Show HN: I'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for stress and anxiety
lungy.appHey HN! Some more info: I’m an NHS doctor and the founder of Pi-A (https://www.pi-a.io) which developed Lungy (https://www.lungy.app). Lungy is an app (iOS only for now) that responds to breathing in real-time and was designed to make breathing exercises more engaging and beneficial to do. It hopefully has many aspects of interest to the HN community – real-time fluid, cloth and soft body sims running on the phone’s GPU.
My background is as a junior surgical trainee and I started building Lungy in 2020 during the first COVID lockdown in London. During COVID, there were huge numbers of patients coming off ventilators and they are often given breathing exercises on a worksheet and disposable plastic devices called incentive spirometers to encourage deep breathing. This is intended to prevent chest infections and strengthen breathing muscles that have weakened. I noticed often the incentive spirometer would sit by the bedside, whilst the patient would be on their phone – this was the spark that lead to Lungy!
The visuals are mostly built using Metal, with one or two using SpriteKit. There are 20 to choose from, including boids, cloth sims, fluid sims, a hacky DLA implementation, rigid body + soft body sims. The audio uses AudioKit with a polyphonic synth and a sequencer plays generated notes from a chosen scale (you can mess around with the sequencer and synth in Settings/Create Music).
There are obviously lots of breathing and meditation apps out there, I wanted Lungy to be different - it's about tuning into your surroundings and noticing the world around you, so all the visuals are nature-inspired or have some reference to the physical world. I didn’t like other apps required large downloads and/or a wifi connection, so Lungy’s download size is very small (<50MB), with no geometry, video or audio files.
Lungy is initially a wellness app, but I’d like to develop a medical device version for patients with breathing problems such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) & long COVID. Thanks for reading - would love to hear feedback!
Very interesting concept and neat visuals. Before I dive in, I'm a trained vocalist and breathing is core concept #1. My feedback may be geared towards our line of work, but I believe breathing mastery is analogous across domains. Here are my initial thoughts:
Using the microphone and camera makes sense. When the camera required calibration, my excitement grew. Then my anticipation gave way to disappointment when the bar had no sensitivity to silent breathing, nor 'shoulder breathing.' I'm now struggling to know what the camera is needed for - ideally you want to see if someone is shrugging their shoulders instead of filling their diaphragm, but the camera positioning isn't suited for that - nor did my experimentation reveal the app's sensitivity to that input.
Further, while one can 'cancel out' the audio stimulus from the audio input in software, I wonder if there's interference. I found it takes a significantly 'loud' breathing to get the bar to move along with me - and even still, the bar shifts before I'm ready to shift. In some sense, I guess that's the intended behavior change - however, not all loud breathing is good breathing and leaving us without feedback that we should change our breath tempo doesn't help us get better.
This overall is a wonderful idea - and would be perfectly fine (really better in my opinion) without the request for camera and microphone access.
Thanks, that's very useful feedback. At the moment, the camera isn't utilised to its full potential - it is used to guide positioning rather than measuring accessory muscles or shoulder movement. I think overall adding sensors to the experience does add something, and hopefully with more development the app could alert the user to things like hyperventilation and dysfunctional breathing patterns.
You could use the front TrueDepth sensor that is behind FaceID unlocking. You will get quite detailed RGB + depth data. It could possibly capture even the subtle movements of upper chest.
see Steffen Urban, Thomas Lindemeier, David Dobbelstein, Matthias Haenel, "On the Issues of TrueDepth Sensor Data for Computer Vision Tasks Across Different iPad Generations" and Andreas Breitbarth, Timothy Schardt, Cosima Kind, Julia Brinkmann, Paul-Gerald Dittrich, Gunther Notni, "Measurement accuracy and dependence on external influences of the iPhone X TrueDepth sensor".
Could you use the LiDAR data on newer iPhones to get more accurate assessment? https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/addit...
Hmm it currently uses TrueDepth on devices that support it. I think LIDAR is only with back-facing cameras?
Ah good point that kind of defeats the visual part of your app :) nice work btw!
I just bought it, the microphone doesn’t seem to do a lot (and I don’t gave access to camera) but I will try it out later.
It’s a well thought app. The core function is really good, I will enjoy trying out the different exercises! The design of the homescreen could be better, looks a bit cluttered.
Maybe some background information if it takes off in the future would be nice for people who don’t know the science behind each breath type.
Other than that, I wish you success!
It's not fair to judge the microphone when you didn't use the camera to position it correctly.
There is an exact distance and tilt the phone needs to get the best sound, and its not really possible to nail that without the help of the camera.
Have a quick look here if you think the mic input is not working correctly: https://www.lungy.app/how-to. If that doesn't help, please send a message to - hello [at] lungy dot app
I agree the home screen could be clearer and the layout could be improved on the exercises to include more info. Thank you for the feedback!
You might want to explore using haptic feedback via the devices vibrator motor to prompt the user to breathe in and out.
One short pulse for breathe in, and a longer pulse to breathe out.
This would allow the user to perform the exercises with their eyes closed and the phone on their lap.
I know the visual functionality is core to your design, but might be a good idea to provide some optionality for users who just want to do the exercises without looking at their phone.
+1 to this suggestion. It’s part of what makes the breathe app on the Apple Watch engaging, the stream of tapping on your wrist really helps. I’m sure the same can be achieved with the phone.
Also it will allow people with impaired vision use the app.
+1. I did add very subtle haptics (possibly too subtle) as the indicator changes, but I like the idea of making them stronger and recognisable for each breath phase
pick up a cheap Fitbit on Amazon, they have a pretty good haptic breathwork flow.
another interesting thought, maybe user could lay down on their back place iPhone on chest, and you can measure breathing with accelerometer? that could be even more accurate than camera + mic
I can't test your app, since I don't have an iPhone, but I'm hoping you could answer a vaguely related question for me.
One of my COVID readings was Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor. Its author says, "humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly". Like your app, it proposes a lot of breathing exercises. It explains their benefits in terms of increasing CO2 tolerance, and believes that we've all got too much O2 in our systems.
That smells like horse puckey to me, but I've been unable to find an informed review either way. I'm sure that slow, deep breathing as a focus for meditation is a very good thing, and I'm sure that your particular app is well founded. But I'm curious to know if you've read that particular book, and what your opinions are.
Thanks!
There is a feedback loop that characterizes the stress/anxiety response, where people breathe faster, which in turn increases the stress response, causing even faster breathing. People with chronic anxiety also develop decreased CO2 tolerance over time[1] from this rapid breathing, perpetuating the chronic rapid breath.
Breath exercises that increase CO2 tolerance like Buteyko breathing allow one to interrupt this process. It's not clear to me exactly what the increased CO2 is doing, if anything, but it's clear that this works to escape this chronic stress state, which is really unhealthy.
I think the Radiolab breath episode discusses this well: https://radiolab.org/episodes/breath
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11015814/
I recently came across this by accident and your explanation jives.
I noticed I would get fairly fatigued, and have to take a nap around 11am every morning, and eventually found that it was basically every 4-5 hours, even mid-day too. I would take a 10-20m power nap and usually wake up feeling really good, I would even hit REM in that time.
Then a few months ago, I noticed when I was having this feeling I was usually ruminating about something, and it was something like grappling or repressed anger, AND what this did was cause very shallow breathing and "breath holding" patterns. And I've been doing a lot of work around Gabor Mate, MD's work lately and processing trauma responses so I was able to identify this and feel the feelings in a more present way, and in doing so, start very intentional deep, slow breath and exhales.
Compared to my shallow breathing and holding, my breaths became like 3-4x longer. And... to my surprise, the fatigue would pass in about 5minutes or so and I would not need a nap, and get my brain back to an "alert" state, as opposed to that "foggy" state.
I have been doing this for months now, and it keeps working. And now, this was really blurry because sometimes I would be genuinely tired from sleep debt from pulling a late night, and it was a similar feeling. So when I get a solid nights sleep for multiple nights in a row, then the breathing works to keep me alert, and helps me get more in touch with my emotions and subconscious thoughts rise up and become concious. I can detect the shallow breathing/breath holding fairly well now, but not always, and it is still a work in progress to make these breaths the default. The breathing does help me move through life much better now, and I walk slower, and not so rushed, and am more at peace with doing things in the present.
This actually wouldn't really be possible though if it weren't for a discovery that I breathed through my mouth my whole life (40 years) recently too. I learned about the "nasal cycle" and in combination with a deviated septum I have, my nose would plug up every now and then with no rhyme or reason, I thought it was diet for a long time but eventually learned about the "nasal cycle" where the turbinates in our noses swap the swelling to change the airflow every 4-6 hours or so. And when it swapped to my non-blocked septum side, my airflow would stop and I would be forced to breathe through my mouth. What this meant is that I could never develop a habit of nasal breathing my entire life. I started using Afrin about 5 months ago, and then stopped because it says not to use it continuously and you get a rebound when you stop using it. But then I found a Ear Nose Throat doctor/surgeon and presented my hypothesis to him and he confirmed that the nasal cycle + deviated septum hypothesis was correct! And he suggested I use Afrin plus a nasal steroid (Sensimist) together and that will reduce the rebound effect and that enabled me to use Afrin long term to stop the natural swelling of the turbinates in my nose. And, so I've been using Afrin for 3 months now and can breath so good through my nose now, and it is so sweet, and so precious, I can't imagine going back to mouth breathing ever again. I do have increased sensitivity to cold with the Afrin and my nose drips like a faucet. Or maybe that was because I never breathed through my nose in the cold to begin with? Regardless, I need to bring tissues with me in cold weather wherever I go.
And that leads to the fact that now when I noticed the breathing pausing, I can take big deep breaths through my nose and it feels so good, and calming, I can break out of the trauma/anxiety cycle and self-regulate with breathing.
I think the breathing cycle issue is mostly a trauma response from a young age and then it turns into a learned habit. This is the result of a caretaker not being there for me/us to help us self-regulate at a young age. The Wisdom of Trauma film and In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts book by Gabor Mate, MD. really was trans-formative in my understanding of all this and success here, combined with other things as I mentioned above.
Sleep debt is also super duper real, and from what I learned in The Promise of Sleep by William Dement, MD. is that if I miss 2 hours of sleep one night, it can take 4 nights to actually catch up on that, like 30 minutes extra a night. I can't pay it back in 1 night, and that I still need to take naps. If we don't have sleep we will be in a chronic stress state forever.
I also was recently diagnosed with sleep apnea, after going to the doctor for fatigue and mentioning how frequent and predictable my naps were, I thought I had narcolepsy. They had to do a sleep apnea test first for insurance reasons before narcolepsy testing could be approved. This was when I was still mouth breathing, and I was waking up like 10 times a night from chronic back pain, trying to find that perfect position, so never really slept more than an hour without waking. I was fatigued. So Sleep Apnea came back positive and one of the explanations for the waking up, (had to pee a lot too), was that when the airway closes the body releases adrenaline to wake up or do something with the airway, the adrenaline increases urine production, and so I was also waking up because of having to pee, not enough air, or back pain.
I finally got rid of all the back and neck pain (of 20 years) using Pain Reprocessing Therapy (Gordon) and Compassion-based trauma therapy (Compassionate Inquiry (Mate) + Internal Family Systems (Schwartz) and started sleeping through the night, without CPAP, and then I tried CPAP for a month and was still tired and fatigued during the day. So I stopped using CPAP and only later realized that I may have been getting enough oxygen at night but wasn't during the day.
This is all one giant hurried mess of a story, but I wasn't going to post anything and figured "perfect is the enemy of good" and that this could help some people connect some dots in their lives so I just blotted it all out here.
WOW this post resonates with me on so many levels. Thank you so much for writing it out!
-I have the exact same issue, I feel overwhelming fatigue that lifts with a 10 minute nap, and need to do it many times per day. I work from home, and can't really work in person because without a nap I just crash, despite getting a good nights sleep -My girlfriend pointed out that I normally breath unusually fast and shallow, about twice as fast as her -I've had some very traumatic experiences in the last few years that I still haven't dealt with fully. Around the time of these experiences I couldn't sleep well because I had to constantly get up to urinate, and also at the same time felt an "air hunger" where I felt no amount of breathing was enough
Could you recommend something specific to start working on with these things? I actually just started reading the Mate book "The Myth of Normal" but haven't gotten very far in it yet.
It seems like there are quite a few people here discovering these things, I wish we could form a discussion group or something.
Nocturia + Sleep issues could mean Sleep Apnea
I don’t snore, I am not overweight.
And I had some ADHD like symptoms.
My doctor didn’t think that it would be useful to test but I insisted, lack of sleep was making me desperate. I took at least three naps a day just to be able to function.
The results were surprising even to me, AHI of 23.
CPAP treatment has been life changing.
Well, first thing is, can you breath through your nose? Do you have that habit down? Fixing this is really important, for me at least. If a person can't breath through their nose, I suggest trying Afrin. This was such a huge lightbulb moment for me, and was my "AHA" moment. I really didn't know that the normal human condition is to nasal breathe. My mom has the same condition and I was raised by her so I didn't realize it and she didn't either to even notice it in me. It works instantly, within 10 minutes, and my world was opened up! And it still took me months to form the habit of nasal breathing, because I could never trust it enough when it worked (due to the nasal cycle). I definitely do Afrin just before bedtime too, every 12 hours or so. And I am getting surgery for the deviated septum too in February.
Second thing, do you have chronic pain? That will keep the body in a stress response. Chronic pain is actually easier to get rid of than I thought, and I tried a lot of things for 20 years. The new research at University of Colorado Boulder, using functional MRI scans in 2020 proves that much chronic pain can be eliminated in a short period with a very specific technique called Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), which is a compassion-based therapy. This is a really, really hard thing to believe, and one doesn't have to believe it fully, they just have to believe it enough to be curious and learn more. And if one is curious, I recommend listening to a 15 episode mini-series podcast called Tell Me About Your Pain by Alon Gordon (Pain Pyschologist) and Alon Ziv (Neuroscientist), then after that listen to the audio book (not ebook) by the same people called "The Way Out" (2022). Then there are 6 specific meditations by Alan Gordon on an app called Curable that I used to eliminate my chronic neck and back pain, I can dig up the link to them if you like. This same technique is what I use to react to my shallow breathing and fatigue with deeper breathing. This got me sleeping through the night.
Third, the trauma therapy (it isn't if we have trauma, it is how much), I recommend starting with the film The Wisdom of Trauma. And if that is interesting then reading In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. Myth of Normal seems like a great book too, I haven't read it yet though but it is on my list. I did start reading Gabor's AD(H)D book Scattered Minds a while back, way before this breathing breakthrough surfaced and need to finish it, but to sum up one thing I learned I have ADD-Like symptoms and this whole shallow breathing thing I have noticed is a large part of it. Once I start conscious breathing, by ADD-like stuff reduces. I've been more motivated to actually exercise and not fall asleep doing it, and I have been working on cold-exposure therapy (What Doesn't Kill Us by Mark Carney, investigative journalist who tried to debunk Wim Hoff, ended up drinking the Koolaid, and explains why). The cold-exposure increases the chemical called norepinephrine, which is one of the chemicals that Adderall increases (along with Dopamine). There is a quote from the film "My Octopus Teacher" (fantastic film) where he says "the cold really upgrades the brain" and references him diving into the ocean without a wetsuit almost every day for a year making friends with an octopus. I really like that quote. The cold does help me think when I do it, and I am still easing into it, and getting my brain back.
All in all, I feel at a really new phase of my life, and that includes this thing called "Hope". I no longer think my fatigue is caused by my diet, and in fact I know it isn't.
I'm happy to chat about this with you or anyone else. I'm also open to saying "hi" on a real-time communication (RTC) chat here https://cal.com/ElijahLynn.
> If a person can't breath through their nose, I suggest trying Afrin.
Be careful of the "rebound" effect with nasal sprays. Years ago I was "hooked" on Afrin. Not in a getting high sense but in the sense that I started to constantly need it in order to breath out of my nose, even after my cold went away. It was a terrible feeling and took weeks to wean off.
With a bad cold and miserable congestion, nasal spray like Afrin is like a miracle. I still use it in those instances but only for 2-3 days max and very sparingly.
If you really can't breath out of your nose well see a doctor.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/allergies/exp...
https://www.goodrx.com/conditions/nasal-congestion/rebound-c...
This is very true! And my doctor/surgeon said that if you use a steroid like Sensimist with the Afrin then the rebound effect isn't as severe, which appears to be someone true so far. I do a spray of Afrin, then 10 minutes later do 2 sprays of sensimist. It isn't ideal and I am switching to surgery option now that I have tested it out for a few months now and would like to make it permanent!
i see you follow gabor mate and i see lot of talk about trauma and understand people's need for processing it and so on. ptsd is real, not denying that. having said that, in the past years i have actually been moving in the other direction, that sometimes trauma narratives tend to keep people stuck in the past. it solidifies certain types of trauma, makes it part of a person's identity and hampers recovery for some. one trouble is trauma is associated with lot of meaning and we tend to stick to things that are meaningful. i understand that too much thinking in this direction isnt correct and the truth lies somewhere in between. just saw that you have been aligning too much towards one direction so couldnt help but mirror that.
I worked with a trauma therapist and this was exactly what we worked on. The way out of trauma is to find out / realize that you’ve worked your way out of trauma. That the danger zone is gone.
I’m constantly blown away by the nuggets of wisdom I find on this website! Thanks for such a breath of knowledge, no pun intended. Going down a rabbit hole of chronic pain. Thank you
> constantly get up to urinate
I hope you've been checked for diabetes?
The problem went away immediately when the massively stressful event was passed.
Thanks for writing this all out—I too have a deviated septum and can relate to a lot of what you wrote. Have you considered surgery for your nose?
Yes, I forgot to mention but I have surgery coming up in February so hopefully I want need my Afrin dependency anymore! I wasn't sure about surgery at first, and was just super duper happy I could breath through my nose, after 40 years of not even knowing that it wasn't normal to breath only through my mouth. But after a few months of this precious nose breathing, and my mouth not drying out at night anymore which caused me to want to drink water at night, and would contribute to waking up to pee, getting shitty sleep, and putting me in chronic stress from sleep deprivation, I now am ready to take the next step and get surgery to fix the deviated septum and have my turbinates function as they were intended to again!
Good luck with the surgery! I'm looking at doing it next year myself. Anecdotally, everyone who I ran into locally who'd had his said the same thing: they wish they'd done it sooner—ergo, it sounds like a winner. Again, thanks for sharing your wisdom in your original post. All the best!
If you have poor nasal breathing you should consider EASE https://drkaseyli.org/ease . People in your situation often have narrow jaws which can result in a narrow nasal aperture and poor airflow
I'd never come across this, but it looks promising. I broke my jaw in the past, so I imagine I'm even more at risk of having jaw related breathing issues. Thanks for sharing!
This resonates a lot for me. My nose has never worked right. Like, for instance when I get nosebleeds it always come out of the same nostril 100%.
Thanks a lot for the detailed writup, I'm currently investigating similar stuff but didn't really know whereto look, this will help me a lot.
How do you feel now compared to before?
i want to ask chatGPT to summarise this for me and repost but i'm not sure if that's welcome here.
As a permanent snorer and nose cold sufferer several tips in that book worked wonders for me. I already had a good set of lungs and low breathing rhythm thanks to swimming, but a few weeks of sleeping with my mouth taped shut and attention to my jaw posture solved quite some issues. (N=1 YMMV etc)
+1 For tapping the mouth shut. I used to snore and wake up tired now that I use 3M-1530-2 tape I wake up refreshed. So N is now equal to 2 !
+2 for taping mouth shut.
I read the book a week ago, said, why not. Instant improvement. Before, I'd have to wake up to go to the bathroom every night for the past 10 years, and when I woke up I'd have this eye pain every day leading to these giant eye bags. On top of those, if I didn't get that last sleep cycle in, I'd have to take a nap to get rid of this weird headache which made the time in the morning before nap seem pointless. In the book he mentioned how face skin can improve, and less bathroom in the middle of the night because apparently the body releases something to tell the body to hold water because we're sleeping. Mouth breating at night didn't cause this to happen.
I did the mouth tape and instantly, first night and every night in the past week, eye pain is gone, I don't have get up to use the bathroom, and the amount of consistent energy is absurd compared to before.
Seriously, I want to shout it out to everyone to tape their mouths at night.
+4 with my wife and I. I have sleep apnea from a deviated septum, she has various breathing issues from EDS. We both sleep better now.
I think I would staying awake at least the first nights just by the thought that I have my mouth shut, and "what if I cannot breath and I die", or "this is so uncomfortable" etc etc. How did you manage that?
Yeah, the first two nights I woke up decently alert a couple times which I took to be my body telling me that something might be wrong and I should check it out.
I never felt a sense of uncomfortableness, it felt almost comfortable for me as if the tape was making me feel more secure, maybe? Similarly I didn't have the worry about not being able to breathe and not know about it. In both those cases, don't feel weird about wearing some around when waking and you can get used to it.
The other mindset to have is remember that our bodies are really incredible at things after millions of years of evolution. Nose breathing especially is something we're able to do. That acknowledgement and trust can go a long way mentally.
I haven't read the book, but just hearing the idea to tape my mouth shut induces some anxiety. Isn't it dangerous that you don't get enough air?
You can actually cut a little slit in the mouth tape, so that you won't panic. Breathing a straw sized amount of air through the mouth if you need to, will prevent suffocation anxiety, but also limit your mouth breathing enough that your nose does most of the work.
Watch this guys two videos on a DIY CPAP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8JzXEoT9LI
I can see how it can cause some anxiety. I suppose I was lucky that it didn't for me. The first two nights I work up in the middle a couple times, decently alert, and could tell my body was trying to say something might be wrong. I was able to fall asleep quickly though, which also was something I wasn't able to do before.
If you might have that anxiety, I'd say try putting tape on your mouth during the day at times to get used to it, and you might find you'll forget about it and that can ease the worry. It might be difficult, but we all can breathe only through our noses, even if that requires some practice and reassurance.
It did cause some anxiety for me. But I use a soft tape that easily comes loose with just the back of my hand or a big jaw movement.
I especially enjoy how the nasal cycle with nose breathing just seems to physically “halve” colds. Even with a cold with nose breathing one nostril just opens up at night in order to let me breathe.
What kind of tape do you use? I've just started trying this and best I have found so far in my local grocery store is Nexcare Absolute Waterproof tape. It stays on all night, but I wondered if there was something a bit easier to remove.
I just used a regular soft bandage tape (‘leukosilk’). In the beginning I sometimes ripped them off in the night, so I’d go with something soft.
One great thing with increasing co2 resistance is I can hold my breath for ~5 minutes and thus freedive / snorkel deep and stay long under water. But other than that I'm not sure, also curious about if it has any more health related benefits.
For practicing breath holding, "co2 tables" is the exercise to go for, btw. I find it very relaxing in a sort of meditative "ignore the burning pain" sense, but not sure I'd recommend it vs the app in the OP hehe.
My understanding from the book was that CO2 is an essential part of the mechanism that transfers oxygen to your muscles. If you breathe too much you have too little CO2, your muscles can't get enough oxygen and they don't work efficiently. I've no idea if this is true, but since I read the book I breathe less when exercising and it seems to help. Edited to add: I'd forgotten, when I first started breathing less during exercise it made a huge difference, like coming down from altitude. I recommend it.
As a fellow Londoner, thank you! I just gave it a try, it was very relaxing and responsive.
One thing I would suggest, and I know it's a bit of a balancing act, but it's what always irritates me about breathing exercise apps. When it comes to the "Breathe In" and "Breathe Out" instructions, I wish you would hold off on switching to telling me to "Breathe In" when I am still clearly breathing out (which you know based on the microphone). It always makes me feel rushed when I am not perfectly in sync with what the app wants me to do and I feel like the responsive way in which this app works could make this a bit better.
Neat app, I like meditating and this seems useful for feedback.
Ideas to consider
- I went through the tutorial and it taught me to breathe in through nose, out through mouth. When I was trying my first day, those tips weren’t there or available so it was hard to know if I was doing what you wanted
- the labels (breathe in, etc) fade to transparent before next one ends meaning there is a gap where it’s not clear what I should be doing. Would be nice to fade in incoming direction or push the old out
- not clear the relationship between bar and box. I think I’m the box, trying to match the pace of the bar, but that’s not totally clear. Would be nice to get some feedback of “too fast” or “slow down” when out of bounds
- I like the idea of the textured backgrounds but the one I got was high contrast and made me a little dizzy. Maybe more subtle colors? Also making sure the text is distinct. Also I wasn’t clear if I was effecting them. Shouldn’t they pause when I hold?
- when inside the exercise the button says “skip” but shouldn’t it be “end early”?
Really good points - thank you. Will look at making the indicator more intuitive.
Exactly what I was looking for!
A quick suggestion, I’d love to see you add the “cyclic sighing” pattern from [1] as it’s recently gotten some amount of attention for it’s effectiveness, and is potentially less common than the others.
[1]: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...
This would be great to include! I have been getting a few requests since the article was published...
First off, your website and app are aesthetically breathtaking. You have a real talent with design.
I have not used the breathing app, so ultimately there may be some context to which I am unware, however, my first thought when hearing the description of the App is why? Why do we as technologists insist on making things more complicated? Breathing is as old as life, and though I concede that there can be tremendous depth to the study of breathing, particular in relation to disciplines such as singing, meditation, anxiety, couldn't you more effectively teach someone a technique by simply informing them rather than making an app to accomplish that same goal?
I apologize if in any way this feels as if I am criticizing your creative work. I am a software engineer and medical student and I appreciate when the two fields collide. I also never want to put any creative work down because I understand the effort and risk one takes when doing anything of the sort.
Because its a scalable way of teaching adults breathing exercises.
I am much more likely to engage with beautiful app than remember "that guy pointed out breathing is simple i should do it more"
I think here the tech is justified - it adds a few added incentives to do the exercises (visuals responding, progress tracking, showing lung function if possible) and can guide people through in a much more scaleable way than in-person / or remote sessions. From literature, it seems breathing exercises do have real benefits, the problem is with compliance - completing them consistently and effectively enough. Lungy tries to make the process more enjoyable and fun (rather than following a worksheet or just breathing into a plastic box). But yep, I think in healthcare, the simplest possible approach with minimal, but not necessarily zero, tech is the way to go. Haha, nice username btw!
Nice but I believe that parody goes against the spirit of the comments section.
Designer here— This whole experience is really killer. Fantastic work, truly.
I was not sure what to expect when it requested microphone access, but the way you've done it is really clever.
The interactive tutorial is really cool as well. The visuals, also, are different and fun.
Never seen anything quite like this. Really great work. I'm going to share this with some friends.
Amazing, thanks so much for the feedback!
Hey, the design of your homepage is awesome. Who did the animations / visuals?
thanks! I did - the animations are using AE and Lottie, the CG is Houdini + Redshift, and the rest of the visuals are captured from the app.
I wanted to chime in here and mention the concept of "Email Apnea"¹.
The idea is that we hold our breaths when anticipating an outcome.
The term was coined in relation to email, but I believe that programmers probably have it even worse, because we basically spend our entire day in a a loop where we, try something, anticipate the results try again, repeat...
I personally find myself doing it. I guess the best analogy for it is that we "wait with bated breath" to see the results of our last command or compilation. I think it's a problem inherent in all disembodied work.
We are supposed to move the body and the mind as a unit, instead, we are increasingly making ourselves into brains in a jar, and I think our breathing patterns reflect it.
1: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/email-apnea-is-a-re...
Looks cool. I would try it. I'm on Android. This could be a PWA for both web and Android targets. Not sure about iOS yet, do they still not support PWAs?
Or flutter to target all 3 :)
Highly encourage exploring Flutter as well, at least for new platforms. Lottie animations would pair nicely, as would any future goal of expanding to web or desktop.
Flutter is just awesome. Can't recommend it enough.
Never had an easier time porting UI to so many, different platforms.
Flutter alone saved a year of work.
Thanks! Flutter does sound good, I've just started looking into it. Am I right in thinking we would rebuild the UIKit components / views in Flutter and then would be able to use the same UI across platforms (iOS, Android + Web)? And it would still be possible to include the native Apple APIs?
Yes to how you imagine the UI layer, and yes you can definitely target both iOS and Android native APIs with Flutter.
Good point!
PWA would cover KaiOS as well.
Looks extremely cool, but I wish this was a web app. I can't use it because I don't have an iOS device and I also think it would be useful on desktop, to take a break, as an alternative to checking HN, twitter ...
Thanks! Yep, I would love for it to also be a web app one day, I think definitely would be possible now with WebGPU. Will hopefully be able to release an Android version this year..
awesome. Looking forward to trying this on Android!
I’ve done a lot of freediving training and your app is now my fourth breathing app on my phone, so I may be an outlier, but in trying a few exercises in your app, I found that it was going way too quickly and causing me to over-breathe (hyperventilate) and get light headed. I played with the settings a bit and, while it helped, it was still nowhere near the right timing for me.
It’s interesting and beautifully done, but unless there’s something I’m doing wrong I’m afraid it’s just not usable for me in its current form. Perhaps there could be an advanced setting tucked away that let me bump up the exhale and hold times to prevent over breathing?
Maybe not the most useful feedback, but I’m always happy to see more apps in this space and I’d love it if this became part of my routine. And, as a side note, some information about what Lungy Deluxe actually adds would be useful to know if I want to unlock it.
Thanks for the feedback and that's interesting - I wonder if your free-diving training has something to do with it - I guess you must be very attuned to feelings of hyperventilation before a long dive? If it feels like you're hyperventilating, you could try turning down the breath volume (to low) and increasing the sensitivity (to high). The standard box and rectangle breathing are relatively short breath phases and holds - the Deluxe version unlocks all the visuals, gives more progress data and does include some much longer breath phases. I would like to add custom timings too, so people can set their own exercise.
Interesting feedback. What apps do you prefer?
My favorite is an app called ApneaTrainer. It has two different breathing patterns, but I do the 1-4-2 pattern for 30 min, 3 times a week. It helps you set your level as you improve. I’ve mostly plateaued at level 16, but I still find it useful for maintaining my level and I love the post workout calmness that I get.
Good idea but I don't have an Apple device to try it.
If you get some traction you might consider porting the app to run on smart watches. Current Garmin wearable devices are apparently able to detect individual breaths using the wrist optical heart rate sensor based on slight difference in heartbeat timing. They have a breathwork app built in but functionality is very limited.
It's a cool idea but I wish there was an app that could help do dynamic breathing exercises based on current breathing patterns and help improve my breathing and lung capacity over time. If the hook is just fancy visuals, I'm afraid that's not enough for me to stick with it long term.
Great concept! A randomized controlled study (RCT) would be the next step in elevating this from a wellness app to a medical/behavioral intervention.
At least in the US, this could be a good candidate for an NIH or similar grant, and partnering with an academic researcher who has done it before would lessen the workload.
My former colleagues at the Center for Behavioral Health and Technology at UVA https://bht.Virginia.edu (for example) conduct research similar to this.
Congratulations on putting together such a nicely designed app. I definitely noticed the quick download time when I installed it to check it out.
I run a medical device software development firm. I'm a software engineer who has moved into the medical-device regulatory affairs. I've helped several software teams learn to develop (and document) software for medical devices.
Even if you're not planning to make the jump from a wellness app to a medical device for a while, there are some things you can start documenting now that will make the transition a lot easier for you when you get there. E.g., starting to track formal requirements (https://innolitics.com/articles/2022-04-27-design-inputs/) and tracing them to verification protocols (e.g., automated or manual tests).
We have a bunch of Notion templates that we use with our clients that I could share with you to help you get started. Feel free to email me at jdgiese AT Innolitics.com
Few feedbacks: - It think description in the store is too exhaustive. Be more to the point.
- I like the concept as I was using mindfulness app mostly for the breathing exercises but ended up downloading the video and playing it to myself. I like that the whole app is just around this.
- I personally would enjoy a mood tracker and a daily notification or quiet time moment reminder to increase adherence.
- on top of this some motivational aspects and smileys can help :)
Good job by the way.
PS: I manage a patient facing MS app will many trackers:).
Speaking as an app developer, I would not believe that a doctor has created this app. Many developers would struggle to create something at this level, kudos!
I was really impressed by the UX and design aspects, but the way you’ve integrated camera and mic is really cool.
Look at the 'supported by' section.
It is so lovely to come across a doctor with tasteful and deep interest in technology, ux, graphics, music - and took all of those interests to try to help improve peoples’ lives.
Often I get the sense that HN is an accessory to adhd and leads me astray. It is nice to see a counter example of how a person can fuse their interests to create an amalgamation that contains the elements and focuses them to a purpose.
Thank you, that’s very kind. The app was a very personal project to me where I could combine everything I am interested in into one thing - I’m really pleased that comes across.
My brother made something similar as an art project: it's a circuit board with 2 LED digits. The numbers increase quickly on the inhale and slowly on the exhale so that it's in sync with 10 breaths per minute. It lures you into following it's cadence with your own breathing and you eventually get lightheaded because you're fucking with your blood gases.
Yep - that is one of the reasons I wanted to use the mic input, so if someone was hyperventilating it would be possible to tell them to slow down and breathe less deeply.
" 10 breaths per second."
Sure hope you meant per minute!
hah! Good catch, indeed.
This sounds really cool. I struggle from anxiety and the occasional panic attack. The only thing I've found so far that helps is the Wim Hof breathing exercise. Three rounds of that gets me grounded again no matter how bad my anxiety is. I do usually breathe off tempo from the guided exercise, so I really like the idea of an app that adjusts to you.
I find the "medical disclaimer" odd: https://www.lungy.app/medical-disclaimer
> By using this App, you confirm that : (i) you are medically fit and in sound health. (ii) you have consulted your relevant health practitioner, medical advisor, or doctor before using Lungy (iii) Lungy and Pi-A Creative Systems have made the health and medical consequences of using Lungy clear (iv) you fully agree that you are using Lungy at your sole discretion and at your own risk.
> There have been rare reports that people with certain mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression have experienced worsening symptoms after engaging in intensive breathing exercises and/or mindfulness practices. As such, you are requested to consult your doctor or medical provider before using Lungy if you are unsure or have a mental health condition.
Not a lawyer, but language like this is important. You should never represent that your software cures a disease or condition, or that it replaces a doctor (unless it's actually a FDA-cleared medical device). The general guidance from FDA can be found here:
https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidan...
Presumably just covering all the bases, similar to ye olde "this coffee has been shown to cause cancer in California" type warnings, i.e. nothing really to worry about, just there in case someone decides to sue.
I have/had anxiety disorder and breathing exercises can definitely trigger panic attacks. So while yes it's there to cover all the bases, it's not that odd and is definitely a thing.
I wonder if it due to reduced or increased blood oxygen. Certainly hypoxia can cause a variety of symptoms such as anxiety and panic. Did you measure your blood oxygen at the time?
Presumably if the breathing exercises are to be useful, the user should be getting the normal amount of oxygen. The problem I see is that if you're actively controlling your breathing, you're bypassing the normal automatic breathing, so it is probably easy to get too much or too little.
The only time I've deliberately used breathing exercises was to see if I was able to increase my blood O2 levels above 12000ft, and I did manage to successfully increase it from about 80% to 90+% using deliberate deep breathing.
I have had a few panic attacks before and I 100% can see how a breathing excessive could trigger that. One of the things they tell you to do when having one is slow your breathing and do the 5-4-3-2-1 technique (https://www.bradencenter.com/5-4-3-2-1-grounding-technique/).
So if you usually associate slowing your breathing down with when you are having a panic attack it could trigger one for some people. For example, mine usually was triggered as soon as I laid down to go to sleep for some reason. I could fall asleep on the couch fine, but for some reason in the bed it was completely different.
What exactly do you find odd about it?
I'm one of those rare people that can't do any sort of deep breathing exercises or meditation without ending up in a manic state due to a severe anxiety disorder.
I will double-check that the wording is correct, but these are standard clauses you would find in any breathing or meditation app, for instance, see Headspace T+Cs here: https://www.headspace.com/terms-and-conditions-minimal (clause 10.5).
OP mentions they're a doctor, but they don't say of what exactly, and only mention their background is as a trainee. Why on earth should that be enough to buy into something they say they created to fix problems in an entirely different field of medicine?
This all feels like the same old crap with a coat of government health grant money on top.
What’s odd about it for me is not the content or wording (seems to point out pretty common issues with intensive breathing), it’s more the fact that it’s not presented to the user during onboarding in a meaningful or noticeable way.
First of all, congrats! This looks great. As someone that plays music and has analog synths, I was impressed you even included a tweakable synth!
One thing I was wondering is why the exhale is instructed to be out of the mouth. Does it have to do with needing the airflow to travel past the mic, or is there a medical reason for it? I have a long standing daily Buddhist meditation practice and also have a somewhat intensive yoga practice, and all the pranayama instructions I’ve ever gotten from teachers has been full on nasal breathing. I find it pretty uncomfortable and unnatural to use a mouth exhalation. Also my teachers have always taught me to make the exhale as silent as possible. The only time I’ve been instructed to use a mouth breath is in shitali pranayama, but that’s an inhale, and with lion’s breath.
Anyway, again, it looks great — congrats!
Thanks - really glad you appreciate the synth! I had a great time building out the synths and sequencers
Exactly, so the inhalation is in through the nose and out through the mouth for the app partly to detect the exhalation, but also generally peak flow (which is a bit like lion's breath) and lung function measurements are measured by breathing through the mouth. It would also be great to have nasal breathing detected at some point..
This would be good info to have in the app or in a FAQ type doc somewhere.
Very cool and innovative!
I don't have direct anxiety but I have shallow breathing and inappropriate sinus tachycardia that feels like a persistent state of anxiety without a proximal cause. Anything I could do to physiologically relax would be fantastic.
Keep up the good work!
The word Lungy grosses me out. Something visceral. I imagine viewing a human organ or the chest being opened. Sorry, but I thought it might help you. If people agree, say something below. If not, I am an oddity and can be ignored.
Yep, it does seem some people don't like the name, which I do understand. I wanted to add a slight lightness to something medical-sounding, I guess trying to make healthcare less intimidating - I'm sorry it has those connotations for you!
On the topic of names, why is there a hyphen in the company name?
The anatomical term "pia" can be pronounced as if it starts with either "pea" or "pie". Writing "pi-a" is very strongly suggestive of a pronunciation like the Greek letter pi (i.e., like "pie", not "pea"), especially as the website's favicon is the letter pi. However, the website says it's pronounced "pea-uh".
So I would think that the hyphen would bias people towards the "wrong" pronunciation.
I could see that. The overstressed people in this space probably want something more fluffy and meditatively-eastern-psychology sounding.
More breathy and airy than organ-y and meaty. Probably already 900 apps called "Breathe" though
It reminds me of the “lunger” label for TB patients.
It also makes me think of lunge exercises.
It also seems like an expensive domain name to buy.
Agreed. It immediately makes me think of someone hacking up green-yellow mucus.
Cool to see a wellness app that appeals to the dopamine dressing generation and modern day challenges where breath work is proven to help.
While it is my personal opinion that the visuals are distracting from the purpose of breath work, I understand it will help someone discover that beauty with time.
If you found a way to combine a proprietary device like the PowerBreathe into a breathing exercise app and provided recommendations/trainings, I think it would appeal more to me.
Best of luck!
https://www.powerbreathe.com/
I watched the video on your site and the graphics are neat but I have no idea what your app does.
I use the free Oak app (with no fees anywhere, it’s just one of Kevin Rose’s old hobby projects) for its basic breathing exercises.
What does “respond to every breath mean?” The video shows someone holding the phone up to their face but I’m not sure that will work for breathing exercises as I’m usually trying to sit and relax and not even holding the phone.
I’m glad you’ve built this app and that you’re seeking feedback. I’d suggest less “marketing blargh” and just some examples of the app in use.
Cool app. I am not sure how related this is, but during intense physical exercise, I always start yawning repeatedly. Is this an indication of anything and can I use this app to improve this?
This looks amazing.
The only suggestion I have is to make it paid, instead of free so I can maintain low anxiety that you're not going to sell my data, or show me ads in the middle of box breathing.
It has in app subscriptions for annual and monthly fees. So it is a stealth paid app.
Hopefully this lowers the probability of them selling your data.
I prefer an app purchase price rather than in app purchases as it allows for family use and use by people with multiple apple ids that are linked.
>Hopefully this lowers the probability of them selling your data.
I want that probability to be zero though. So until it is, there's a fundamental conflict at the root that prevents full trust
A few years ago a friend told me about something called eye movement desensitization something (EMDR). I wasn't buying it but I built a prototype anyways, and was really impressed with how effective it was. The code is super crappy, but the experience is quite good imo. Here's a link:
https://bradbarb.in/emdr/demo/
Bit of a tangent. I'm irked by comments such as this, that are mildly related but add not much value to the discussion besides a shameless plug for their own products.
Fwiw
I agree. It's felt like a lot of online forums are starting to become Quora where it's all self-promotion thinly veiled as adding to the conversation. It reminds me of PG's The Submarine blog post (http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)
As the OP is about an app for stress and anxiety, promoting similar apps doesn't seem all that unreasonable.
I disagree and it seemed like a genuine comment to me as breathing exercises seem similar to eye exercises to me.
GP’s site is just a non-commercialized prototype so seems more like showing vis level of interest vs self promotion.
I feel you. But it's not a product. Not anything I'm doing anything with. Just thought it might be an interesting thing for the OP to integrate into his app.
ironically
What was your experience? I've only used EMDR in the background of 1 on 1 therapy so I'm wondering what you get out of it when used in isolation?
I find it relaxing. Can't really say much more than that because my experience is limited to that link I posted. How about you?
Are there instructions on how to use this somewhere? Should I be following the circles or looking dead center and allowing the circles to go into my periphery?
Thanks!
It would be good to see this somehow tie in with HRV - heart rate variability. I've been tracking mine daily for 6 years, now.
Can recommend kubios app on phone and their desktop software is stunning, too. There are other apps i use - hrv4, for example and there are others. I prefer kubios as it is minimal and to the point.
Https://intervals.icu (sports/ body performance analysis) may be another place to show this.
> Makes breathing beautiful.
I had to pause a bit for this while reading the page. This was a brand new phrase for me, never expected to see it in a mobile app.
Hold on now, Tom Cruise only held his breath for 6 1/2 minutes, not 8. Apparently Kate Winslet pulled 7:15 for the avatar sequel.
haha - that definitely needs correcting!
I think it might be useful to develop the app to help assess progress of patients that are being weaned off the ventilator. to get more concrete feedback on their state. and even better to create a customized program for each patient. one of the things I hear about some patients is anxiety.
Very nicely designed.
Is there a paper showing the accuracy of measuring breath volume and frequency using a phone microphone as compared to other known methods (i.e, medical sensors, but also more consumer-focused devices such as chest straps)? The frequency seems like an easy problem to solve, volume much less so.
Hmm, I'll have a look - that would be a really good figure. You can estimate the air velocity with the mic (then derive the flow rate and volume), but I'm not sure how closely it matches spirometry (lung function tests)
Very cool. A white paper on your site would help convince those who may have questions as to the validity/accuracy of the measurements themselves.
This is cool - have you ever thought about integrating it with some kind of band or sensor that tracks breathing rate?
Lung diseases aside, I think many people would be interested in an app that lets them know when their breathing becomes shallow or non-tidal, and helps them refocus and get back to baseline.
Reminded me of a startup that makes "hugging-pillows" that expand/contract to regulate breathing during sleep as in synchronous breathing with a partner.
EDIT: found it: https://somnox.com/
They are quite expensive.
(Not affiliated)
While this seems to be a good idea judging by the lots of positive comments here, I personally don't get the appeal of using an app to do breathing exercises or meditate. It is such a simple thing to focus on yourself with eyes shut, do some counting in your head without any need for an external device that tells me what to do. For me, the beauty in such exercises is that I can do them anywhere, without any equipment. Having yet another app for this just doesn't feel right, even though it might be somewhat useful to learn new techniques.
WOW! This is really ground-breaking. Will the android version be supported as well?
Thank you! Working on it, hopefully at some point this year..
Filament & Oboe should match iOS performance in both realms: real time physically based sprite render, and polyphonic synth. Good Stuff, ideal for ai gurus teaching "pranayama sciences" ;)
Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...
oh amazing, I was looking for equivalent frameworks - thank you!
Seconding the request for an android app!
third in line!
"free with in-app purchases"
What a boring future, "pay $9.99 to unlock this secret tip to survive in case you have trouble breathing!"
health is not a thing that should available with a pay-wall, we must advocate for a better world
OP was under no obligation to build it in the first place. Arguably the alternative to a $10 app is no app at all.
For me, it is showing $22.
This looks really nice. I'd love to know more about the business model. Is it completely self-funded? Does it make any revenue? Are you using it as a mechanism to help your practice? Thanks!
Thank you! So for now it's freemium, as a wellness app - so monthly, yearly or lifetime subscription to unlock all visuals, features and exercises. It may be at some point it can be provided via NHS trusts / health insurance companies.
For the first year or so it was self-developed and self-funded, and then in 2021 I won a couple of grants to develop the prototype for release. I don't suggest it directly to patients as there would be a conflict of interest, but I'm hoping it could be useful in both respiratory disease and stress/anxiety.
Isn't this basically one of the scenes from Silicon Valley? https://youtu.be/l8qB0DOZ9MY
I'm a typical meditation app user, as I found that both Android & Apple lack good apps for breath practices. The ones that I found were had complicated UX or were buggy or too basic.
Love the UI on the first glance, will try it for a longer time to understand if UX is comfortable
The lack of bloat and small download size is something I gained appreciation while traveling last year, good job on this!
I wonder if you will consider Ukrainian & Polish translations in the future too
side note -- is it just me, or have Vimeo videos always been horrible as embeds? They take longer to load than YouTube, they take too long to fast-forward (click in the middle and wait 5 seconds before you see the video at that time location).
And on this embeded video I couldn't even change the volume!
It's frustrating me to the point that I just opted not to watch the video on this website :(
I don't want to say "it's just you" but the load circle was less than 1 second, and skipping ahead was instantaneous for me.
Maybe it's CDN location serving up the videos? I'm near Toronto. Also I checked your webpage and perhaps, by being in the business of video streaming, you're more attuned to these things than the average person? (P.S. your website is so elegant!)
I’ve been on the lookout for a better way to do embeddable videos. The YouTube one is fine, but for a landing page, it’s not great that YT (of course) tries to get you to watch recommended videos right afterward.
I was actually going to say, Wistia has a nice player but it’s expensive - and then I just checked their pricing and they actually have lowered prices quite a bit! There’s even a generous free tier now.
I’ve also been curious about how hard it’d be to self-host an embedded video. Naively it seems like the hardest part would be encoding it into a bunch of sizes and chunks… and then keeping an eye on bandwidth. I found a good blog on it a while ago and can’t find it now.
This seems pretty cool. I was a big fan of Spire[1] and their device that monitored steps and breathing. Spire seems to have completely left the consumer market and I would love another device that does that stuff.
1. https://www.spirehealth.com/
Thanks for the link. Yep, it seems a few companies have developed technologies and then left the space, or never made it to market. Spirosmart seemed promising - https://ubicomplab.cs.washington.edu/publications/spirosmart... - (and Senosis was subsequently acquired by Google) but I've never seen a real-world clinical application.
This is a bit of a tangent but have there been studies about deep breathing combined with physical movement, relative to just deep breathing?
I've done yoga on and off for a number of years and the synchronization of breath and moderately difficult physical exercise to me, seems like the sweet spot that breathing alone would fail to accomplish.
With so many wellness apps out there that are simply fronts for data collection. I appreciate your privacy policy!
I did the breathing tutorial and did the first exercise but it didn't seem to really "react" to my breathing like I was expecting based on all the promotion. It might get progressively "smarter" but I was expecting more feedback from the UI (which is really pretty btw) when I was breathing in and out.
oh, I would be keen to know why - there's a troubleshooting guide here which might help: https://www.lungy.app/how-to . The app also won't respond to breathing whilst Bluetooth headphones are connected and used for audio output - I couldn't find a way to de-couple the Bluetooth mic and headphone speakers
I like this idea and the design – the gamification is a good approach in my view.
A question for you: I have a relative who has been recovering from a pneumonectomy – is this a use case that you currently support or plan to support in the future (i.e. are the breathing exercises on the app similar to the ones prescribed for these patients)?
Yep, it would definitely be a use case - so post-operative chest or abdominal surgery patients are often given breathing exercises. It's not yet a medical device, so can only be used in stress and anxiety ('wellness'). The basic functionality would be similar - breathing exercises, responsive visuals, encouragement, but hopefully we can add more specific measurements of lung function in the medical device version (track improvement / deterioration)
Rad – that would be really interesting to have specific measurements and use cases associated with surgical recover. Haven't tried the app out yet – may have some more questions once I do. Thanks!
Can you make this but for situps? like I want 30 seconds of execize but 5 seconds of rest/reposition
At first glance this looks brilliant!
A small portion of the app reminds me of this demo: https://paveldogreat.github.io/WebGL-Fluid-Simulation/ (click/tap/drag)
Yep, definitely! The app has a euler fluid sim implementation based off: https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/gpugems/part-vi-beyond-...
Congratulations on launching your app.
How was the appstore approval process for you?
I made an app that helps with sleep apnea (https://snurk.app/) but Apple keeps denying my app submissions stating it’s a medical app.
His app is backed by the NIHR - I am sure that helps.
Minor bit of feedback: the camera framing part of the intro process wanted me to move so close to my phone (only a few inches from my face) that I could no longer comfortably read the screen. Perhaps I have a small head.
This looks great! I found a bug on Safari on my iPhone where the sidebar download button leads you to the TestFlight beta download instead of the actual app. I'm glad the wellness space is being explored more and more with technology.
Oh, thanks - will fix that
Nice job! My sister has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and always on Oxygen concentrator, do you think this app _at this stage of development_ can help her? or it's strictly only for wellness purposes?
Hey, thank you - it's strictly wellness at the moment, so only for people with no underlying breathing problems. Hopefully, we can develop it into a medical device for COPD + asthma fairly soon.
Can't test your app since I can't breathe
Edit: Health is a gray topic of internet. I wouldn't promote it like "developed by doctors". Medical field has different concerns as you knew. You developed the app as a developer.
One piece of feedback: this could be really useful for kids with anxiety in school, but most schools have "phones off" rules on the premises so an Apple Watch companion app could be very useful.
It's awesome that the app is free and will allow helping the most people.
Quick question - when you say you started building this, did you build it yourself or you hired a team? The app and website look great! Just curious about your journey.
Thanks! So, the first year or so (June 20 - Nov 21) was me building the first prototype - learning Figma, Swift and Metal etc. The grants ran from Nov 21 to Mar 22 - I eventually had a team of 3 really great devs working on building out the backend, UI and working on some of the Metal visuals. We launched the first beta in Mar 22, I then spent a few months iterating based on feedback, getting everything together (app store approval, website, videos, adding more visuals) and then eventually launched in Dec '22.
That's amazing! Seems like a very rewarding journey. How did you go about learning the tech side of it? It seems like it usually takes a lot of time so big kudos.
in this area, breathing along with https://youtu.be/EN2ta7Z4d3s has been helping me
This is brilliant and beautifully designed. Kudos!
I wish I had some kind of bracelet that could detect when I'm stressed and send a vibration as a signal to relax/breathe.
Perhaps the iwatch could do that?
I found the Apple Watch breathe exercise in the meditation app more useful and relaxing. Lungy was rather frustrating.
Hey, what problem could you diagnose when I am getting vertigo after following either recharge or relaxation exercises?
You’re probably hyperventilating. Try breathing less laboriously, have a more relaxed breathing
I followed the instructions in the app, so the breathing was slower than normally. Hypoventilation?
Slightly OT, but MAC only? Really?! I think a big chunk of your target audience can't afford an iPhone.
Only problem with us Androids is a lot fewer pay for apps (I probably would).
Beautiful!
I don't have an iPhone, but just from watching the demo videos I am impressed by the design and UX. Good luck!
I always love apps like this. Would love to try it out when it's available on other platforms someday.
Good app.
>Amazing, you're a natural!
Well, I hope so... lol
Is there some apple watch data that could be analyzed for more accurate breath reading?
I’m not sure if Apple has good enough sensors but a Garmin watch can do this. It has built in breathing exercises and you can even have it prompt you to do one if it detects your breathing is not normal.
[dead]
Minor feedback but can you enable custom color palettes? (and fonts if possible)
Why an app and not a website? Why does everything need to be an app these days?
Any paper to understand the technique behind the breathing exercises??
Looks very cool. Did you do the design yourself or use someone else?
Thank you! Yep, I designed the visuals and the screens were a joint effort with a UI designer.
This breathing stuff makes me lightheaded. Am I doing it wrong?
The animations are really slick for an indie app! Well done!
Thanks! AE + Lottie
It took very long time to load initial video.
I’m probably not the target market, but why do you need an app to conduct a breathing exercise?
I’m any case, the app looks polished.
Tutorial, catalog, ritual-starter, historical log, etc. To your point, it's not necessarily for everyone.
Android version, please?
Any discounts for us :)
This website loads scripts from eight other websites:
1. googleapis.com
2. cloudfront.net
3. embedly.com
4. google.com
5. googletagmanager.com
6. sibforms.com
7. vimeo.com
8. webflow.com
Which of these are required for the app to function?
Am I alone in my overall skepticism around breathing exercises for healthy adults (sounds like you were working with COVID patients, so maybe more appropriate for them)? My understanding is that the research is far from conclusive, and "breathe more" seems like too generic advice to really apply in any specific sense.
Just screams, "Placebo!" to me.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wheres-the-proof-...
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/lsm/research/divisions/hscr/study/unde...
Ever had a pregnant wife and then one in labor? Ever had a real panic attack and potentially feeling more come on? Ever had a child who is inhaling so rapidly that they cannot calm themselves down?
Slow deep intentional breaths work in the above. If you haven't experienced these first hand, then maybe you think it's a bunch of crap. But it is in no way a placebo.
Even if you are a "healthy adult", I think the point is that you should practice these types of breathing exercises so you know how to handle situations where you need it. Additionally, I would say even if you don't have extreme stuff like above, teaching yourself how to breathe properly even for exercising is very important. It may sound stupid but a lot of people just don't breath properly when exercising, it's not natural.
Just sit there yourself and do some intentional deep breathing for a few moments.. it will feel very different and probably 'good'.
While a fair point, “practice” is not how these apps are sold or how wellness breathing is pitched. It’s pitched as a direct solution to general stress, which is the issue I have, as that seems far from consensus.
Because of how the placebo effect works, I could do any number of things to feel that “good” effect, and I think that’s important to know.
"breathe more"
I don't think anyone pushes for that, but "breath more mindful".
And that breathing exercies work, can be quite good shown for example with people doing extensive ice bathing for example. If you won't breath right there, you will get sick.
edit: But your point seems to be more stress related - well, I don't know what all those apps claim, but breathing is a very important body regulation and on of the easiest to influence. Meaning if you pay attention to your breathing and notice they are short and shallow - just starting to breath deep and conscious can put your body into a different state.
Most of the other placebos on the market have the potential to cause actual harm of the financial and/or physical sort (see for example homeopathic teething drops that contained toxic levels of Belladonna [0]), at least breathing is relatively inexpensive and mostly harmless.
0: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2017/01/28/fda-toxic-b...
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