Breathing Basics
A program for beginners that moves forward lesson by lesson. Every day a short lesson, a session of a few minutes and one skill.
5 min read
Breathing Basics is a learning path that introduces the app's calm techniques one after another. Every day there's a short lesson and a session of a few minutes. Each lesson has one skill: keeping the rhythm, a long and smooth exhale, or a clean hold.
Its length
The program has ten, fourteen or twenty-one lessons. The app suggests one based on your experience in the intro quiz: the longest if you've never tried, the middle one if you've tried a few times, the shortest if you already know some techniques. You can pick whichever you like during setup. The longer path gives the basic skills more days.
The suggested session length is between three and five minutes.
How a day goes
Before the session, a short lesson page explains that day's technique and skill. Then the session begins. When it ends, you see whether the day's skill has settled:
- If it has, a new technique comes the next day.
- If it hasn't, you do the same lesson again the next day.
- If the same lesson feels hard several times in a row, it gets a little easier on the next try. Once you pass it, it's back to normal.
If you do the session without the microphone, the skill can't be measured, and finishing the lesson is enough.
Lesson by lesson
The path starts with slow Coherent Breathing, without holds. As the rhythm settles, the pace slows down and the exhale gets longer. Then come the Physiological Sigh and techniques with holds such as Triangle Breathing and Box Breathing, followed by techniques that work with the exhale and with sound: Pursed Lip Breathing, Ocean Breath, and on the longer paths Humming Bee Breath too.
Halfway along there's a review day: you pick the technique you felt most at ease with so far and do it again. Towards the end there's a short measurement to find your own pace. The last lesson is your technique: the one where you kept the rhythm best in the lessons you passed, or the one you picked on the review day.
All the techniques in the program are calm ones.
Techniques unlock when their day comes
The program can always be set up. If a lesson's technique is still locked, it unlocks when that lesson's day comes and stays unlocked after the program ends.
If you miss a day
If you skip a day, no lesson is skipped: you carry on from the lesson where you left off. If the days you miss in a row go past the limit you chose in setup, the program ends, just like the other programs.
On the program map the days show as lessons: how many times you tried each lesson, and whether it got easier, are there too.
When it finishes
After the last lesson you see your technique and the program suggested as your next step.
Who it suits
People who have never done a breathing exercise or have only tried a few times. If that's what you marked in the intro quiz, this program may be suggested to you. If you're experienced, the program sits at the end of the list, but you can still set it up if you like.
How to set the program up and what you see at the end are in Setting up a program and keeping it.
What it is based on
Breathing Basics doesn't come from a single study. It's a learning path built from the app's own techniques. The source each lesson's technique is based on is explained in that technique's own article.