Breathwrk: Breathing Exercises

I am in college and in my psychology class we talk about how breathing exercises can help reduce stress. The reason breathing exercises are said to reduce stress is because they activate the body’s relaxation response. The deep breathing increases oxygen flow to the brain, which improves focus and tension. Aside from helping manage stress I've learned from my mom that using breathing exercises help reduce anxiety and help her during anxiety attacks. I remember her saying how it helps ground her or gives her something else to focus on. I could see that as in the moments of practice I'm only focusing on breathing and nothing else. I used this app for the last week because I have been experiencing a lot of stress myself and I would have to say that it does help a lot. Doing it multiple times a day really helps me relax and focus on what I’m doing instead of freaking out over it. The music that plays while you inhale and exhale also is a good touch because slow music like that is very calming. It was interesting to do something like this because I never have been consistent with it and now that I have I can tell that it actually is very helpful. The most I’ve done for breathing exercises is the ones we practice in class, from now on I will be using this app all the time.

I really enjoyed the app, I have been testing it out this past week for one of my classes. I would use the calming one the most when I was feeling more anxiety and it definitely helped calm my breathing down, that was my favorite one. I also gave all of the free breathing exercises a try. A few of them such as the winding down and calm down one were basically the same exercises so I didn’t understand why they had them both. Other than that they were great ways to help calm down my anxiety. Often times, when you are feeling overwhelmed or worked up just getting control of your breathing can help relax all of your nerves, heart rate, and all other sensory’s. In class we did a similar breathing exercise to the calm down one and my teacher asked how we felt and many students reported feeling relaxed. Why this is, is because deep breathing activates our parasympathetic system, which is part of our nervous system (not the one that activates fight or flight) and when we do the deep breathing exercises it sends signals to that part of the brain to let it know you’re safe/okay and there is no need to activate the fight or flight response and gets more oxygen to the parasympathetic system instead or the sympathetic system (fight or flight response area in our brain) so our body knows to remain calm. It is a very good way to help calm one’s anxiety down.

Update March 30th, 2022: The developers contacted me on this comment and directed me to fill out a form for a scholarship. When they said “Buy One, Give One”, they meant it. I can tell you, if you can’t afford Breathwrk, they will absolutely do their best to help you. I received a scholarship from them directly in around one day. Since then I’ve been using a multitude of their premium breathing exercises, and I’ve fallen in love. Breathwrk is helping me daily now, and I regret nothing. If you like this app and you can, please do pay for this app and support them. It helps people like me who can’t afford it, and it helps them keep their program alive. I’m a kid whose dissociation and anxiety severely impacts their ability to live and perform in things, and breathing through things is one of the only things I’ve ever found that works. I appreciate what Breathwrk has done for me to no end. OLD REVIEW: I would love to pay for a pro account, I really would, but I honestly cannot afford the price given. This app would be a nigh-indispensable tool to help me deal with dissociation, and it sometimes does, but with so many timers locked behind a paywall, I find it difficult to justify paying such a high price. It’s more like it’s the price of convenience more than the price of content. I really do love this app, I love the way it looks, the way it works, and it helps me more than the developers would ever know. I wish I could use it more.