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Areas › Your body › Your nervous system
Part of the appeal is that you can watch it work. Five or ten minutes of breathing at the pace the app sets, with the trace on the screen smoothing out, gives you evidence that you did something rather than a hope that you might have. For anyone who has been told to calm down all their life, that proof matters.
'who provides them with food to ward off hunger, safety to ward off fear' (Quran 106:4). Fear is answered with safety, and the body has to feel that answer before it believes it.
قريش
ٱلَّذِيٓ أَطۡعَمَهُم مِّن جُوعࣲ وَءَامَنَهُم مِّنۡ خَوۡفِۭ
who provides them with food to ward off hunger, safety to ward off fear
Qur’an 106:4read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analysis of twenty four studies with four hundred and eighty four participants found this training produced a large reduction in self-reported stress and anxiety. The trials were small and the main outcomes were self-reported, so the true effect is probably more modest than that headline. It is still one of the better supported things in this area.
Goessl VC, Curtiss JE, Hofmann SG. (2017). The effect of heart rate variability biofeedback training on stress and anxiety: a meta-analysis.. Psychological medicine doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Breathing slowly at a particular rate presses the brake that hyperarousal has released, and the display shows you when you have found it.
You can tell you are back when there is choice in it again: you can pick which thought to keep hold of, and how to answer what you feel.
A healthy heart rate is not a metronome. The small variations between beats are a sign your body can still adjust to what is in front of it.
You can tell you are settled by small signs: your breath sits low in your belly, feelings arrive in waves rather than floods, and you can think and feel at the same time.