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Show HN: I'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for stress and anxiety

lungy.app

41–50 of 223 posts

Re: Show HN: I'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for stress and anxiety

#41

A few years ago a friend told me about something called eye movement desensitization something (EMDR). I wasn't buying it but I built a prototype anyways, and was really impressed with how effective it was. The code is super crappy, but the experience is quite good imo. Here's a link: https://bradbarb.in/emdr/demo/

What was your experience? I've only used EMDR in the background of 1 on 1 therapy so I'm wondering what you get out of it when used in isolation?

Re: Show HN: I'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for stress and anxiety

#42
This sounds really cool. I struggle from anxiety and the occasional panic attack. The only thing I've found so far that helps is the Wim Hof breathing exercise. Three rounds of that gets me grounded again no matter how bad my anxiety is. I do usually breathe off tempo from the guided exercise, so I really like the idea of an app that adjusts to you.

Re: Show HN: I'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for stress and anxiety

#43
I can't test your app, since I don't have an iPhone, but I'm hoping you could answer a vaguely related question for me.

One of my COVID readings was Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor. Its author says, "humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly". Like your app, it proposes a lot of breathing exercises. It explains their benefits in terms of increasing CO2 tolerance, and believes that we've all got too much O2 in our systems.

That smells like horse puckey to me, but I've been unable to find an informed review either way. I'm sure that slow, deep breathing as a focus for meditation is a very good thing, and I'm sure that your particular app is well founded. But I'm curious to know if you've read that particular book, and what your opinions are.

Thanks!

Re: Show HN: I'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for stress and anxiety

#44

A few years ago a friend told me about something called eye movement desensitization something (EMDR). I wasn't buying it but I built a prototype anyways, and was really impressed with how effective it was. The code is super crappy, but the experience is quite good imo. Here's a link: https://bradbarb.in/emdr/demo/

What was your experience? I've only used EMDR in the background of 1 on 1 therapy so I'm wondering what you get out of it when used in isolation?

I find it relaxing. Can't really say much more than that because my experience is limited to that link I posted. How about you?

Re: Show HN: I'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for stress and anxiety

#45
Exactly what I was looking for!

A quick suggestion, I’d love to see you add the “cyclic sighing” pattern from [1] as it’s recently gotten some amount of attention for it’s effectiveness, and is potentially less common than the others.

[1]: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...

Re: Show HN: I'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for stress and anxiety

#47
post #24

My brother made something similar as an art project: it's a circuit board with 2 LED digits. The numbers increase quickly on the inhale and slowly on the exhale so that it's in sync with 10 breaths per minute. It lures you into following it's cadence with your own breathing and you eventually get lightheaded because you're fucking with your blood gases.

" 10 breaths per second." Sure hope you meant per minute!

hah! Good catch, indeed.

Re: Show HN: I'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for stress and anxiety

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was your experience? I've only used EMDR in the background of 1 on 1 therapy so I'm wondering what you get out of it when used in isolation?

I find it relaxing. Can't really say much more than that because my experience is limited to that link I posted. How about you?

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for stress and anxiety

#50

Exactly what I was looking for! A quick suggestion, I’d love to see you add the “cyclic sighing” pattern from [1] as it’s recently gotten some amount of attention for it’s effectiveness, and is potentially less common than the others. [1]: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...

This would be great to include! I have been getting a few requests since the article was published...
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