Exploring Whoop & starting a major health experiment
A comprehensive review of the wearable Whoop, so you can decide if it’s worth the purchase
I’ve been on a journey of experimenting with longevity products and protocols since the beginning of this year. I feel it’s time to review some of my experiments and share experiences which might inspire others. Let’s start with Whoop, as this has been a product that has led me to set a massive goal for 2025.
To bring everyone on the same page, Whoop is a wearable (band around your wrist) that tracks resting heart rate (RHR), heart rate variability (HRV), sleep data (i.e. REM, sleep stress, sleep debt, etc), skin temperature, respiratory rate, blood oxygen %, daily stress levels, exercise-related data (i.e. cardio zones, strain scores, etc), calories burned, daily steps, VO2Max, and a few other things. Based on this data, it also provides a Whoop Age (some form of biological age) and Speed of Ageing figures. You can also set an alarm to wake up via a silent vibrating band (instead of an annoyingly loud phone alarm).
In this article, you will find…
Backstory
What I Love about Whoop
What Would I Love to See Improve/Change
Should You Buy Whoop?
My Results & Aiming for a North Star
Backstory
I bought Whoop 3 months ago. Up to that point, every part of my longevity research was going pretty good, according to my judgement and backed up by comprehensive blood test results. I was eating relatively healthy, going to the gym for strength training (building a very good amount of muscle), running, etc. But there was something I could not figure out. I felt that I could hack anything, except for injury prevention. Somehow, I was constantly getting injured without clear indicating signs. That might sound odd for some people, because with the number of injuries that I was getting a year, I could be taken as a pro athlete.
My partner made a comment about how the only thing that I don’t track is my sleep. He didn’t grab my attention much with that comment because I was waking up with so much energy, almost a rush, every morning. So, I assumed that I was sleeping very well. Ok, that was 25% of my reason. 15% was due to cost; wearables are expensive! To be fair, most HealthTech tools are not cheap, so I was already spending thousands of dollars every year towards my health. The remaining 60% was simply because I hated wearables — anything that made contact with my skin, including hats (took me years to get used to the feeling), sunnies, most creams, jewellery, and make-up. I often start out with the best intentions (such as seeing a beautiful bracelet and buying it), then get itchy, fidgety, out of focus, disrupted mood, and eventually give up. Knowing this doesn’t help to justify the cost of Whoop.
David was familiar with wearables, as he used to own an Oura ring (until he lost it). A few weeks later, he said, “Whoop has expanded a lot since I last checked. They’re tracking a lot more, targeting athletes.” That sparked my curiosity.
I read through the website and other people’s reviews online. To be honest, I didn’t do much of a product comparison between Whoop, Oura and Garmin. However, I researched why collecting additional data could be useful, and realised 4 things which further captured my interest.
There is something called ‘overtraining syndrome.’
Sounds obvious, right? Of course, one can over train, and even healthy habits overly done can become unhealthy. I just assumed that the only people at risk of training too much were pro athletes. Given how much I pay attention to my health, it sounds like a dumb miss, but I always looked at movement from a ‘what can I do’ perspective, not ‘what not to do.’
Under-eating, chronic stress and non-optimal sleep can also lead to overtraining.
Sleep highly impacts cognitive and nervous system health in the long term.
In a 2021 research, Whoop found that “for every 45 minutes of sleep debt a person accrued, they had a 5-10% decrease in mental control the following day.”
Frontiers in Psychiatry 2018 review article revealed “the dynamic relationship that exists between sleep and symptoms [hallucinations and delusions], with reductions in sleep duration being directly followed by increases in psychotic symptom severity with a time lag of approximately 1 day… [This] has also been reported in individuals with no history of psychiatric illness.”
Huberman Lab podcast in 2023 with Gina Poe discussed the importance of REM sleep in therapy and even for daily stressors, “as it allows the emotional intensity of memories to be reduced without the influence of norepinephrine.”
JAMA Neurology 2023 article revealed that a 1.5% reduction in deep sleep per year for people over the age of 60 was associated with a 27% increase in the risk of dementia.
It’s not just emotional stress that strains the nervous system, but also physical stress.
Side note: a product/solution to ‘join the dots’ via stitching together health data and acting as an independent longevity coach (powered by AI) is going to be increasingly difficult to execute in the HealthTech market. Every wearable or health-tracking solution seems to have recognised this opportunity and is moving in the direction of tracking health ‘holistically’, building an ecosystem, so their users don’t bounce off into other HealthTech products for varying purposes. Clever and expected. This is a space that I was originally interested in exploring and building an MVP.
In short, I decided to purchase Whoop and investigate my body in a new way. That’s how the Whoop exploration began. I was overly excited, slightly nervous, and had no idea what to expect.
What Do I Love About Whoop?
Note: I am a user AND a Product Manager. Don’t judge me if I use fancy product words — can’t help it sometimes.
An Onboarding Flow That Fuelled My Excitement
Whoop’s onboarding flow is an example for other PMs, especially for those who work in industries where the users are not the experts in the field. The onboarding experience is one of the best I’ve had; it’s exceptional at building a relationship with users over a 5-week period.
On Day 1, Whoop laid out a timeline and gave promises about when certain features would be ready to view. Whoop’s transparency set clear expectations, built trust, credibility, and anticipation to uncover hidden information (data points). This anticipation kept me hooked during the first 5 weeks.
As each feature unlocked, a new insight and information was revealed, like a mystery hunt. I got to learn something new about myself every week. The onboarding journey was clearly customer-centric and product led.
Being used to either very short onboarding experiences, or worse, ones that are marketing-driven (and will send you a promotional email every few days until you unsubscribe), Whoop impressed me.
Whoop Prioritises Education
Inside every section of the app, you can find small pieces of information relating to a metric. Most of the time, there will also be a video and a link (to a longer educational article) attached to it. I’m a curious and nerdy person when it comes to health, so I read through a lot of their content. Whoop explains the ‘how’ and ‘why’ really well. This is important for me to trust a HealthTech company and see them as credible, instead of a ‘happy talk, feel good vibes’ company (which sadly, some are in this booming industry).
For personalised questions, the Whoop Coach surpassed my expectations. Most AI chatbots tend to spit out generic advice. The Whoop Coach had access to my data, was transparent with its communication, and has a ‘can do’/problem solving attitude (just like a PT).
Example: I asked where I could find HBOT, because I wanted to select it as my recovery activity. Whoop Coach said, while there isn’t an option under ‘activities’ for HBOT, I can log it via the ‘journal’ option.
Example: I asked Whoop Coach’s help to understand my daily calories burned, as it seemed too low in the app. We collaborated to unpack how the app’s algorithm works, and discovered that it doesn’t factor body fat % into account (which causes the low calorie calculation). Whoop Coach then suggested an idea; it could share with me what the algorithm has as my BMR, so I can calculate the difference, as I had a BMR calculated based on my body fat % at a Dexa Scan place. We figured out a solution together, and I began to add 150 calories on top of the app’s calculation per day.
Lastly, when Whoop prioritises education, it’s empowering me to work with a wearable/HealthTech product like teammates and take responsibility for my wellbeing and goals. I really like that attitude.
Whoop Band is Comfortable (For Real)
That was a BIG relief for me. 60% of me was convinced that I wasted my money on a product that I was not able to wear.
As mentioned before, anything that contacts my skin (other than basic clothing items) makes me highly uncomfortable. I must admit, during the first week of wearing Whoop, I wasn’t very optimistic, because I woke up 4x with an aching wrist and pulled off the band. Then, I began to wear my band looser but higher up (above my wrist). That solved the issue. I am glad that the Whoop band is very comfortable during sleep, running and swimming. It’s soft and stretchy.
Note: I tighten the band a bit more before swimming, otherwise the water can loosen it.
I am also usually skeptical of ‘one size fits all’ products, as I can fit into children’s clothes (petite women’s problem). However, the Whoop band is very flexible and adjustable.
It Allows for Experimentation via Journalling
Whoop has a journalling section to record behaviours and detect their correlation to sleep and recovery scores. The journal section has a huge range of options, like the use of specific supplements, habitual behaviours, dietary changes, moods & stressors, and sleep environment. Being able to log factors that impact my well-being has several advantages.
I became more self-aware and decided to change some of my habits
I ran experiments to identify the impact of new habits
I learned about different behaviours that others were doing, and felt curious to try some
It Knows When I’m On the Move
Whoop can auto-detect activities based on heart rate (most of the time). There were a few times when I forgot to select ‘hike’ or ‘run.’ Once my activity finished, Whoop sent a notification that an activity was detected. I would love to see their auto-detection improve for more accuracy.
It Acknowledges Physical Labor
We often think about exercise as a solo cardio activity, gym session, or a team sport. We often forget how tiring physical labour is. There is a big difference between working at a busy cafe as a waitress vs working from an office. Whoop acknowledges that via a large selection of ‘activities’ that one can select. Some of them are a bit weird, like chess, dedicated parenting, darts, DJ, driving, but hey, some people do these activities intensely, I guess.
Side note: given how many interesting activities one can log, I’m surprised there isn’t an option for cheeky late-night activities. 😏
However, reading Reddit threads on creative ways to log such activities was quite amusing. Ranges from yoga, to circus acts, to manual labour, to wrestling, to horseback riding …
It’s Fashionable
You can wear Whoop as a wrist band, bicep band, inside your sports bra and your training shorts. It comes in so many different colours. I’m quite tempted to get their Italian leather band (for fancy events) as a reward once I tick a major goal.
It Woke Me Up in the Most Beautiful Way
Never have I ever imagined to be woken up by a vibrating band. That is genius! I thought I would always have to jump out of the bed in shock, trying to find my phone in the dark to turn it off. Whoop alarms are awesome.
Slick User Experience
Navigating through the app is intuitive and easy. I can customise my dashboard to surface my priorities. The app surfaces helpful information. It’s fun to log into Whoop and check my dashboard. I really appreciate that.
Whoop is Becoming a Super HealthTech App
Integrations
Whoop connects with Cronometer (nutrition tracking product), Whitings (smart scale), Hyperice (recovery tools), Strava (running app), TrainingPeaks (training product with remote coaching), Apple Health and Health Connect.
Given the number of health tracking products in the market, one of our big problems as health-conscious consumers is gathering, organising and making sense of scattered pieces of data. This is a relatively new challenge, as historically, most of us struggled to access information and learn about our bodies — now, if one wishes to, they could be flooded with info. Integrations don’t fully resolve this problem, but it makes my life a bit easier. So, I appreciate it.
Advanced Labs
Some people complain about Whoop Age and Whoop Pace of Ageing because it views individuals through a limited set of information. You can be very athletic and have a consistent sleep schedule, but regularly consume ultra processed foods, be a candidate for skin cancer due to your obsession with tanning, drink alcohol every weekend, vape, etc. Advanced labs (blood markers) were the missing piece for a trustable Whoop Age result.
Advanced Labs have also been the missing piece for a ‘super app’. Whoop is increasingly becoming the go-to destination for a centralised health dataset, where in the future, doctors (including dieticians, longevity coaches and psychologists) can plug and view their patients through a holistic lens, factoring their lifestyle and habits into account.
When a company enters the ‘super app’ territory/classification, user retention increases because it becomes increasingly more convenient to solve all your problems (and keep all your data) in one reputable place. I’ve observed this happening even in situations when the core product is good, but some of its features as stand-alone services aren’t the best — it’s still more convenient to stick with the same company.
In short, this is quite a strategic move and I hope it works out well for them.
What Would I Love to See Improve/Change…
Having ‘Overtraining’ or ‘Injury’ Modes
I purchased Whoop to understand why I was consistently getting injured. By the time Whoop arrived to our house, I was sure that I was overtrained. I checked the boxes for ‘overtraining syndrome’ both mentally and physically. I expected Whoop to check on me during the onboarding flow to see if I am injured, overtrained, have trauma, expected to get a major surgery, etc — some question to set the right expectations. It didn’t. So, what happened?
First two nights Whoop gave me red recovery scores, flagged my unusually high heart rate and unusually low HRV, then quickly adapted, thinking that this is who I am. It saw unhealthy results as my norm and anything that showed to be a bit better than my unhealthy results were flagged to be ‘amazing recovery.’ It lowered the bar for me. I could not trust the recovery scores Whoop was giving me during the first month.
An adaptive algorithm is usually positive, but it can become a negative factor when it doesn’t take the full context (certain temporary situations) into account. As a user, I would like to be able to switch on and off a mode to indicate temporary situations, like injuries or surgeries. While I can select these options in the ‘journal,’ that does not impact the overall recovery scores.
Goal Setting to Connect With Actionable Insights
Whoop asked me about my goals during onboarding. I don’t remember what I selected. However, I remember…
I only had 3 options to choose from, and none of them particularly felt relatable to me. They were quite generic/vague.
Whoop did nothing about my goal. It didn’t try to coach me, gave me insights to achieve my goal, or checked on my progress. I guess when the goal options are so vague, there isn’t anything specific to work towards. I had an expectation for Whoop to guide me towards achieving my goals. There is a lot to unpack here, but this might look like suggesting certain bedtime routines, putting together a recovery plan, guiding with progressive overload for workouts, etc.
Update Feb 26: a like-minded PM in Whoop has taken this idea and put it in action. You can now set much detailed goals with Whoop coach, receive guidance and check-ins to track progress.
In that case, let me make a further suggestion, involving product design. I’d love to see this experience expand beyond just a chat bot.
Partnership/Collaboration with Psychologists
Within the first 4 weeks of using Whoop, I was reminded of my past once again. Unlike the common belief in out society, C-PTSD’s impacts are not restricted to emotional wellbeing and romantic relationship success. In fact, some of the physical symptoms of trauma can be life-long, hence why some countries describe it as a ‘chronic illness’.
For those who don’t know much about C-PTSD symptoms, here is a list of physical long-lasting effects: unusually elevated RHR, unusually low HRV, unusually high stress levels (especially during night), chronic pain (generally headaches, stomach cramps, tight jaw, throat and heart ache), and poor sleep performance (due to nightmares, broken sleep, and/or insomnia).
A way that I am using Whoop right now is to track C-PTSD symptoms. When I shared my Whoop data with my psychologist, she mentioned that this is enlightening information to see. While clinical psychologists and psychiatrists are taught about the physical symptoms of C-PTSD clients, it’s rare for them to get a view of actual data in real time. Most patients don’t go through the effort of purchasing a wearable like Whoop and sharing these insights.
I cannot be the only one getting this benefit out of Whoop.
About 7-8% of people will experience PTSD at some point in their lives. Some quick Googling reveals…
About 2-8% of people have C-PTSD. Note that research is lacking for the appropriate diagnosis of C-PTSD, as it is a newer diagnosis (when compared to PTSD).
30.5% people worldwide have been exposed to +4 traumatic events in their lifetime.
An unusually low HRV is also seen in people with mental health disorders, including chronic depression and anxiety.
Psychiatric disorders affect 21% of adults and 49.5% of adolescents in America.
In 2020-21, 17% of Australians and 16.8% of Americans saw a health professional for their mental health. These %s have increased year on year.
I can connect the dots between recovering from trauma or a mental health illness, therapy/treatment sessions and Whoop insights. I believe both patients and clinical psychologists (or psychiatrists) can benefit from Whoop’s data to track progress.
Side note: I am still not able to rely on the recovery insights by Whoop, as I’m running a (successful) experiment to uplift my HRV, causing me to see high recovery scores on almost all days of the week. When I see a sudden drop in my HRV, it’s almost never related to my physical strain, but instead related to a triggering situation I’ve experienced during the day.
Side note: if Whoop gave me the option to write my goals (instead of using 3 generic options), I would include “reducing C-PTSD symptoms (specifically, reduce RHR, increase HRV, reduce sleep stress).”
The Calories Burned Count
Or shall I say, the calories burned not counted? I read an intense thread with over 2.5k views and many contributors about the sensitive ‘calories burned’ topic. Everyone on the thread needed to know their calorie count for a different reason — building muscle, loosing weight, toning, shredding, shrinking, bulking, pumping, you name it! I had a laugh about it, even though I am guilty (but not guilty) of being a calorie counter myself.
On this thread, people were comparing their calories burned numbers between different wearables, especially Whoop vs Oura / Garmin. It seems like some people receive a very similar result, while others receive quite a big difference.
By the way, if anyone calls me an obsessive tracker again, I will point to the number of people who own 2-3 wearables that literally track the same metrics just to calculate the average of every data point. I only own 4 devices to track different metrics. Only… 🫣
The two issues that I picked up which could be contributing to a miscalculation were…
Sometimes, Whoop doesn’t think I burn calories from about 8pm onwards. I understand that sleeping doesn’t require a lot of energy, but when I see that I burned 5 calories between 8pm to midnight, it makes me feel like a robot with a very efficient ‘energy saving’ mode on. Sometimes, it thinks I burned 20 calories, which isn’t much better either. Occasionally, it thinks I burned 100 calories. I am quite certain that even petite women burn between 30-60 calories while sleeping (and my bedtime is not 8pm).
Whoop’s understanding of my BMR is not based on body fat % — it’s based on an approximation of women my age, height and weight. Muscle requires more energy to maintain than fat, therefore my BMR is actually 150 calories higher than what Whoop thinks it is. I drew to this conclusion after asking Whoop Coach what my BMR is, then comparing it to the BMR I have from Dexa Scans. To be super clear, on my “rest” days (when I still walk 10k steps), Whoop thinks I burn 1300 calories, when my BMR is 1359. 😬 It makes me wonder…are my organs doing ok?
Getting a bit more precise in this area will probably upset less people.
Also, I would really like to see a ‘hydration log’. There is an option in the journal, but I want a separate feature visible on the dashboard where I can click a ‘+’ sign every time I drink a glass of water. Drinking an adequate amount of water is so important for organ health and recovery from strenuous exercise. While we tend to put a lot of emphasis on food intake, I don’t think we do a good enough job to think about hydration. I struggle to drink enough water, so one of my monthly goals is to finish 1.5 bottles of water every day. Whoop could also find correlations between the amount of water someone drinks and their recovery. That would be interesting to see.
Journal Entry Correlations with Recovery Data
Entering in daily habits and behaviours to the Whoop journal is great — I already mentioned that. However, it is quite funny to see how the algorithm on ‘recovery insights’ work sometimes.
Seeing that having a late night takeout improving my recovery score makes my eyes roll, when I know that it’s actually due to taking a rest day from the gym.
Seeing that NSDR doesn’t make a difference in my recovery score is also quite surprising, as that is sadly the only activity which allows my heart rate to drop below 60, my stress scores to remain below 0.5, and my breathing to calm down. (Spoiler Alert for a future post).
I understand that there are a lot of variables Whoop needs to learn, so it goes through a phase of correlating any two variables that exist at the same time (i.e. the classic, ‘during summers, more people eat ice cream and there are more shark attacks’ correlation). Entering my third month of using Whoop, the ‘recovery insights’ have certainly improved, but it is still not great. Zooming out to the big picture, I am planning to be a Whoop user for many years, so this is not so much of an issue for me.
Personalised Plans
Joining the dots here, Whoop has access to our health metrics, physical activity routines, recovery routines, behavioural/lifestyle data, and our goals. Whoop Coach is cool and helpful when I have questions to ask. What if it was more proactive?
What if the Whoop Coach introduced itself to me during onboarding and asked if I am interested in a comprehensive coach who can give holistic advice that is personalised? I’d take it. Athletes with coaches may not. But I would.
What would I expect to see in return?
Whoop Coach to discuss my top 2 health goals.
Whoop Coach to ask/observe my lifestyle choices (i.e. can I afford to go to HBOT multiple times a week?) and my daily habits (i.e. despite having the best intentions for keeping a regular bedtime routine, am I always running late and building a sleep debt?).
Whoop Coach to provide achievable actions I can take to meet these goals. This doesn’t have to be a gym exercise routine, although I would be open to this too. This could look like a comprehensive recovery program (rest day routine). It can look like a more achievable bedtime routine and tips (i.e. set an alarm as a reminder to wind down before bed). Or stress management techniques.
Encouragement or feedback cycle, which can be an opportunity to change action points (i.e. “this isn’t working for me because of XYZ”).
With Whoop Advanced Labs, there could even be an opportunity to build personalised programs that factors blood tests into account (i.e. metabolic health, hormonal health, brain/cognitive health).
Update Feb 26: like my comment under “Goal Setting to Connect With Actionable Insights,” there has been a lot of progress in this concept, mostly via the chat bot feature (the “Whoop Coach”). Users can now also create their own health plans, which is great.
Some Awesome Features are Not Available in Australia
Blood Pressure Insights and Advanced Labs are not available in Australia.
It’s a bummer to see that most HealthTech companies I follow and would love to try out are not selling to Australia for a variety of reasons, including regulations. Also a bummer to see that similar companies don’t exist in Australia and some awesome local HealthTech startups are taking their business to the US. However, I totally understand why the founders would choose that pathway.
Update Feb 26: users outside of the US can now manually upload their blood test results into the app. Confessing that I haven’t explored this feature yet, but that’s only because I have my own locally-hosted AI Personal Assistant that I’m training in a ‘health domain’.
Device Syncing Challenges
While sleep is supposed to be auto-detected, I’ve had an ongoing issue with its consistency.
During the first 3 weeks of wearing Whoop, almost every second day, my app’s screen would be frozen, showing the previous day’s results. I would refresh the page and see that it has synced to 5.32 am, but the rest of the screen would continue to show the previous day’s data. About 10 minutes later, it would refresh to the correct date, but would not show any sleep data. About 30 minutes later, I would receive a notification, “did you sleep?” Once I confirm, it would take another 10 minutes to process. This was a long and really annoying drag. I tried to redownload the app and update my phone, but nothing changed. I read that if the Whoop band is too loose, tracking can be lost, but my band was certainly not loose.
Eventually, I began to enter my sleep duration manually, rather than waiting. The data synced much quicker. 2 weeks later, my problem was mostly resolved. Now, I only have an auto-detection issue once every 10 days. I researched this issue and it seems like for some people, Whoop can take a month to learn sleep behaviours. My partner didn’t have this issue. I guess I was the unlucky one.
Also, as a multi-day hiker, it sucks to know that I can’t take Whoop with me. Whoop collects and stores data for up to 3 days when WiFi is unavailable. But my multi-day hikes are hardcore (+7 days).
Updates Feb 26:
Detection of ‘sleep’ AND ‘activity’ has improved so much. Very accurate over the past month, even when I am out of reception for multiple days.
Whoop won my ❤️ after I completed the Western Arthur’s Traverse earlier this month. Whoop can now track and sync activity without any reception for 6 days! I received incredible data. Thank you, Whoop team!
Community Engagement
I was very excited to see a ‘community’ section and other Whoop user profiles. But I soon realised that the community section only allows for passive engagement. The idea of being a part of ‘Melbourne Whoop users’ or ‘Melbourne weightlifters’ is great in theory, but I can’t actually connect with anyone.
I would have liked to be able to ask questions in Whoop groups, share information, or say, “hey, anyone keen to join me on this cool hike that I found” in the ‘hiking group’ — something that makes me feel more connected.
Side note: I tried to host a Melbourne Whoop Enthusiasts Meetup group and only one person joined, so perhaps I am the only user who is keen to connect.
The Nitty Gritty Details on Activities
I tend to to use ‘other’ and ‘other — recovery’ more than I would like to. I would like to understand why certain recovery activities can only be logged within the ‘journal’ section, and not under ‘other — recovery.’ Below are some examples from my perspective. I appreciate that each person’s wish list would be different.
Under ‘activities,’ I would like to see bouldering. When selecting ‘hiking,’ I would like to be able to enter in pack weight (as I train with weighted packs). When selecting ‘weightlifting,’ I would like to be able to select ‘band’ just like ‘dumbbells’ (i.e. banded hip thrusts), battle ropes (for waves and slams) and a larger variety of exercises (i.e. hip thrust pulses, reversed lunges, single leg calf raises).
Under ‘other — recovery,’ I would like to see HBOT, float tank salt bath (or sensory deprivation tank), vagal nerve stimulation device, and red light therapy.
Under ‘journal,’ I would like to see puzzles and colouring/painting by numbers.
Updates Feb 26: more activities and recoveries are getting added!
Should You Buy Whoop?
3 months ago, I would have said, YES YES YES!
That was before I received some judgement from others.
Yes, strangely, some people judge you for wearing wearables to track your health. We live in that sort of a world.
Who would have known that wearing Whoop made me an obsessive, eating disordered, exercise addicted, greedy (supposedly for wanting to be healthy) woman (according to some people)?
My learnings from discussing food trackers have been reaffirmed once again. Unfortunately, our society has become very sensitive with the topic of health. We have been burned by unrealistic body standards, faux diets, and our failures that came from unscientific information. Now, anything to do with ‘health’ triggers us.
It’s not all black and white, people! Observing your caloric intake doesn’t have to lead to an eating disorder. Noting down your exercise routine doesn’t need to lead to an exercise addiction. Trying to get better sleep scores doesn’t need to turn into a sleep obsession.
Data doesn’t drive us into madness. It’s how we interact with the data (our attitude) that does. I believe it is possible (and healthy) to approach data with curiosity, instead of criticism and judgement. But, that’s just my opinion.
No, Whoop is not for everyone. I believe some people should have never bought Whoop, nor an Oura ring, nor a Garmin watch.
Here is how you know if Whoop is right for you: answer these questions. ⬇️
What will you do with Whoop?
How do you envision your life to be once you see insights from Whoop? Are you ready to redo some aspects of your life, if necessary?
Everyone seems to love the idea of progress until they realise that it requires change.
Do you enjoy setting goals? How easy is it for you to bring change into your life? Are you the sort of person who can follow through a checklist or start a new habit? If so, when was the last time you actually did that with success?
Changing habits isn’t easy. Sometimes, it’s costly (to our time, money, energy, etc). Sometimes, forcing a change can be too stressful to be worth the effort.
But there is no point in seeing data if you are not going to do anything about it. Wearables are not cheap and they are not toys (even though I have a lot of fun with them). The real value in these products is turning insights into action and making progress with your health. If you are not willing to do that, Whoop is probably not the right product.
Side note: sometimes, it’s not us, but it’s the situation we are in. It’s really challenging to bring change to your life when there is already so much going on. One thing at a time — this is one of the key lessons I learned in 2025. Maybe, you won’t be getting a good night sleep because you have a 6 month old baby. Maybe you are burnt out, or going through grief, or a divorce, or another major life event. Maybe this year is not the right time, but next year is.
How do you handle failure? What’s your relationship with data?
Everyone seems to love the idea of data until it’s not what they expected.
3 days ago, Whoop’s social team posted, “Whoop is designed to give you context, not judgment.”
Data tends to mirror parts of ourselves back to us, especially personal data, such as health data. It sucks to try and incorporate a new habit that you thought would improve X, but after 2-3 months, it turned out to be a waste of time. I get it.
When you don’t achieve goals, do you feel shame? Or do you approach with curiosity and ask, “why didn’t this work, was it realistic, how could I have done this differently?”
As I’m interested in the HealthTech industry, I often engage in conversations with others about health data. I’m curious to understand people’s relationship with their health. These conversations led me to think that the type of people who avoid data are also the type of people who feel deep shame about not hitting certain marks/targets.
Someone I met at an AI event hit the spot with their explanation.
“I don’t use Whoop anymore. It’s so depressing. Always gives me a red recovery score. It makes me feel like I am always doing something wrong. And it’s so stressful. Every night used to be a rush because I had to have sleep consistency. Every morning used to be a rush because I had to either hit my step count, or Zone 2 or 3 or 4 cardio. It’s not realistic. Just another product that screams at your face, you suck.”
I felt their words in my heart. I wish this wasn’t their experience and they didn’t feel so bad about themselves. But if you resonate with this ex-user sentiment, then Whoop is not for you.
Do you have patience for progress?
I wish I could do body recomposition in a month and reach my ideal image. Except, it’s probably going to take me years, if I ever even reach an ‘ideal’ image.
I wish I could improve my VO2Max from 50 to 55 in 2 weeks. Except, it’s been 3 months and I only moved from 49 to 50.
I wish I could achieve the best version of myself in 2-3 months, like the other girls on YouTube do. Except, those videos were never real anyway. 🙄
If you want Whoop for quick wins, then you’re up for disappointment. It’s very rare to get quick wins when it comes to your health. Our bodies don’t dramatically change within a month. Even implementing new habits take time.
Whoop is a long-term tool for your long-term gains.
Do you get influenced by data a lot?
8 September 2025, on Huberman Podcast, Andrew talked about a Whoop experiment he was doing. This pulled my interest.
“I’m doing an experiment on myself where I measure my subjective feelings of rest and alertness and energy, and compare it to the data. And the only way to do that properly is to not glance at the data first thing in the morning. Because it just biases how you feel.
Our colleague, Alia Crum at Stanford has done some nice experiments where they tell people after a genuinely poor night’s sleep they got a great sleep, or they tell people after a great night’s sleep they got poor sleep. They showed them sleep score and gave some data — and it’s false data, basically. People’s levels of alertness, wellbeing, etc, are strongly biased by what they are told their sleep was like, as opposed to what it actually was like.
This is a big deal… These mindset effects are really powerful. So, I look at my sleep data once in every two or three days.”
So, I guess we all get influenced by data. However, if seeing a poor sleep or recovery score is going to ruin your day (emotionally), then you might want to (re)think about how to best use Whoop.
Currently, I don’t find this to have a negative impact on my life, because as I mentioned before, my recovery scores heavily depend on whether or not I engage in HRV uplifting techniques. So, I tend to get a lot of greens. Yay, me! In short, I have no other choice but to rely on my feelings.
My Results & Aiming for a North Star
Over the last 3 months, I uncovered 3 main insights (none involving sleep, as I’m quite good at that).
I was overtrained. And with a right knee (patella tendon) injury.
Short to medium term goal: Rehab, safely and slowly getting back on track, factoring in points 2 and 3 below.
Result: Success. I’m actually stronger than I was before. ✅
I was under-eating. In fact, based on the calories burned figures that Whoop has been providing me, I don’t think I ever adequately ate.
This cleared up why I was randomly hypoglycaemic multiple times during the day. It also cleared up my consistent injuries.
Medium-term goal: Gradually increase caloric intake to reach maintenance. Experiment with a blood glucose monitor to see if further intervention is required.
Result: Getting there. Almost a success. This is the third month in a row that I have increased my caloric intake. I gained 2-2.5kg, which makes me uncomfortable for sure, but hopefully some of it is muscle. ✅
My nervous system was damaged from C-PTSD.
My resting heart rate was concerningly high for my fitness level and age, at 72. My HRV scared me, as it was equivalent to that of people in their 70s, at 20s. I had 7 hours of high stress during my sleep (what on earth was I doing in my sleep).
Let’s unpack what a low HRV means, as there are too many people commenting online that this metric does not matter. Below is general information, not necessarily any personal issues.
An increased risk of cardiovascular disease later on in life.
An unusually low HRV is a representation of a dysregulated nervous system.
A dysregulated nervous system is linked to damaged hormonal health and loss of periods (as the body doesn’t ovulate while perceiving constant danger).
Without a regulated nervous system, an individual cannot have consistent resilience. Stressful events can easily translate to trauma in the brain.
A dysregulated nervous system is linked to hypervigilence, difficulty concentrating during the day, and an inability to relax.
Without a healthy nervous system, recovery is very challenging, which increases the chances of physical injuries after strenuous workouts.
The immune system weakens over time, and the individual becomes more susceptible to illnesses/infections with a dysregulated nervous system.
Lastly, the nervous system connects the gut and the brain through the vagus nerve. I am quite certain that a dysregulation in this axis won’t do any good to either the brain or the gut.
Long-term goal: Improve HRV. Simple, but really not that simple.
The North Star 🌟
How does one improve their HRV? Online forums about HRV written by people with C-PTSD are quite depressing. My extensive research wasn’t uplifting either.
Improving HRV is hard for everyone.
There are some information about how to improve HRV for healthy individuals with regular levels of daily stress (i.e. stress that comes from a challenging job).
There is very minimal information about how to improve HRV for people with C-PTSD, and most comes from anecdotal experiences. The only widely accepted treatment for improving HRV is EMDR therapy, with an expected increase of about 10 points.
Given that I have already been through this (and can attest that it is the most effective and life-changing therapy one can receive), I cannot even imagine what my HRV was before therapy.
Anecdotal experiences reveal that improving HRV with C-PTSD is almost an impossible mission. Most successful people start somewhere between 10-30 HRV and tend to only uplift their scores by 10-15 points from a decade of trying.
There isn’t enough research done on people with C-PTSD. While we know that repeated complex trauma experienced during childhood impacts DNA, the brain structure and functioning, hormonal health and different organ systems, most research is still observational.
Now, I’m on a mission impossible: I am determined to improve my HRV in a way that can become an example for others. My North Star is to match my peers, which means I have a lifetime to not double, not triple, but quadruple my HRV. Maybe that is mission impossible. But as I said, I have a lifetime to make it happen.
My exploration began on the 1st of August 2025. I am keen to try therapies, treatments, supplements and behavioural changes that range from simple adjustments to advanced routines. I’ll also note that I have already seen remarkable success and will be revealing a list of my experiments in the upcoming months.
So, if you know anyone who is going through a similar journey or has a trauma background, this and some of my future posts may be beneficial to them.
If you are also a researcher, I’d love to get in touch and exchange information.
Final Words
Whoop has been an enlightening product for me — one of the best purchases I made for my health. I would have never guessed that Whoop took me to the specific path I am on now. But life is full of surprises when one is curious to explore their opportunities.
To be honest, I would have probably been impressed by Oura or Garmin as well. But at the time of my purchase, I chose Whoop (the thought of wearing a ring felt worse than wearing a watch, Garmin’s website was too cluttered with choices, and I was too lazy to run a comparison analysis). And I’m glad it turned out that way.
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