3 reasons the Breathe app is that 1-minute timeout you need
The Breathe app is a standard fixture on the Apple Watch, a blue flower that expands and contracts when tapped, reminding you to, yes, take a minute and just breathe. That's certainly a good reminder, but the app also delivers a few other reasons that make it a great one-minute timeout worth the very short time investment.
A focus on the breath can help to bring about what Harvard Medical School calls a relaxation response which can be a way to combat stress. A 2018 study found that breathing exercises can boost attention, and the University of Michigan notes that deep breathing can help to reduce stress in your body.
All of this suggests that taking one minute to tap Breathe may be worth the time.
Mindful minutes
You can't escape the idea of mindful minutes if you spend even part of your daily life online. The concept is to pull yourself out of your head, out of the stress or angst many of us experience thinking of the past or even the future. The goal is to focus on the immediate, and in meditation, one tool is to focus on the breath.
Breathe does just this by creating a visual cue to breathe in, with the flower expanding, and to breathe out with the flower contracting. You can also just close your eyes and breathe using the haptic feedback — the tapping from the Apple Watch — that tells you when to breathe in and out.
Every minute you use Breathe is catalogued into your Mindful Minutes, hidden in the Health app under "Show All Health Data." You can even link other meditation apps, including two popular apps, Calm and Headspace, to count towards these minutes.
Heart rate
After your one-minute mini-meditation, Breathe displays your heart rate as your Apple Watch picks it up. The wearable takes readings of your heart rate throughout your day. But you can push for a reading by using the Breathe app, which will then record the end rate when you've finished the exercises. Optimally, your heart rate will lower — yes, even after one minute of slow breathing.
If you're looking to lower your heart rate, or you've been tracking it for health reasons, the Breathe app can help you follow this metric, and potentially bring your heart rate down.
Heart rate variability
Like your heart rate, the Apple Watch tracks this metric as well. However, heart rate variability is a bit different than heart rate in that it detects the intervals between heart beats. Why should you care about this piece of data?
Heart rate variability is one data point athletes read to tell them about their fitness levels. There are studies, too, that are looking at this data to detect early Covid-19 infection.
The Apple Watch captures this metric periodically, on its own, throughout your day. But you can push for the information to be pulled — like a heart rate — by launching the Breathe app. And the number may go up, which for this metric is the direction you want, after you finish a one-minute session.
Still want to delete it?
You can not only delete the Breathe app but also customize it, changing how often you want the feature to ping you during the day.
You can create preferences in the Watch app on your iPhone by clicking on Breathe. You can choose how often you want to be reminded to use the app, from 10 times a day to none. You can even choose to mute the reminder for a a single day and personalize how fast or slow you want the Breathe app to guide you to breathe. The standard is about 7 breaths a minute, but you can slow that down to four and up it to 10. And you can choose to keep haptic notifications fairly strong, soften them, or also eliminate them.
Finally, there is always the permanent option, which is going directly to your Apple Watch, pressing the crown to bring up apps, and then pressing hard on the Breathe icon itself until the images vibrate, and then pressing once to delete that app.
Before taking that step, it might be worth trying the Breathe app for one minute — and seeing it that takes the edge off instead.
Apple Watch SE (2nd Gen) [GPS 40mm] Smartwatch with Midnight Aluminium Case with Midnight Sport Band S/M. Fitness and Sleep Trackers, Crash Detection, Heart Rate Monitor, Retina Display
