What Breathing Exercises Are Included in Breath Ball?

Breath Ball includes four named breathing exercises, each tied to a different goal: slow-paced breathing for high-stress situations, a technique recommended by the U.S. COPD Foundation for catching your breath, a heart coherence exercise for deep relaxation, and Dr. Andrew Weil's 4:7:8 technique for sleep. Each one comes with a short tutorial that the site says gets you started in under three minutes. You can also add your own breathing exercises.

The four built-in exercises and when to use them

The site frames all four under a single promise: breathing exercises to improve your life, covering stress relief, calm, sleep, and mindfulness.

How each exercise works

Slow-paced breathing

This is the general-purpose option for stress. The site's own description of the underlying method is simple: inhale deeply into your belly for five seconds, exhale completely for another five seconds, and repeat for three to five minutes. The site notes this technique is simple but effective, and that thousands of people have used it to cope with difficult situations — while also admitting that learning it can be challenging, which is the reason the app exists in the first place.

Catch a Breath

This is the exercise to reach for when you're actually short of breath rather than just stressed. The site attributes it to the U.S. COPD Foundation's recommended breathing technique. Because it's aimed at catching your breath, treat it as a recovery tool rather than a daily relaxation practice.

Heart coherence breathing

This is the deepest-relaxation option. The site describes it as getting you "through a meditative trance into a state of deep relaxation." Its origin story matters here: Dr. Wolfhard Klein, an expert in cardiac coherence and bio-feedback training, taught this technique to clients to help them cope with stress, and it became the exercise the app was originally built to teach.

4:7:8 breathing

This is the sleep-focused exercise, credited to Dr. Andrew Weil. The site says it helps you fall asleep and wake up better recovered. If your main problem is lying awake at night rather than daytime stress, start here.

The three-step rhythm behind every session

Regardless of which exercise you pick, the app's core mechanic is the same. The site describes it in three steps:

1. Take a few minutes of time and sit down comfortably.
2. Breathe in the rhythm of the Breath Ball: inhale deeply into your belly while the ball gets bigger, hold your breath while the ball keeps its size, and exhale while the ball gets smaller.
3. Continue — the site says that after three minutes you'll notice deep relaxation, inner calm, and a state of mindfulness.

The ball is the pacing cue: its size tells you when to inhale, hold, and exhale, so you don't have to count in your head.

Adding your own exercises

Beyond the four built-in options, the site states you can add your own breathing exercises. That's useful if you follow a pattern from a teacher, a physiotherapist, or a program that isn't covered above.

HRV insights, if you want feedback

Breath Ball also includes built-in heart rate variability (HRV) analytics. The site lists metrics including RMSSD, SDNN, pNN50, and LF/HF Ratio, and says these help you optimize each breathing session, deepen relaxation, and improve overall well-being. If you like seeing data on whether a session actually shifted your stress and recovery state, this is the part to explore; if you just want to breathe, you can ignore it.

Choosing your starting exercise

• Stressed before a meeting or a difficult conversation? Slow-paced breathing.
• Actually winded or short of breath? Catch a Breath.
• Want the deepest calm, or interested in the technique the app was built around? Heart coherence breathing.
• Can't fall asleep? 4:7:8 breathing.

The site says each exercise includes a tutorial that takes under three minutes, so the fastest way to decide is to try the one matching your situation and see how the three-minute session feels.