Latest news with #Women'sHealthWeek
Tom's Guide
19-05-2025
- Health
- Tom's Guide
Your heart rate could signal this about your reproductive health, says new Whoop study
Like many women, I track my menstrual cycle, and I find it's a great way to learn more about my overall health and well-being. Whether I'm noting fluctuations in mood or energy levels or simply checking when I can expect my period, my Oura Ring 4 has me covered. This article is part of Tom's Guide's Women's Health Week — a series of content that explores how technology and the right workouts can support and empower women through every phase of life. Most of the best fitness trackers or smartwatches, from smart rings like Oura to the Apple Watch, or Garmin, can tell you what your health looks like from nearly every angle — recovery, menstrual cycle and stress levels are just a few examples — so it's no surprise that your Whoop device can too. A new 2024 study published in Nature's Digital Medicine Journal and led by Whoop researchers can tell you how changes to your cardiovascular function could reveal more about your reproductive health and potential underlying health conditions. Here's everything the study found — and how the data could help you. Your menstrual cycle can tell you a whole lot more about your health than you might realize. And now, researchers have developed a digital biomarker for tracking the menstrual cycle using your wearable and cardiovascular health. Researchers of this study collected cardiovascular and menstrual cycle data from 11,590 global Whoop users — 9,968 natural cyclers who weren't using birth control pills and 1,661 who were. Using wrist-worn wearable biometric data, the team investigated cardiovascular fluctuations in resting heart rate (RHR) and heart rate variability (HRV), which they called 'cardiovascular amplitude.' Both are known to vary, and the study examined a whopping 45,811 menstrual cycles to learn more. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Through the study, researchers hoped to know more about the reproductive lifespan and identify what menstrual irregularities (if any) occur using the continuous monitoring capabilities of the wearable and its biometric data, making it an incredibly unique study. They found patterns! Fluctuations occurred in a 'regular and predictable pattern across the menstrual cycle,' with those fluctuations significantly tempered (reduced) in those using hormonal birth control or those who were older or with a high BMI. For those with cycles who weren't using hormonal contraception, resting heart rate decreased at the start of each cycle, reaching its lowest point around day five, then rising to its highest point around day 26. The researchers hypothesize this could be linked with progesterone increasing during the luteal phase, which is 'dampened' when using birth control. In contrast, heart rate variability showed a reverse trend, reaching the highest point at roughly day five, then the lowest point around day 27. Those using hormonal birth control had a significantly lower cardiovascular amplitude, and reduced amplitude was also found in those with higher BMI and those of older age. While we now know that BMI is an unreliable metric, there's still a link between those with high BMI and irregular cycles and hormonal imbalances. We also know that perimenopause and menopause signal a drop in the hormones estrogen and progesterone, which is more commonly associated with age and or reaching your last menstrual cycle. In short, researchers believe cardiovascular amplitude and its fluctuations could be a useful measure of your hormonal balance and cycle health. Measuring your resting heart rate and heart rate variability near the beginning and end of your cycle could help you track your unique menstrual cycle and hormones using your wearable. Further investigation is needed, and the evidence is in its infancy, but it's a promising start for making reproductive health more readily accessible to women. Using your wearable, you may be able to look at two cardiovascular metrics at two stages in your cycle to help assess your female reproductive hormones across your menstrual cycle, over time, learning your "normal." Researchers believe this study shows a 'major difference' in the cardiovascular physiology during the menstrual cycles of females naturally cycling versus those using hormonal birth control, plus how this changes with age and BMI. Understanding more about your body and tracking your version of 'normal' may help you become more in tune and informed about your body. If you are worried about your menstrual cycle, hormonal health, or heart rate, always seek medical advice as a priority. We never encourage wearable users to self-diagnose without first seeking medical advice or relying solely on wearable data.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Which fitness trackers are the best for tracking women's health?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The best fitness trackers can be excellent accountability tools in your pursuit of a healthy lifestyle. Whether you've got an Apple Watch, a Garmin, or a FitBit, these small but powerful devices can measure everything from your step count and resting heart rate to your maximal oxygen consumption and sleep patterns. Women's Health Week This article is part of Tom's Guide's Women's Health Week — a series of content that explores how technology and the right workouts can support and empower women through every phase of life. According to a review in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, women make up one of the largest groups of fitness tracker users. Many of these devices measure women-centric statistics like menstrual cycle and pregnancy information, but do they really provide women with useful insights into their own health? Or do they just collect data without any real or helpful context? Fitness trackers are wearable items, like watches and rings, that record your personal health metrics using a combination of motion sensors, optical heart rate sensors, and user information like height, weight, and age. They can measure your heart rate at rest and during exercise, the total number of steps you've taken in a day, how many calories you burn, and how many hours of deep sleep you get each night, among other metrics. Many fitness trackers will go even further to provide a deeper look into your overall wellness. Popular trackers from brands like Apple, Garmin, and Woop take the information they record and make estimates on your overall cardiovascular fitness, how much rest and recovery you need, and blood oxygen levels. Fitness trackers are relatively accurate on stats like distances walked and heart rate trends. Your readings may be a bit off based on how you wear your tracker, but for the most part, these kinds of readings are pretty spot on. Other measurements, like calories burned, can be less precise. Fitness trackers make estimates based on the data they collect, like your heart rate and activity levels, combined with objective data like your height, weight, and gender. These estimates don't account for body type or muscle mass, which can have a profound impact on the amount of calories you burn. Cardiovascular fitness measurements can also be a little far from the truth. Accurate VO2 max readings (or the maximum amount of oxygen your body can consume during exercise) are usually recorded using lab equipment and specific tests, whereas fitness tracker VO2 max readings are estimates based on your heart rate levels during exercise and recovery. While most fitness trackers offer menstrual cycle tracking as a primary feature, that information alone doesn't necessarily provide a full picture of women's health. A few models go well beyond menstrual cycle tracking with options to report discharge characteristics, mood shifts, and pregnancy events like baby kick counts and hiccups. Garmin fitness trackers offer some of the most detailed women's health insights. Not only can they track cycle dates and phases, but users can continue to track symptoms if periods are irregular or absent due to polycystic ovarian syndrome, menopause, pregnancy and breastfeeding, or contraceptive use. Here's how to use the menstrual tracking feature on your Garmin Watch Garmin's pregnancy tracking options are also some of the most detailed available, offering gestational age and size estimates, recommendations on prenatal nutrition and exercise, and the ability to enter blood glucose levels for management of gestational diabetes. Here's more about the Garmin pregnancy tracking feature. The Apple Watch provides a comprehensive look into women's health data as well, featuring temperature-sensing capabilities that can help determine ovulation days and fertile windows. As is the case with other fitness tracker metrics, though, these readings are just estimates. The Apple Watch also ranked highest in a recent JMIR Formative Research study among women on fitness tracker comfort, features, and motivational qualities. Fitness trackers can maximize your training potential and help you achieve a variety of health goals. Until recently, many fitness trackers focused heavily on activity and exercise without much attention to other wellness aspects. However, thanks to advances and upgrades in wearable tracker technology, fitness tracker brands have begun putting women's health needs at the forefront of their features. How to set up menstrual tracking on your Apple Watch How to sync your exercises to your menstrual cycle for better workouts Samsung Galaxy Ring is changing the game for cycle tracking — here's how
Tom's Guide
18-05-2025
- Health
- Tom's Guide
Exclusive: Oura explains how it's changing the game when it comes to menstrual tracking
I've used the Oura ring to track my menstrual cycle for the past four years, and it's the only device I trust to do so. My Oura ring knew I was pregnant before I did, helped me keep an eye on my vitals during pregnancy, and monitor how ready I was for exercise with a toddler who doesn't sleep. That, and many others, is a reason why it's at the top of our list of the best smart rings. This article is part of Tom's Guide's Women's Health Week — a series of content that explores how technology and the right workouts can support and empower women through every phase of life. But Oura is doing far more behind the scenes — in fact, it's designing algorithms for women, something that shouldn't be groundbreaking in 2025, but really is. We sat down with Oura's resident women's health expert, Dr. Neta Gotlieb. Gotlieb is a Senior Product Manager and Clinical Research Scientist, who has led the teams that developed Cycle Insights and Pregnancy Insights on the Oura ring. Dr. Gotlieb earned a Master's Degree in Biological Psychology from Tel Aviv University and a PhD in Reproductive Neuroendocrinology from University of California Berkeley, where she focused on the neural regulation of menstrual cycles, pregnancy, and birth. She has also received the Women in Tech Global Technology Leadership Award. A mother of two daughters, Dr. Gotlieb is the author of the children's book, Every Body's Brain. Developing wearable technology for women's health is complex due to significant biological variability and data gaps, as people with uteri have been historically under-researched. Hormonal changes differ greatly across individuals and even from cycle to cycle, making it difficult to standardize predictions. Additionally, much of the health and biometric data historically used to build algorithms has been male-dominated, limiting accuracy and inclusivity for women, especially those with irregular cycles or conditions like PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome). Oura addresses these challenges by using continuous, longitudinal data to build personalized baselines rather than relying on one-size-fits-all models. Our Cycle Insights feature specifically is grounded in physiological signals like temperature and heart rate variability, which Oura interprets in context over time. In addition, we are constantly conducting research to help improve not only our algorithms but also the scientific literature more broadly. Unlike some wrist-worn wearables, the ring form factor has a convenient and comfortable design that can be worn 24/7. This is particularly important because Oura can track women's health needs, like cycle phases, using biometrics — most notably skin temperature — to deliver contextual and actionable insights into health. The team has put a heavy focus on women's health feature development and research over the last few years to deliver resources for our female members. While the traditional calendar method assumes a woman's cycle is 28 days, modern research makes it clear that menstrual cycles vary widely between individuals, and in the same person from cycle to cycle. Rather than settle for general advice that is unlikely to match each individual's experience, tools like Oura help women identify their menstrual cycle and map how it affects different systems in the body. These insights can help members adapt their routine to each cycle phase. Oura's Cycle Insights feature (formerly known as Period Prediction) uses physiological data that is impacted by hormonal fluctuations, including heart rate, heart rate variability, temperature trends, and respiratory rate, to show current and past cycles with information on when a member's follicular and luteal phases take place. It also predicts the start of the next cycle and period onset within a five-day window. Meanwhile, for members who opt into Cycle Insights, they can utilize Fertile Window, a feature that uses two algorithms to predict and detect users' most fertile days based on past cycles and biometric data. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Oura also integrates with Natural Cycles to analyze body temperature and other key fertility indicators to determine your daily fertility status to plan for or prevent pregnancy naturally. At Oura, we believe that women's health extends far beyond reproductive health, which is why we present this data alongside other valuable health insights like sleep, activity, stress, heart health, and now metabolic health. Taken together, we're providing comprehensive insights into overall well-being that can help women better manage and understand their health at various points in their cycle. Oura offers a valuable lens into the subtle shifts your body experiences throughout your menstrual cycle. While the idea of aligning exercise, sleep, and nutrition with these phases is intriguing, it's essential to remember that every body is unique, and the science in this area, especially for the average person, is still evolving. By tracking your cycle phases alongside your sleep patterns, activity levels, and even notes on your nutrition and how you feel, you may start to identify your own individual patterns and correlations. For example, you might notice that during your follicular phase, you naturally have more energy for intense workouts, or that your sleep quality tends to dip in the luteal phase. Oura highlights these trends over time, providing a richer context for understanding your body's rhythms. This information can then inform your choices, rather than dictate them. You might feel inspired to experiment with different types of exercise during phases where you typically have more energy, or prioritize earlier bedtimes when your data suggests a tendency for less restful sleep. Similarly, you might become more attuned to changes in your appetite during certain phases and make conscious nutritional choices that support your comfort. Crucially, Oura also captures a wealth of other vital data points like stress levels and chronotype, which, as research suggests, can significantly influence how you feel and perform, potentially even more so than hormonal fluctuations alone. By considering this broader picture, you can make truly holistic decisions that account for all the factors impacting your well-being. Ultimately, Oura's role isn't to tell you exactly what to do based on your cycle. Instead, it's to provide you with the personalized data and insights to become more deeply connected to your body's natural rhythms, fostering a trial-and-error approach to discover what truly supports your individual exercise, sleep, and nutritional needs throughout your cycle and life. Oura Ring can be a valuable tool to navigate perimenopause, as it accurately tracks key health metrics affected during this transition, including sleep quality, body temperature, heart rate variability, and resting heart rate metrics–all of which often fluctuate with hormonal changes. Oura's Perimenopause Report found women can lose up to two hours of sleep weekly during this stage. Oura's detailed and research-validated sleep staging algorithm can help quantify and manage this decline by identifying patterns and triggers for disturbances like night sweats or insomnia. The report also found that heart rate variability, a key indicator of cardiovascular health, shows a 20-30% decline in early and late perimenopausal women. By tracking heart rate, HRV, and Resilience continuously, Oura can help members understand how stress and emotional changes impact their heart health, as well as identify stressors and recovery needs to determine management strategies. During perimenopause, cycles become irregular. If a member opts in to Oura's Cycle Insights, she can track her cycle regularity and download a six-month report of data to understand trends in her cycle and period length, temperature fluctuations, and more. Recently, Oura introduced two new metabolic health features: Meals and Glucose. These features can now allow members to see how nutrition, sleep, stress, and activity all influence blood glucose levels, which is important as metabolic changes often occur during perimenopause. The insights can help metabolic balance and energy management during this stage. Finally, Oura added 17 new tags specific to this transition to help members track symptoms and interventions, including hot flashes, mood swings, and HRT. Over time, they can see informative patterns in the Trends view of their data. The initial results from our ovulation detection validation study showed that Oura Ring had a 96.4% accuracy for estimating ovulation compared to the calendar method. Oura Ring demonstrated strong accuracy for irregular cycles, reducing ovulation detection errors from 6.63 days (calendar method) to 1.48 days. 82% of ovulation estimates were within 2 days of the reference date, compared to 32.5% using the calendar method The study assessed the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of using physiology from the Oura Ring to estimate ovulation date. The study compared performance across cycle length, cycle variability, and participant age. In each group, they compared the algorithm's performance to the traditional calendar method and leveraged ovulation prediction kits as a benchmark. The study sample consisted of 964 female participants with a mean age of 33 and a mean self-reported cycle length of 29 days. Apple recently published the results of their own ovulation detection capabilities and reported an average error of 1.70 days, with only 73.8% correctly detected within +/- 2 days. We see wearable technology like Oura Ring evolving towards even more personalized data and insights with a proactive approach to healthcare, and with a focus on holistic well-being. As it relates to women's health, we want Oura to be a comprehensive tool for women in understanding their body literacy, supporting them through every stage of their lives, and empowering them to take an active role in their health and well-being.
Tom's Guide
18-05-2025
- Health
- Tom's Guide
This one Oura Ring setting was a game changer for me after I had my baby
I write about fitness tech for a living, but for the first four months of my son's life, I took everything off. I was struggling with postpartum depression, and devices telling me how little I'd moved, slept, or recovered was the last thing I needed. This article is part of Tom's Guide's Women's Health Week — a series of content that explores how technology and the right workouts can support and empower women through every phase of life. Months later, when I finally felt strong enough to pop my Apple Watch and Oura Ring back on (an insignificant action to most, but a milestone to me), I leaned on a few features that really helped. I paused my rings on my Apple Watch, for example, removing the pressure to exercise on days when all I could do was sit on the sofa with my baby. I also used enabled Rest Mode on my Oura Ring — read on to find out what it does, why I did it and how to use it. According to Oura, Rest Mode allows you to 'focus on recovery when you feel tired, unwell, or need to slow down.' The Oura equivalent of pausing your Apple Watch rings, Rest Mode pauses your Activity Progress Goal, Activity Score and all activity-related contributors, allowing you to focus on rest. The Readiness and Sleep insights will also be adjusted to help you prioritize rest — something I wasn't getting with a newborn, but removing the pressure of not meeting activity goals helped. Oura says Rest Mode is designed for when you're feeling under the weather, when you're injured, sick, or traveling. If your Oura ring notices a spike in your average body temperature, you might get a notification that suggests switching to Rest Mode on your home screen. This is because the ring has noticed your body is under strain, and is suggesting that you should focus on recovery. If, like I did, you're turning on Rest Mode when you're not sick, here's the steps you'll need to follow: Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Once you have enabled Rest Mode, the data you see on your home screen will be different. At the bottom of your home screen, you'll be able to see that Rest Mode is enabled. When you're feeling better, simply tap the notification banner at the bottom of the home screen, or go back to the Rest Mode setting on the sidebar and select 'Turn off and delete tags'. It's worth noting that once you turn Rest Mode off, your Activity Goal and Score will slowly return to normal, taking into account the time you've been resting. I had Rest Mode on for a couple of months as I mentally recovered, so it took my ring a week to ease me back into my normal goals. During this period, I was still able to view my step count, active calories, and calorie burn if I wanted to, but I found the mental break from hitting fitness targets was what I needed. Remember, these devices are designed to motivate you, not stress you out. If you're feeling overwhelmed, take them off, re-set, and remember that all movement is medicine, whether you're tracking it or not.
Tom's Guide
18-05-2025
- Health
- Tom's Guide
I'm a personal trainer — here's what happens to your core during pregnancy, and how to rebuild it
Pregnancy transforms you, and I say that from (very recent) experience — I just gave birth to my first baby a week ago, and I still marvel at just how much my body has changed these past nine months. This article is part of Tom's Guide's Women's Health Week — a series of content that explores how technology and the right workouts can support and empower women through every phase of life. One aspect that many women notice in their 'fourth trimester' is a lack of abdominal strength. Your core muscles — along with your ligaments, organs, skin, and any other body part you can think of — shift and stretch to accommodate your growing bundle of joy. This can result in weakness and instability not only in your abs but throughout your body. While many women are eager to get back into pre-pregnancy shape, it's important to remember that rebuilding your core postpartum takes time. If you've recently welcomed a new family member and have gotten medical clearance for exercise, start with these steps to strengthen your abs. Your core is made up of several different muscles, located both deep within your torso and more superficially. As your uterus expands and your fetus grows, one of these muscles — the rectus abdominis — stretches and separates to make room. This is a condition known as diastasis recti, and while it's a normal occurrence during pregnancy, it can remain even after you've given birth. Diastasis recti causes a small gap in the stomach above the belly button and can lead to further issues if not addressed. Deeper muscles like the transverse abdominis, diaphragm, and pelvic floor also lengthen to make room for the baby. This can weaken these muscles, affecting pelvic stability and causing incontinence. Once your doctor has given you the go-ahead to resume exercise, roll out your yoga mat and start with these fundamental moves. Beginning with the basics will give you a strong foundation as you return to your pre-pregnancy activity levels. Diaphramatic breathing is not only beneficial postpartum, but it's also an excellent way to engage your core muscles during the prenatal period. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Once you've mastered diaphragmatic breathing, move on to these movements to address deep core strength. After you've developed a base level of deep core strength, try these exercises for core stability. All core exercises are not created equal. Some of the most popular ab moves like crunches, sit-ups, and bicycles can increase intra-abdominal pressure, which can further exacerbate postpartum core weakness, worsen conditions like diastasis recti, and ultimately delay your healing. All of these exercises in this routine target core muscles like the rectus abdominis, transverse abdomins, pelvic floor, diaphragm, and multifidus without causing an increase in intra-abdominal pressure. In some cases, diastasis recti and pelvic floor dysfunction can be severe. If your abdominal gap is wide enough to fit more than two fingers, or if you have trouble controlling urination or bowel movements, contact a pelvic floor physical therapist.
