How does focusing on your breath help you?
In times of greatest stress you have surely had the feeling that you are going to lose control at some point. The best mental health specialists always recommend different breathing exercises such as concentrating on inspirations and expirations. This makes the Apple Watch play a crucial role in guiding you through this breathing process. Through a series of vibrations the clock will tell you when to breathe in and out the air you have stored. It is ideal especially when you are having an anxiety attack or when you think symptoms are starting.
It is definitely appreciated having the watch in these situations especially if you are alone. On many occasions you can forget how to breathe if you do not have someone by your side. The fact of saying how you should go about it relaxes a lot since physiologically the body reacts as if there was a lack of oxygen when in reality it is the opposite. So the Apple Watch will act like this person who It will tell you how you have to take the breaths correctly.
In addition, the watch is capable of launching different reminders to take these breaths several times a day. This means that you don’t always have to be in the middle of an anxiety attack to use this functionality. But at any time of the day it is advisable to perform these exercises to reduce stress and prevent it from going to more. This is positive for personal productivity since being more relaxed makes you perform better in any type of task you face.
Setup process
There are many parameters that can be adjusted when using the application. You can program the notifications that are coming to perform this type of exercises and there are also options to have a defined time of how long a specific breathing session lasts.
Session settings
Breathing sessions are time-bound and may not suit personal needs. You can always edit the time you are doing the breathing session on your Apple Watch. Not only for the current session you are doing but also for all those that you are going to do in the future. It is important that you yourself feel comfortable with how you do the session and the number of breaths you are taking. To make this change so that it appears by default, you simply have to follow the following steps:
- Open the ‘Breathe’ app on the Apple Watch.
- Rotate the digital crown to adjust the duration.
- On the Apple Watch, click on ‘Settings’.
- Click on the section ‘Breathe’.
- Activate the option ‘Use previous duration’.
Change the frequency of reminders
As we have previously commented, the Apple Watch periodically sends a series of notifications to be able to carry out a breathing session. Although it may be believed that the watch is capable of detecting stress in your day to day life, the truth is that it is jumping to an alert as a reminder as time goes by. This time is fully adjustable and can also be deactivated in case you do not want to have this annoying notification that can go out without you wanting it. By default it is activated even if you do not want to use this application. To be able to make this adjustment, you will simply have to follow the following steps:
- Open Settings on Apple Watch.
- Click on ‘Breathe’.
- Do any of the following:
- Tap on ‘Breathing reminders’ to adjust how often you want to be notified.
- Click on ‘Silence the rest of the day’ to avoid inconvenience.
- Tap on ‘Breathing frequency’ to choose the number of breaths you need to take in a minute adapting to you.
- Tap on ‘Vibration’ and choose the category of never, minimal or prominent.
Check your breathing and heart rate data
Another aspect to take into account when monitoring your breathing is to check your heart rate during these sessions. This consultation process is carried out from the iPhone itself that is linked since they are stored in the Health application as one more parameter to take into account. It is important to know the fact of how the breathing has affected the pulsations, seeing here a relaxation. If you want to have information about this data, you will simply have to carry out the following steps:
- Open the Health app on the iPhone.
- Follow the path ‘Explore> Heart> Heart rate’.
- Tap on ‘Show more heart rate data’.
- Swipe up and tap on ‘Breathe’.
How to start a breathing session
Once all these variables that can be applied are taken into account, it is time to start performing the different breathing sessions on the Apple Watch. Here we tell you how to do it.
Through the app
One of the most common systems to be able to perform a breath control is through the native application that can be found. Specifically, you simply have to display all the applications by pressing on the digital crown. In the event that you are on watchOS 7 or earlier, you must click on the application called ‘Breathe’ but if you are on watchOS 8 or higher the name is ‘Mindfulness’. At the moment a button called ‘Start’ will appear. When you click on, the animation at the bottom will start to grow, indicating that you must inflate your lungs and when you exhale it will shrink. All this is also accompanied by a vibration system so you can know what to do at all times.
Starting with watchOS 8 there is also a feature called ‘Reflect’ which has a very similar objective. This new activity’s mission is to carry out an exercise to leave your mind blank for a minute to make any kind of worry disappear. This will help you to adopt a positive attitude. To make it more attractive, there are several animations that are integrated into the Mindfulness application itself.
Important: watchOS 8 is now in beta, with an official launch scheduled for September 2021
In the dedicated sphere
The Apple Watch has a sphere that is exclusively dedicated to the breathing mode that we are discussing. It can be quickly configured at any time through the iPhone ‘Clock’ application and also from the Apple Watch itself. Specifically, to be able to access it, you will simply have to slide your finger to the left to the extreme and click on the ‘+’ button. Through the digital crown you can select the sphere to breathe and press add it to start configuring it daily.
Once the sphere is already in place, you just have to press it to start a breathing session. The process is totally the same as in the previous case since this sphere acts as an access door to the application. This means that you do not have to perform movements to access this functionality. This does not mean that a shortcut can also be added in the form of a complication. It applies to any type of sphere where there is an option to include a complication.
