Ungasp is a breathing app. Simple to start, and it grows with you as your breathing advances.
Twelve patterns are built in, from box breathing to 4-7-8, so you can open it and start straight away. And if you follow something more involved, from a book, a trainer or a physio, you can create it yourself and Ungasp will run it properly.
Breath is a way to work with a part of your body you can control.
Slow it down and you can change how you feel, from stressed to calm, with breath and nothing more. It's there any time you want it, anywhere.
A pattern for however you feel
Long Exhale Calm
Long exhales to quickly lower your heart rate and calm your body.
Box Breathing
Equal breath phases to sharpen your focus.
4-7-8
A soothing rhythm that calms an overactive mind for deep, restful sleep.
Advanced Breath Holds
Longer breath holds to build endurance and mental grit.
CO2 Tolerance Test
A quick test to see where your breath-hold tolerance stands today.
Quick Reset
A fast way to settle your nervous system when stress spikes.
If you can describe it, you can build it
Ungasp gives you the parts. Whatever you're following, you can build it and run it properly from then on.
Patterns
A pattern is a list of phases, and you add as many as you want. Each phase is an inhale, an exhale, a hold, a recovery, or a slow exhale. Set the length anywhere from a tenth of a second to three minutes, by dragging or by typing the number.
Name any phase whatever you call it. If your trainer says "sip and hold", the orb says "sip and hold".
Set the rounds, and the cycle time and total practice time update while you build. You know exactly what you're committing to before you press play.
Sets
A set is a run of patterns, one after another, repeated up to twenty times.
You can build a complex set of patterns easily.
A CO2 table
Same breath in and out every round, with the hold growing longer each time. Build one pattern per step, chain them in order, and the whole ladder runs itself.
A rapid-breathing round
Fast breaths, one long hold, then a recovery hold. Save it as a single pattern, drop it in a set, repeat it three times.
The one your therapist gave you
Four in, seven hold, eight out for ten rounds, then five minutes of even breathing to finish. Two patterns, one set, built in under a minute.
Breath holds aren't for everyone. Skip them if you're pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have epilepsy or uncontrolled high blood pressure. Never practise them in or near water.
Designed to feel like an exhale
The tone on a hold is a struck singing bowl, warm and low, with no click at the start and no hiss in the tail. That took a while to get right. On a long hold you get a soft wood block at the halfway mark, so you know where you are without opening your eyes.
Every phase change has its own vibration, so you can practise with your eyes shut and follow it by feel. Vibration needs the screen on, that's an iOS limit. The sound keeps playing with the screen locked and the phone face down, so you can pocket it and breathe to the audio alone. Finish a session and it goes to Apple Health as mindful minutes.
Seven themes, and the app icon changes to match the one you pick. There's a Science Library if you want to know why any of it works, and a mood check-in on the home screen for the days you can't decide.
It started with a recording
When I was teaching yoga I used to teach a four part conscious breath. Fifteen seconds in, five holding, five fast out, five holding, and repeat. In 2013 I made a recording of it for my students.
I wanted to create my own breath patterns and nothing would let me.
Every app I tried handed me a list to pick from. Box breathing, 4-7-8, the same handful everywhere. Some would let you make a simple pattern of your own, and that was as far as it went.
If a book or a trainer or a physio gave you something more involved, you'd struggle to do it manually, counting in your head. You could use an interval timer, but that's a crude way to run complex breath patterns.
So Ungasp works the other way round. You open it, there's one pattern on the screen and one thing to tap, and you breathe. That's the whole first minute.
Today that four part breath takes me a few minutes to build, and I can add it to another pattern.
It's simple first. You can make it complicated if you want to, but that's your choice.
Thirty days free, then decide
Ungasp is an iPhone app. It's £14.99 a year in the UK, or £39.99 once if you'd rather just own it.
There's a month free and no card, so you can live with it a while and find out whether it's any use to you before you pay anything.
There are a lot of breathing apps. Ungasp is the one I wanted and couldn't find, and it might not be the one you want. Box Breathing and 4-7-8 stay free for good either way.
If that sounds like the app you've been after, give it a go.