A breathing app for Apple Watch

Practice from your wrist with your eyes closed. Simple Breathwork's Apple Watch app taps out every phase with haptics, times your holds, and syncs each session to your iPhone.

Why breathe from your wrist?

Breathing practice works best when you stop looking at things. That's hard when the guide is a bright phone screen you keep glancing at to check the count. On Apple Watch, the guide comes to you instead. Each phase of a session has its own haptic pattern, a tap or rhythm on your wrist, so you can close your eyes, lie back, and let the breath follow the taps.

It's also simply convenient. Your watch is already on. You don't need to unlock a phone, find an app and prop it up somewhere. Raise your wrist, choose a session and start.

What the Watch app does

The Simple Breathwork Watch app (watchOS 11 or later) gives you guided sessions with full haptic guidance:

• Session choices on the wrist. Pick a Quick or Standard session right from the Watch home screen.
• Paced breathing rounds. Power-breathing rounds of 30 to 40 breaths, paced by haptics, then an exhale hold and a 15-second recovery breath. The breath retention app page explains how a round works.
• Timed holds. The hold is timed on your wrist, with the current round shown on screen when you do want to look.
• Automatic sync. Sessions you complete on the watch are sent to your paired iPhone and added to your history, streaks and records.

Your iPhone tells the watch whether Premium is active, so the features you have on your phone are the ones you have on your wrist.

Apple Health: Mindful Minutes and heart rate

If you turn on Apple Health, Simple Breathwork does two things:

1. Saves each session as Mindful Minutes. So your breathwork shows up in the Health app alongside the rest of your day.
2. Shows your average heart rate for each breath hold. After a session, the summary can show the average heart rate recorded during each hold. Apple Watch is what records heart rate, so this is where the Watch and Health work together.

Heart rate during a hold is something to notice, not something to chase. It varies with posture, how relaxed you are and what you breathed before the hold. It isn't a medical reading, and Simple Breathwork isn't a medical device.

Health access is off until you allow it. Health data is read and written on your device, never uploaded to us, never shared with third parties and never used for advertising. You can turn access off at any time in the Health app. The privacy policy has the details.

Safety on the wrist

The same rules apply on the watch as anywhere else, and they matter more because a watch goes everywhere with you:

• Never practice breath holds in or near water. That includes swimming with your watch on.
• Never while driving, cycling, standing or walking.
• Practice seated or lying down, and stop at the first strong urge to breathe.

If you are pregnant or have a heart, lung or other health condition, talk to a doctor first. The breathwork safety guide explains why fast breathing before a hold needs care.

The rest of the app on iPhone

The iPhone app is where you set up sessions and look back at your practice:

• Start Fresh, a guided two-minute reset, and Box Breathing, both free every day.
• 4-7-8 and the Physiological Sigh as short guided sessions.
• Quick (5 minutes), Standard (20) and Heroic (44) breath-hold sessions, or custom rounds, breaths and pace.
• A 7-day Fresh Start routine and the 21-day program.
• Per-round summaries, personal records and analytics for streaks, weekly practice, best hold and average hold.
• A Home Screen widget, Live Activity and Dynamic Island to keep your session and streak in view.

The app also runs on iPad, Apple-silicon Macs and Apple Vision Pro, according to the App Store listing.

Getting started on Apple Watch

1. Install Simple Breathwork on your iPhone from the App Store. The Watch app is installed alongside it on your paired watch; if it isn't, open the Watch app on your iPhone and install it from there.
2. Open the app on your iPhone once to set your preferences, and allow Apple Health if you'd like Mindful Minutes and heart rate.
3. Open Simple Breathwork on your watch, choose a session, sit or lie down, and close your eyes.

If sessions don't show up on your phone, keep both devices nearby with Bluetooth on and open the app on each. The support page covers this and other common questions.

General wellness information, not medical advice. Simple Breathwork is not a medical device. Breathing exercises and breath holds can cause dizziness, tingling or fainting: practice seated or lying down, never in or near water, while driving or standing. If you are pregnant or have a heart, lung, seizure or other health condition, talk to a doctor first.