Breathe for Apple Watch: A New App for Mindfulness and Stress Relief

Breathe is a new Apple Watch app designed to assist you with mindfulness meditation and stress relief. It will feature on Apple Watch as part of the watchOS 3 update.

With Apple Breathe, you can set a breathing session of one or five minutes and then the app coaches you through the mindfulness session. Apple Breathe will monitor your heart rate and provide a summary of your breathing sessions.

Mindfulness meditation is increasingly being seen by health professionals as an essential part of mental wellbeing. Studies reveal regular meditation sessions can have positive impact on thinking and they can even combat neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzeimer’s. There is also growing evidence of how mindfulness meditation can boost attention and lower stress.

There are several smartphone apps such as Calm and Headspace which can assist us in cultivating mindfulness as a habit. But Breathe will be first mindfulness meditation app primarily run on a smartwatch.

How to Use Apple’s New Breathe Mindfulness App

Breathe is available to developers to test alongside watchOS 3, but it is not part of Apple’s Public Beta. So non-developers will have to wait till Breathe is officially released on Apple Watch this Autumn.

While you can open the Breathe app at any time, it will prompt you for a mindful breathing session every four hours. Here’s how you can use the Breathe app on Apple Watch:

1. Open Breathe app.
2. Tap Start to begin a new session.
3. The app will then guide you through the focused breathing session. By default, the app offers several deep breaths in a minute. One complete breath lasts eight and a half minutes.
4. A circular graphic on the Apple Watch expands along with taps on the wrist. You slowly inhale along with the graphic and the words “Now inhale.”
5. Apple Watch will then display the words, “Be still, and bring your attention to your breath.”
6. When the graphic starts to condense, you slowly breathe out.

A summary session is displayed on the Apple Watch at the end of the breathing session.

So what do you think of this new mindfulness app? Are you looking forward to the launch of the Breathe app? Let us know in the comments section.