[HN Gopher] Show HN: I'm a doctor and made a responsive breathin...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: I'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for
stress and anxiety
Hey 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!
Author : lukko
Score : 332 points
Date : 2023-01-26 17:06 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lungy.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lungy.app)
| bnjemian wrote:
| 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)?
| lukko wrote:
| 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)
| bnjemian wrote:
| 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!
| robot1 wrote:
| 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.
| lukko wrote:
| Oh, thanks - will fix that
| Kukumber wrote:
| "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
| segh wrote:
| OP was under no obligation to build it in the first place.
| Arguably the alternative to a $10 app is no app at all.
| kwooding wrote:
| 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...
| lukko wrote:
| This would be great to include! I have been getting a few
| requests since the article was published...
| endisneigh wrote:
| 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.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Tutorial, catalog, ritual-starter, historical log, etc. To your
| point, it's not necessarily for everyone.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| 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.
| lukko wrote:
| 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.
| cloudking wrote:
| Could you use the LiDAR data on newer iPhones to get more
| accurate assessment? https://developer.apple.com/documentatio
| n/avfoundation/addit...
| lukko wrote:
| Hmm it currently uses TrueDepth on devices that support it.
| I think LIDAR is only with back-facing cameras?
| cloudking wrote:
| Ah good point that kind of defeats the visual part of
| your app :) nice work btw!
| amelius wrote:
| 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)
| uxamanda wrote:
| 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"?
| esel2k wrote:
| 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:).
| Waterluvian wrote:
| 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)
| lukko wrote:
| Yep, definitely! The app has a euler fluid sim implementation
| based off: https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/gpugems/part-
| vi-beyond-...
| awfml wrote:
| 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.
| lukko wrote:
| Amazing, thanks so much for the feedback!
| mikekij wrote:
| Hey, the design of your homepage is awesome. Who did the
| animations / visuals?
| lukko wrote:
| 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.
| swamp40 wrote:
| 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.
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| 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
| prepend wrote:
| 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.
| lukko wrote:
| 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!
| jamessb wrote:
| 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.
| nradov wrote:
| 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.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| 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!
| lukko wrote:
| 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..
| stuaxo wrote:
| This would be good info to have in the app or in a FAQ type
| doc somewhere.
| broberts01 wrote:
| 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.
| lukko wrote:
| 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
| julienb_sea wrote:
| Is there some apple watch data that could be analyzed for more
| accurate breath reading?
| keepquestioning wrote:
| [dead]
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| 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.
| whatyesaid wrote:
| Look at the 'supported by' section.
| [deleted]
| yawnr wrote:
| Looks very cool. Did you do the design yourself or use someone
| else?
| lukko wrote:
| Thank you! Yep, I designed the visuals and the screens were a
| joint effort with a UI designer.
| barbinbrad wrote:
| 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/
| barbazoo wrote:
| 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?
| barbinbrad wrote:
| 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?
| [deleted]
| hackernewds wrote:
| 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
| barbinbrad wrote:
| 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.
| chrislan815 wrote:
| ironically
| jacobkranz wrote:
| 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)
| prepend wrote:
| 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.
| pstuart wrote:
| As the OP is about an app for stress and anxiety, promoting
| similar apps doesn't seem all that unreasonable.
| DropPanda wrote:
| 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?
| dom96 wrote:
| 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.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| 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 ...
| lukko wrote:
| 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..
| tr33house wrote:
| awesome. Looking forward to trying this on Android!
| kerblang wrote:
| 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.
| lukko wrote:
| haha - that definitely needs correcting!
| qainsights wrote:
| Any discounts for us :)
| hanniabu wrote:
| Why an app and not a website? Why does everything need to be an
| app these days?
| prepend wrote:
| 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.
| fragmede wrote:
| in this area, breathing along with https://youtu.be/EN2ta7Z4d3s
| has been helping me
| sagebird wrote:
| 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.
| lukko wrote:
| 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.
| leros wrote:
| 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.
| curun1r wrote:
| 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.
| lukko wrote:
| 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.
| phaedrus441 wrote:
| Interesting feedback. What apps do you prefer?
| curun1r wrote:
| 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.
| jmole wrote:
| 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.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Beautiful!
|
| I don't have an iPhone, but just from watching the demo videos I
| am impressed by the design and UX. Good luck!
| yboris wrote:
| _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 :(
| Waterluvian wrote:
| 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!)
| dceddia wrote:
| 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.
| jfengel wrote:
| 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!
| matsemann wrote:
| 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.
| wjnc wrote:
| 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)
| nick__m wrote:
| +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 !
| jackschultz wrote:
| +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.
| ectopod wrote:
| 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.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| 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/
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| 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.
| TylerE wrote:
| 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%.
| [deleted]
| thecoppinger wrote:
| 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?
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| 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.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| > _constantly get up to urinate_
|
| I hope you've been checked for diabetes?
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| The problem went away immediately when the massively
| stressful event was passed.
| brunoqc wrote:
| It's awesome that the app is free and will allow helping the most
| people.
| g105b wrote:
| 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!
| lukko wrote:
| 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.
| nyrulez wrote:
| 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.
| bitL wrote:
| Hey, what problem could you diagnose when I am getting vertigo
| after following either recharge or relaxation exercises?
| practice9 wrote:
| 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
| drusepth wrote:
| I always love apps like this. Would love to try it out when it's
| available on other platforms someday.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| 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.
| lukko wrote:
| 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)
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| 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.
| alexashka wrote:
| 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.
| fatih-erikli wrote:
| 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.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| 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/
| InCityDreams wrote:
| 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.
| E-Reverance wrote:
| Minor feedback but can you enable custom color palettes? (and
| fonts if possible)
| gijsnijholt1980 wrote:
| 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.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| 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.
| prepend wrote:
| 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.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| SpeedilyDamage wrote:
| 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...
| taylorfinley wrote:
| 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...
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| 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'.
| SpeedilyDamage wrote:
| 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.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| 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.
| lukko wrote:
| 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.
| harvey9 wrote:
| " 10 breaths per second."
|
| Sure hope you meant per minute!
| killjoywashere wrote:
| hah! Good catch, indeed.
| mdolon wrote:
| This is brilliant and beautifully designed. Kudos!
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| > 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.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| 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?
| Zanovis wrote:
| Or flutter to target all 3 :)
| andjelam990 wrote:
| WOW! This is really ground-breaking. Will the android version be
| supported as well?
| malermeister wrote:
| Seconding the request for an android app!
| lukko wrote:
| Thank you! Working on it, hopefully at some point this year..
| ArtWomb wrote:
| 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...
| lukko wrote:
| oh amazing, I was looking for equivalent frameworks - thank
| you!
| evronm wrote:
| Slightly OT, but MAC only? Really?! I think a big chunk of your
| target audience can't afford an iPhone.
| stuaxo wrote:
| Only problem with us Androids is a lot fewer pay for apps (I
| probably would).
| emehex wrote:
| The animations are really slick for an indie app! Well done!
| lukko wrote:
| Thanks! AE + Lottie
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