration and heart rate slow down, your body temperature drops, and your brain waves also slow down and increase in amplitude.

Why Deep Sleep Matters

Deep sleep, also known as slow-wave sleep, is the body’s most rejuvenating sleep stage. During deep sleep, which occurs in the third NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep cycle, your body gets busy repairing and restoring many systems, from your brain to your muscles.

During deep sleep, your body slows way down. Your heart rate and breathing are at their lowest rate, and your muscles are fully relaxed. Your brain’s electrical activity slows down into long, slow waves known as delta waves, hence the name “slow-wave sleep.” It’s difficult to be woken up during this stage — and if you do, you can expect to feel groggy and “out of it.”

Typically, deep sleep occurs within an hour of falling asleep and you usually get more deep sleep during the earlier part of the night.

Why REM Sleep Matters

During REM sleep, as the name suggests, your eyes move rapidly behind your closed eyelids, your heart rate speeds up, and breathing becomes irregular. Brain activity also speeds up, mimicking brainwave activity while you’re awake. You may also experience irregular, jerky muscle twitches as you dream, and it tends to be more difficult to wake up during REM sleep. To protect yourself from acting out dreams, your body can also a loss of muscle tone during REM.

While it’s no longer true that you only dream during REM sleep, studies suggest that about 80% of vivid dream recall results after arousal from this stage of sleep.

Research has shown that REM plays an incredibly important role in both emotional health and learning. “Essentially, REM is creating a revised mind-wide web of associations,” explains Matthew Walker, Ph.D., author of Why We Sleep. “We make connections during REM sleep.” Furthermore, getting enough REM sleep may help mitigate potentially negative emotional reactions.

What Does A Normal Night Look Like?

The amount of each of the 4 stages of sleep can vary significantly between nights and individuals. During an ideal night’s sleep, your body has enough time to go through four to five 90-minute cycles that sample different phases of sleep as the night progresses.

In general, each cycle moves sequentially through each of the 4 stages of sleep: wake, light sleep, deep sleep, REM, and repeat.  Cycles earlier in the night tend to have more deep sleep while later cycles have a higher proportion of REM. By the final cycle, your body may even choose to skip deep sleep altogether.

Overall, your body spends the majority of the night in light sleep. How much time you spend in REM or deep can vary widely by individual but below are the averages you can expect for each stage in a single night.

How Much Time Do You Spend in Each of the 4 Stages of Sleep?

Common Reasons for Disrupted Sleep Cycles

All stages of sleep are important and your body naturally regulates your sleep cycles to make sure you get what you need. Tools like the Oura Ring can help you monitor your sleep patterns and generate a Sleep Score each night to help you improve your sleep.

Check out these patterns to see if your sleep is being disrupted:

• Increase in deep sleep after a hard workout: Studies show that exercise can increase your body’s prioritization of deep sleep the night after an intensive workout.
• Higher REM rebound after sleep deprivation: When you recover from a period of sleep deprivation, your body prioritizes deep sleep for the first few nights to repair your body and prepare for action. After several nights of sufficient deep sleep, REM sleep rebounds  to focus on your brain.
• Interrupted sleep cycles after caffeine: Caffeine can increase the time it takes for you to fall asleep, cutting your sleep period short. Shorter sleep periods disproportionately cut down on your total REM sleep, as REM cycles are more likely to occur in later sleep cycles.

Taking a look at your nightly patterns (e.g. heart rate, body temperature) and acting on your desire to improve your sleep can help you face those days well rested.

Courtesy of OURA Team

Author: Oura Team  February 15, 2023