- Using an O2Ring
What is sleeping to you? Seems so freakin’ simple — right? Sleep is sleep. Is it though?
“Get a good nights sleep” we are told. We hear… to be healthy and burn fat properly and recover from hard workouts, you must have at least 7 hours and preferably 8 hours of sleep. But, don’t sleep too much!!!
A little epiphany I had was that 1) laying in bed is not the same as 2) sleeping. Obvious, I know. But, honestly, I had not separated those two in my mind completely. Once I did, then hours in bed did not equate to sleep nor sleep to sleep quality.
On a visit with my daughter and son-in-law we talked about their use of the Apple Smart Watch and Fitbit for sleep monitoring. And, my daughter-in-law said she used an Apple sound monitoring app. I looked at many sleep monitoring devices and was confused. Let’s just say I am not an Apple Fanboy and was looking for an alternative. Several people liked Fitbit and I was leaning that way based on reviews and price. But, I wasn’t convinced and held off making a purchase.
On my yearly doctor visit, I mentioned that my snoring level had increased based on wifely complaints and that more than once I dreamt a bear was after me, woke up, and realized the bear was me snoring! Haha. He ordered a home test service to deliver an Oximeter that would record O2 levels while sleeping. A light bulb went off! An Oximeter — that made a ton of sense.
Not wanting to wait for the doctor ordered test, I started searching to buy a O2 measurement device. After reading many technical and consumer reviews, I settled on the Wellue O2 Ring. It is easy to set-up. Install the device software on your computer and phone. Plug into the USB of your computer. Then tell it to sync clocks. Check the vibration alarm levels when the ring will tell you if your O2 or pulse is low. I left mine at the defaults of pulse alarm off and O2 alarm vibrate <88%. On/off is automatic based on if you have it on/off your finger.
Remove the ring in the morning and the phone app auto-downloads the night’s O2 and pulse readings in less than 30 seconds. There are graphs of O2 levels, pulse readings and marks on the graph where the ring vibrated from a low O2 reading. Plug into a PC with the supplied USB cable and download the data for a more detailed print-ready report to share with your doc.
Here is what the phone app displays. Top left is an overall score (8.8 in this example)for the night that is graphed in a History page to show your day-to-day trend.
This is the first page of the daily report the computer software generates. I found the graph showing the percentage of SPO2 readings in the three bars indicating <95%, 90–95%, and > 90% to be the most useful. The next pages show detailed graphs of O2 percentage and pulse with indicators where the vibration alarm went off. O2 levels below 90% are problematic from medical sites I checked.
What to do with all this data? I felt lost the first couple days. Then as I started to look at it each day it made more intuitive sense. Seemingly, I had achieved most of what was possible from the vibration alarm helping change sleep behavior. The vibration woke me up one night and I was sleeping on my arm and moving onto my other side fixed the O2. Another time I was on my back snoring and I rolled over and O2 levels returned to normal. After google searches on improving sleep quality, one item that came up in several lists was to try a different pillow.
My pillow was old. I had bought one six months ago but it was too thick and my neck hurt after waking up so I had gone back to a very soft and thin old pillow. I tried the new one again and while my sleep improved that night according to O2 numbers I had the sore neck again. So, after more searches I bought the EPABO Contour Memory Foam Pillow. This one checked some boxes for my symptoms and was inexpensive on Amazon at around $40.
The first night was a big improvement with my minutes of O2 < 90% dropping from an average of 4 minutes down to about 1 minute (one night only 12 sec!) and the range night-to-night decreased dramatically as well. This has been consistent over five days now and my wife says no snoring has been heard since the pillow change!
In summary, still only a few data points and things could change. My early analysis is that the O2 Ring and pillow have been more than worth the ~$200 I have spent. I am feeling more rested. The data from the O2 Ring seems repeatedable except I do question the nightly low pulse readings which could be related to hand position and the fact my left shoulder has some issues that I am awaiting to start PT for. I am going to experiment with the ring on the right hand and try thumb and index finger to see if those changes make any difference.
The consistent O2 reading is the most important to me. When the alarm goes off and I am cognizant of that, each time I made an adjustment in position or breathing, the alarm turned off and my sleep resumed at a better O2 percentage.
Overall, I recommend the O2 Ring though there are many other oximeters onI the market. An oximeter measuring something critical (O2) seems a much better sleep indicator than measuring movement or sound. Pillows are so personal and I hesitate to recommend one — for me, the Epabo definitely has improved my comfort and sleep backed by empirical and O2 measurement data.
Update
With 5+ months of use and a 95%+ usage rate I can make some more observations about the O2Ring and getting a better nights sleep. Here are some bullet points.
- When traveling from my mountain home (3700' elevation) and living at sea level for two weeks there was a dramatic improvement in reducing the number of low O2 alarms. I can guess higher O2 levels at sea level were involved and found some supporting studies though there is not unanimous agreement by doctors and scientists.
- Reducing alcohol intact has been beneficial. It is not a direct correlation of drink alcohol and have crappy sleep, but, definitely there has been a positive effect in sleep quality when alcohol consumption is reduced.
- Stopping eating a couple hours before going to sleep is critical.
- Low temperature in the bedroom is a must-have. I have been using open windows and a fan. Some kind of chill-pad or chill-mattress could be in my future.
- My brain and body seem to be functioning better when getting higher quality sleep though this is certainly subjective. My overall health has been good and that has been maintained.
- The O2Ring low O2 alarm vibration has helped inculcate sleep habit changes that reduce those episodes. Examples are maintaining a side position sleep position, finding a better pillow for proper head position, and maintaining a deeper breathing pattern. The O2Ring low O2 alarm highlighted a propensity I had for shallow breathing. I now notice a more pronounced diaphragmic type breathing.
