Personal story: Improved Sleep Quality with FlexBeam and Oura Ring

How did you sleep last night? Did you rest well? Did you toss and turn? Did you dream? 

What do you consider good sleep and how do you even know if you had it? These questions are simple enough, but the answers may be a bit more complicated than they seem.

Sleep Foundation claims that you should test yourself by answering ‘true’ or ‘false’ to these statements and see how many of them apply to you:

• You fall asleep within 15-20 minutes of lying down to sleep.
• You regularly sleep a total of seven to nine hours in a 24-hour period.
• While in your bed, your sleep is continuous—you don’t have long periods of lying awake when you wish to be sleeping.
• You wake up feeling refreshed as if you’ve “filled the tank.”
• You feel alert and are able to be fully productive throughout the waking hours (note, it’s natural for people to feel a dip in alertness during waking hours, but with healthy sleep, alertness returns).
• Your partner or family members do not notice any disturbing or out of the ordinary behavior from you while you sleep, such as snoring, pauses in breathing, restlessness, or otherwise nighttime behaviors.

What is healthy sleep? Sometimes, this is hard to answer so for the purpose of tracking your sleep, you can always use the Oura Ring. It’s a great wearable device that tracks the quality of your sleep and allows you to understand your sleeping patterns better. 

It is also useful when you try to improve your sleeping habits and you need a way to measure your achievements. That’s precisely what we did when we conducted a case study on how FlexBeam can improve your sleep.

How FlexBeam Helped Boost Sleep Quality

We monitored a 60-year-old man, Andrew who complained about having long term issues with poor quality of sleep, as measured by the Oura ring. 

Andrew’s Oura data showed that he was seriously lacking deep sleep. That’s the most significant phase of sleep when it comes to brain health. Andrew felt that his sports performance suffered, but also his average health. 

Andrew felt tired and he felt that his poor sleeping habits were affecting his life quality. After using FlexBeam he had noticeable improvement, felt better, fresher, and more prepared for the day ahead of him. 

He was right to conclude that deep sleep is necessary for our wellbeing, and to restore us physically and mentally.

Sleep happens in several phases. Deep sleep is necessary for many psychological processes. It is also the time when growth hormone is released in adults. This hormone is necessary for cell repair, muscle growth, and successful weight training.

Two protocols were used in the study:

• Protocol A – FlexBeam used horizontally over the front of the abdomen for 10 mins on preset 2, followed by use of the FlexBeam horizontally across the corresponding area on the lower back – 10 min preset 2. The device was used during the day, prior to sunset whilst seated.
• Protocol B – FlexBeam used vertically on the front of the body – upper chest to abdomen – preset 2 for 10 mins. The device was used prior to falling to sleep whilst in bed.

In both scenarios, caffeine intake was consistent, as well as physical exercise. Alcohol intake was recorded, and days when alcohol was consumed removed from the data as there was a definite negative effect on deep sleep. As alcohol consumption was rare this is not thought to have an effect on the comparison data.

Oura ring data was recorded and the data exported to an excel spreadsheet for analysis.

Results of our Sleep Quality Study

Using a FlexBeam for sleep improvement and measuring our results using the Oura Ring, we were able to see that our client’s sleep improved significantly. 

There was a 41% increase in deep sleep minutes when compared with the average deep sleep duration from his previous 12 months. 

We also monitored heart rate variability (HRV) which measures how well your body switches from your sympathetic and parasympathetic system. In other words, it measures how well you adapt. 

HRV measurements showed that the client’s deep sleep increased closer to the increased to a level  closer to the recommended 1-2 hour of deep sleep per night for a healthy adult. This matched subjective reports of more energy, greater concentration and generally a greater feeling of wellbeing and balance.

Here are the conditions and the results for both of the placements:

Reasons for Choosing Oura Ring and FlexBeam for Sleep Improvement

FlexBeam uses the power of red and near-infrared therapy to stimulate melatonin production and prepare you for a good night’s sleep. 

Most of your melatonin is produced by your pineal gland, but also in other cells and even mitochondria. Melatonin production depends on the part of the day and it is directly regulated as a response to the amount and type of light we are exposed to.

In darker surroundings, with low-intensity lights, melatonin production is boosted. This also depends on the wavelength of light. Blue light halts melatonin production while red and near-infrared help establish a healthy circadian rhythm. 

The subjective feeling of sleep quality is hard to measure. It’s an unreliable factor to track. That’s why it was necessary to find the best way to track sleep quality for our study. Oura Ring was a logical choice because it can track deep, REM, light sleep, as well as heart rate during the night. All that data is easily exported.

Therefore, it was easy to track Andrew’s sleep and monitor the effects of FlexBeam on his sleeping patterns and quality. The exported data showed obvious success.

Our study has shown that FlexBeam and Oura Ring make a great combination for those who want to improve the quality of their sleep. FlexBeam can do that and so much more.