Breathing with Apple Watch: how to see your heart rate settle

What the built-in Mindfulness app does

Every Apple Watch has Apple's free Mindfulness app, with two practices: Breathe and Reflect. A session lasts 1 to 5 minutes, and you can set the pace from 4 to 10 breaths a minute. When it ends, the Summary screen shows your heart rate, and the minutes are saved to Apple Health as mindful minutes.

It is a good, free place to start. What it does not do is show your heart rate changing during the session, or end when you have calmed down: it runs for the time you chose.

Seeing your heart rate during practice

The simplest way is the Heart Rate app on the Watch: open it, then breathe slowly and watch the number. It is fine for a quick look, but it gives you a number, not a line, and nothing to breathe along with.

Apps that start a workout session on the Watch can read heart rate every few seconds while you practice and draw it as a line on your iPhone. LumaWe works this way.

Getting a clean reading

Wear the Watch snugly, a finger's width above the wrist bone. Rest your arm and keep it still: movement, a loose band and cold skin all make the optical sensor less reliable. Give it the first half minute; the first readings are often a little high from sitting down.

If heart rate does not appear in an app, check on your iPhone in Settings › Health › Data Access & Devices that the app may read Heart Rate.

How LumaWe uses Apple Watch

LumaWe designs a sleep, calm or focus session for how you feel tonight, on your iPhone. With Apple Watch, you see your heart rate as a line that comes down as you breathe. A Calm session has no fixed timer: it ends when your heart rate has settled, and shows your Settle Time compared with two quiet minutes of your own.

Everything stays on your iPhone. LumaWe has no account and no servers, and its App Store privacy label is Data Not Collected. Heart rate in the app is for your interest, not for medical use.

A note on health

LumaWe is a wellness app, not medical care. If your resting heart rate is often high, or you notice chest pain, fainting, a racing or irregular heartbeat, or shortness of breath, talk to a doctor.

Sources

• Apple Watch User Guide: Mindfulness (Breathe and Reflect)
• Laborde et al. (2022). Slow breathing, heart rate and heart rate variability: systematic review and meta-analysis