S A DREARILY conformist and newish convert to the Oura ring, I have been experiencing lately the phenomenon where once you own one, you see others absolutely everywhere: on colleagues’ hands scribbling notes; raised in a sudden flash on Zoom screens; glinting from within official portraits of overscheduled executives or famous creatives or young politicians. Even when you can’t see one, looming like the proverbial off-screen monster outside a TikTok frame, the seepage of its signature terminology (“readiness!”) signals its presence. They’re equal parts satirical and ominous, these terms. Ready, my good ring—for what?

I’m not the first person to use a wearable despite bemused doubts about its effectiveness, and the relationship between devices and omnipresent 21st-century health anxieties has been well-documented—our certainty, for instance, that one’s own body cannot accurately signal the self when it’s stressed. Despite that philosophical puzzle, it’s an oddly pleasant thing to outsource the self-direction to rest. The light reprimand, for example, when you’re in the early stages of a cold: Amid the world telling you to just get on with it, the ring puts its hands on its hips and raises its eyebrows until you lie down.

Wellness-minded pressure to wear a gently scolding plastic accessory, to feed your dog raw rabbit hearts, to put vexing mental-health questions to an inanimate AI concierge or to purchase $15 prepared chicken nuggets might have been unthinkably fringe (or sci-fi) 10 years ago. But even as vaccine-denying portions of MAHA are still considered fringe by most Americans, an anxiously attentive relationship with Big Wellness is not. As explored in this issue, what it means to be “well” in 2026 can feel like an expensive defensive posture, a fear-driven push toward costly new salves. Yet it’s something our cover subject, multi-time Olympian Mikaela Shiffrin, in peak physical form, might reject given her preferred pre-race snack: Haribo gummy bears.

Somewhere, far off the slopes, an AI wellness bot tut-tuts.

---

These stories and more are featured in our Spring Women’s issue, on newsstands this weekend.