Long Exhale: Paced Breathing

Long Exhale does one thing: it helps you get from lying awake to asleep. Put the phone face down. Close your eyes. A low tone rises as you breathe in and falls as you breathe out, so you never need to look at the screen. The pace starts near your natural rhythm, around ten breaths a minute, and slows from there. By the time you have settled it is closer to five and a half, with a long, unhurried exhale. Slow breathing with an extended out-breath is the part that settles the nervous system. The app's job is to carry you there without you noticing the work. You are never asked to count, hold a pattern, or remember a technique. There is one control, and it is "tap to begin". THEN IT LEAVES The guide gets quieter and the cues spread further apart until there is nothing at all. No chime at the end, no "session complete". On a good night you never hear it finish. WHAT IT DOESN'T DO No streaks. No reminder that you missed last night. No score out of ten. Sleep gets worse when you are being graded on it, so nothing here keeps count of your failures. ON YOUR WRIST With an Apple Watch the pace arrives as a gentle tap instead of a sound, which helps if you share a bed. The Watch keeps going with its screen dark and your phone in another room. IF YOU WAKE AT 3AM One tap starts a shorter, quieter session built for the middle of the night. No setup, no menus, nothing bright. IN THE MORNING One question: did you fall asleep before it ended? That is the only thing the app ever asks you, and skipping it is fine. PRIVATE BY DEFAULT What you do in a session stays on your device. No account, no sign-in, and nothing from your nights is uploaded — not your answers, not your breath counts, not your heart rate. What does leave: three plain usage events (first launch, a session started, the purchase screen shown), crash reports, a push token if you allow notifications, and a purchase if you make one. None of it carries anything from a session. FREE, AND WHAT ISN'T The whole guided session is free, on iPhone and Apple Watch, along with the morning question and the list of your nights. One optional payment — not a subscription — unlocks the measured part: whether you are getting to sleep before the guide ends more often, which comes from your morning answers; which breath you typically fall asleep on, which needs an Apple Watch or the phone on the bed close enough to feel you settle; and on Apple Watch a pace that follows your heart rate down. Long Exhale is not a medical device and is not a treatment for a diagnosed sleep disorder. If you are pregnant, or have a respiratory or cardiac condition, check with a doctor before taking up paced breathing.