Research-cited breathing exercises for anxious moments, like the meeting you're dreading, the 2am spiral or the crowded train. Guided by a calm visual and gentle haptic taps, so you can breathe through it anywhere. Free on iPhone, no account.
An app can teach you a skill, and breathing is one of the few levers on anxiety you can pull by hand. When you slow your breath, your body's calming branch measurably switches on: a meta-analysis of 223 studies found slow breathing raises heart-rate variability during and after practice. Across randomized trials, breathwork brings small-to-moderate reductions in stress and anxiety. That's real, but it isn't magic. BreathFly makes the skill easy to practise and easy to reach for when you need it.
Wound up, spiralling or bracing for something: each calls for a slightly different pattern. Every exercise in the app shows its source.
Best when anxiety spikes and you need a fast reset.
Two inhales through the nose, one long exhale through the mouth. In a month-long randomized trial, five minutes a day produced the biggest mood gains of the four practices tested, significantly more than mindfulness meditation.
Best for daily practice that lowers your baseline.
About 5.5 breaths a minute, the pace where heart rate rises and falls in step with the breath and heart-rate variability peaks (Lehrer & Gevirtz, 2014). A steady 5–10 minutes a day.
Best for steadying yourself before something big.
Inhale, hold, exhale, hold, all for four. Popularized by former Navy SEAL commander Mark Divine. Its even, predictable rhythm gives a busy mind something simple to hold onto before a presentation or a hard conversation.
Save this. It's the sequence BreathFly is built around, and it works with or without the app.
"This is anxiety. It's uncomfortable, not dangerous." Labelling the feeling takes away some of its surprise, and surprise is what makes it spiral.
Double inhale through the nose, long slow exhale through the mouth. Keep it gentle. Big, fast gulps add to the jittery feeling instead of easing it.
Follow a slow rhythm, about four seconds in and six out, for a minute or two. Let the sensations rise and fall without fighting them. They pass faster when you let them.
When an app isn't enough: if anxiety is frequent, intense or getting in the way of your life, talk to a doctor or therapist. CBT is a first-line treatment, and it works. If you're in crisis, call or text 988 (US) or call Samaritans on 116 123 (UK).
No courses to finish, no streak guilt, no voice in your ear. Open it, breathe, close it.
Haptic taps mark every inhale and exhale, so you can breathe along with the screen locked, in a meeting or on a train.
Set a reminder before your Monday stand-up or your commute. Tapping it opens the exercise directly, so practice happens before the spike.
Each exercise shows the study or expert behind it, so you know why it's there.
No account and no tracking. Your session history stays on your iPhone. What makes you anxious is your business.
Practised regularly in the same moments, a pattern starts to come naturally. The aim is a skill you carry, not an app you can't put down.
20+ guided exercises across stress, sleep, focus and energy, free on iPhone. Premium adds custom patterns and routines.
Yes. BreathFly is free to download on iPhone and its core library of guided breathing exercises needs no account. It is built for anxious moments: you open it, pick an exercise like cyclic sighing or slow resonance breathing, and follow a visual and haptic guide for two to five minutes.
They help, modestly and reliably. A 2023 meta-analysis of randomized trials found breathwork produced small-to-moderate reductions in stress and anxiety, and slow breathing consistently increases heart-rate variability, a marker of the body's calming system. Breathing is a skill that takes the edge off. It is not a cure for an anxiety disorder.
For a quick reset, cyclic sighing: two inhales through the nose, then a long exhale through the mouth. In a 2023 Stanford-led trial it improved mood more than mindfulness meditation with five minutes a day. For longer practice, slow resonance breathing at about six breaths a minute. The common thread is slow, gentle breathing with an unhurried exhale, never big gulps of air.
A breathing app gives a racing mind something concrete to follow. Matching a visual rhythm and counting by feel crowds out the loop of thoughts for a few minutes while slow breathing calms the body. It won't solve what you're worrying about, but it can lower the volume enough to think clearly again.
Yes. Haptic taps mark each phase of the breath, so you can start an exercise, lock the screen or put the phone in your pocket, and breathe along by feel. There is no audio, so nobody around you needs to know.
No. If anxiety is frequent, intense or affecting your daily life, talk to a doctor or licensed therapist. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a first-line treatment for anxiety disorders and panic disorder. BreathFly is a self-help practice tool that works well alongside professional care, not instead of it.
Guided breathing for anxious moments, with visual and haptic pacing that works anywhere, even in your pocket. Free on the App Store, no account, no tracking.
