Breathing exercises
Find your calm. With your breath.
Six breathing exercises for three moments — winding down, falling asleep, focusing. Plus a guided session with voice and soft music. No skills, no preparation: the app tells you when to breathe in and out.
- 6 exercises
- 3 to 12½ minutes
- Spoken cues
- Offline
Exercise to try
Calms you within minutes · in through nose, out through mouth
Why the breath?
Breathing runs on its own — and yet you can steer it. That makes it one of the few direct ways into the autonomic nervous system. As you breathe in, your heartbeat speeds up slightly; as you breathe out, it slows down again. Breathing more slowly, and out for longer than in, gives that calmer phase more room.
< 10
breaths per minute
Breathing this slowly is linked in studies to higher heart rate variability and to a feeling of more calm and well-being.
Zaccaro et al. 2018
~ 6
breaths per minute
Around this rate, heartbeat and breathing swing in step. The exact rate is individual, usually between 4.5 and 7.
Lehrer & Gevirtz 2014
5 min
daily, for one month
In a randomized study, an exercise with an emphasized long exhale improved mood the most — more than mindfulness meditation.
Balban et al. 2023
What do you need your breath for right now?
In the app, the exercises are sorted by goal. Each goal has two — a gentler one and one that asks a bit more of you.
The “Sleep well” goal in the app
Winding down after a hard day
Stress relief
Extended exhale gives breathing out more time than breathing in — the phase in which your heartbeat slows. Box breathing relies on an even beat. Neither needs any preparation: sitting down, any time.
Extended exhale
Calms you within minutes
- 4-0-6-4
- 20 rounds
- in through nose, out through mouth
What happens
The exhale lasts longer than the inhale — that is the lever: your heartbeat slows as you breathe out, and this exercise stretches exactly that phase. Then four seconds of pause on empty lungs, without adding any effort.
How to do it
- Sitting or lying down, shoulders loose.
- In through your nose, out through slightly parted lips — as if almost, but not quite, blowing out a candle.
- The pause should feel empty, not strained. If you want to breathe in sooner, do.
Box breathing
Even and grounding
- 4-4-4-4
- 20 rounds
- nose only
What happens
Four phases of equal length give your breath a steady beat for your attention to hold on to. Box breathing was one of the four exercises the study mentioned above compared over a month.
How to do it
- Breathe through your nose throughout.
- Both pauses are pauses, not strain: the air simply rests, throat and jaw loose.
- If 4 seconds start to feel long, breathe more shallowly rather than faster — the beat is what matters.
Settling down before falling asleep
Sleep well
Very long, calm exhales without any effort. Best done in bed, lying down, with your phone set aside — the spoken cues guide you, there is nothing to look at.
4-7-8 breathing
The classic for falling asleep
- 4-7-8-0
- 8 rounds
- in through nose, out through pursed lips
What happens
The technique comes from US physician Andrew Weil. You breathe out twice as long as you breathe in, against the resistance of almost closed lips — this pursed-lip breathing lengthens and slows the exhale and has long been established in respiratory therapy.
How to do it
- Rest the tip of your tongue behind your upper front teeth and leave it there.
- In through your nose, out through your mouth with lips almost closed.
- Weil recommends no more than four breaths in a row for the first month, later up to eight. The long hold can make you dizzy — stop right away if it does.
Long exhale
The calmest rhythm in the set
- 4-0-8-0
- 40 rounds
- in through nose, out through mouth
What happens
Breathing out twice as long as in, with no pause in between — five breaths per minute. The breath simply flows; there is nothing to hold and nothing to count. That is exactly why it suits the minutes before sleep: you can drift off during it.
How to do it
- Best done in bed, on your back, phone set aside. The spoken cues guide you.
- In through your nose, out through slightly parted lips — or all through the nose, which makes it quieter.
- If you fall asleep before the end, it has done its job.
Gathering yourself before a task
Focus & clarity
Even rhythms where breathing in and out take the same time. They calm you without making you drowsy — made for the minutes before something that demands concentration.
Coherent breathing
Brings pulse and breath in tune
- 6-0-6-0
- 60 rounds
- nose only
What happens
Six seconds in, six out: five breaths per minute. In this range, heartbeat and breathing swing in the same rhythm and heart rate variability becomes particularly large — research calls it the resonance frequency. The effect needs time, which is why, at just over twelve minutes, it is the longest exercise.
How to do it
- Calmly through the nose, into the belly rather than the chest.
- It should feel effortless. If 6 seconds get tight, breathe more shallowly.
- If 12 minutes are too much, stop early rather than breathing faster.
Box breathing 5
Demands your attention
- 5-5-5-5
- 20 rounds
- nose only
What happens
The longer variant of box breathing. Five seconds per phase is demanding enough that any wandering of the mind shows up immediately — which makes it more of a concentration exercise than a relaxation one.
How to do it
- Through the nose throughout, both pauses without straining.
- If the rhythm breaks, switch to the 4-second version under stress relief instead of fighting through.
Guided session in the app
Guided
Calm and Relaxation
About ten minutes in which a calm voice guides you through the exercise, accompanied by soft music. First you settle in, then the exhale gets longer step by step, and at the end you breathe with less and less air. Nothing to count, nothing to read.
How it is built
- 1
Settling in
two deep breaths, breathing into the belly
- 2
5 × 4 s in · 5 s out
a brief hold in between
- 3
5 × 5 s in · 6 s out
“Slower …”
- 4
8 × 6 s in · 7 s out
“Even slower …”
- 5
Winding down
breathing on your own, with less and less air
- Pause, skip forward and back
- Spoken in German and English
- Lands in your history on its own at the end
Your own rhythm
Build your rhythm
The six exercises are a proven starting point, not a rule. In the app you can take any of them over as your own exercise and adjust it — or build entirely new ones, even from several sections. Try out here how a rhythm feels.
- You breathe out for longer than in — the principle behind the calming exercises.
- This is in the range where most people's resonance frequency lies (4.5 to 7 per minute).
Two voices
Female or male, each with a preview. Cues in German, English, French and Spanish.
Soft music
Two calm pieces of background music, available for your own exercises.
Your history
Every exercise lands in your history on its own when it ends — no save button.
Practise in the evening
And see what it does to your sleep
If you like, Atmea reads your nights from Apple Health or Google Health Connect — provided a watch or ring records your sleep. The app sets them against your sessions and compares, for example: how do I sleep after an evening with a calm exercise — and how after a strenuous evening workout?
- Read-only — Atmea never writes anything back.
- All values stay on your device.
- A connection in your data, not proof: there is no control group, only your nights.
Sleep page in the app
Nose or mouth?
Some exercises have you breathe out through the mouth, others only through the nose. That is no contradiction: for breathing around the clock, the nose is the gold standard. In certain exercises, though, the resistance of the lips is part of the exercise itself. Each exercise says which way is meant.
Both sides in detail under LearnGood to know
- If you feel dizzy or unwell, stop and breathe normally. No exercise has to be finished.
- Exercises with holds only sitting or lying down — never standing, driving or in water.
- With respiratory or cardiovascular conditions, or during pregnancy, check with a doctor first.
- Atmea is a practice tool, not a medical device, and does not replace treatment.
Start tonight
Three minutes are enough for a first try. 4-7-8 breathing is the shortest exercise — ideal for finding out how guided breathing feels to you.
The app launches on iOS in October 2026. The Android version follows by November 2026.
Sources
- Zaccaro et al., How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2018.
- Lehrer & Gevirtz, Heart rate variability biofeedback: how and why does it work? Frontiers in Psychology 2014.
- Balban et al., Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Reports Medicine 2023 (randomized, n = 111).
- Andrew Weil, The 4-7-8 Breath (Relaxing Breath), patient handout, Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine.