How to Learn Breathwork to Manage Stress With One Deep Breath

Meditation and mindfulness are both great ways to improve overall well-being, and one specific form worth trying is breathwork — consciously changing your breathing patterns. One Deep Breath is an app that guides you through these breathing techniques and patterns. Here’s how to use the app’s research-backed breathing patterns and three-minute sessions to relieve stress and get your daily dose of mindfulness.

What is breathwork?

Breathwork involves different types of breathing techniques and patterns. Most types of emotional or physical stress make breathing shallow, so focused deep breathing can help you manage the effects of stress. A 2018 study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found that slow breathing techniques improved alertness, decreased mental stress, and reduced symptoms of anxiety, depression, and anger.

The One Deep Breath app teaches you different breathing patterns such as: B. Box breathing – a popular technique used by US Navy SEALs. Discover more of the app’s features and benefits while you decide if it’s worth subscribing.

Downloads: A Deep Breath for Android | iOS (free, subscription available)

With a deep breath for better health

One Deep Breath has a number of tools that can help your mental and physical health. Once you log in, the dashboard will show the basics of breathwork to help you get started. The essential breathing exercises focus on four main areas: relaxation, improving concentration, energy and sleep.

You can view your streaks and other breathing benchmarks on the dashboard. Another useful feature of the app is the respiratory health test. This test is based on the Buteyko breathing technique. This test can give you an approximate measurement of your carbon dioxide (CO2) tolerance, which will help determine how well your body is handling stress.

To start the test, go to breath health Tab from the dashboard or your profile settings. When you type beginning, a timer is displayed. Exhale gently, start the timer and hold your breath. You have to type Stop as soon as you feel the first distinct urge to breathe. The result is your controlled rest time. For example, if your pause time is between 0 and 15 seconds, it could indicate issues like unhealthy breathing habits, sleep apnea, asthma, or panic disorder.

You can visit the Respiratory Health tab to see your previous results in the progress calendar, personal bests, and a basic analysis of your score. If you keep scrolling down, the app offers learning resources to better understand your test score and ways to improve it. Frequent tests help you to map your progress. However, if you want to save your longest holds and streaks, you need to sign up.

Discover different breathing patterns

Different breathing patterns are the basis of the breathing exercises. Aside from basic focused breathing, you can try different patterns for specific problems. The app has around 28 breathing patterns. The free patterns such as box breathing, calmness, tactics and endurance are strong stress killers.

Before trying an exercise, you can read about it to understand what each breathing pattern does, how best to perform it, and safety guidelines. One Deep Breath makes following the exercises easy with customizable animated timers and soothing ambient sounds.

Some breathing patterns are only accessible to premium users. However, these patterns help solve specific problems. For example, the premium patterns help you deal with anger, irritation, fear, and balance. You even have the option to create a custom pattern.

Try the guided exercises

That exercises Tab in the app provides a long list of guided breathwork meditations. This is a combination of breathing exercises and guided meditation. Unlike breathing patterns, these exercises lean heavily toward meditation. Therefore, you need to lie down or sit comfortably.

For example, the Body Scan exercise helps release tension in any part of the body. Aside from the breathwork, guided meditation will help you visualize the tension. Paired with gentle breathing, it dissipates that tension and further relaxes you. Likewise, you can try exercises for sleep, troubling thoughts, positivity, and focus.

The app has a learning section with lots of resources. Here you will learn more about the benefits of breathwork, correct posture and important tips. All content in this section is in the form of detailed videos. The information is well presented and clearly explained. Also, new content is regularly added to the library.

Sleep better with Sleep Studio

A deep breath has a section called sleep studio where you can create a mindfulness routine for sleeping. The best sleep trackers are a great way to monitor your sleep patterns. But stress and anxiety can make it harder to fall asleep. Sleep-promoting content on Spotify can help, but One Deep Breath’s Sleep Studio lets you create a personalized nighttime routine that combines guided meditation, breathwork, and music for the most calming experience.

Choose a guided sleep meditation like yoga nidra. In this guided meditation, yoga breathing techniques will help you relax and drift off to sleep. Alternatively, you can play sleep sounds and try exercises and breathing patterns designed to help you fall asleep faster. This section is essentially a curation of all sleep-centered practices, meditations, and music.

How to safely practice breathwork

How you breathe affects your heart rate and blood pressure. While the benefits of this technique are plentiful, you also need to be aware of the precautions.

Consciously changing your breathing can lead to problems like hyperventilation, tingling in your fingers or toes, and dizziness. A general safety guideline is not to overdo these exercises and progress gradually. Each exercise in the app comes with a set of instructions and guidelines to help you practice safely.

Ideally, you should practice breathwork in a distraction-free environment. Breathwork is not a treatment for mental illness. When you seek professional help but in-person therapy is not an option, telemedicine can help improve your mental well-being.

Is a Deep Breath Premium worth it?

The premium version of One Deep Breath offers over 50 new breathing exercises. Each exercise will help you deal with a different problem. Breathwork to reduce headaches, stimulate the autonomic nervous system, and custom sessions require a paid subscription. In addition, subscribing will unlock more lessons and the entire library of nature sounds.

If you want to try different breathing techniques, the free version is sufficient. You can also test the premium for seven days via the free trial. Whether you subscribe or not, One Deep Breath is a great way to break through everyday stress.