Breathing

Most calming breath patterns are variations on a single idea, and it is worth learning the idea rather than the names.

Make the out-breath longer than the in-breath.

In for about four, out for about six, six times. That is a complete exercise and it takes roughly a minute. Everything below is a different shape built on the same principle, useful because different moments want a different shape.

What Pause does with it

A guided session keeps the count so you are not watching a clock and doing arithmetic while trying to settle. Pause runs the pattern, tells you when to change, optionally puts something steady behind it, and ends on its own.

Sessions are short by design — a few minutes, not a sitting. Pause records that a breathing session happened and how long it ran, which is what later shows up in your weekly rhythm. It does not record anything about what you were breathing through.

Keeping it comfortable

Breathing exercises are low-risk but not universally pleasant. Paying deliberate attention to your breathing can make some people feel short of breath, and holds can be uncomfortable.

• Shorten the counts rather than straining to hit them.
• Drop the holds entirely if they feel bad — the long exhale does the same job without them.
• Sit down for it. Not while driving.
• If you have a respiratory or heart condition, or you are pregnant, ask a doctor before taking up anything with breath holds in it.

If breathing is not the right tool in the moment — if the trouble is a loop of thinking rather than a wound-up body — grounding tends to get further.