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Recovery and breathing
Breathing exercises and their rhythms
Belly breathing, coherence at 6 breaths per minute, box breathing, 4-7-8, alternate nostril breathing, energising breath: the exact timing of each phase, session lengths and suggestions depending on your mood.
4 min read Updated October 9, 2026
The principle
Slowing your breathing is one of the most direct ways to act on how you feel: an exhale longer than the inhale and a slow rhythm promote calm, a fast rhythm wakes you up. Azetta offers six techniques, each defined by four phases — inhale, hold with full lungs, exhale, hold with empty lungs — and a visual, audio or vibrating guide that paces you through them. The app presents them as ways to calm down or wake up, not as treatments.
The Azetta method
The six techniques
| Technique | Inhale / hold / exhale / hold | One cycle | For | Default length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belly breathing | 4 / 0 / 6 / 0 s | 10 s | calming down | 5 min |
| Coherence | 5 / 0 / 5 / 0 s | 10 s (6 per minute) | stress | 5 min |
| Box breathing | 4 / 4 / 4 / 4 s | 16 s | acute stress | 4 min |
| 4-7-8 | 4 / 7 / 8 / 0 s | 19 s | sleep | 4 cycles |
| Alternate nostril | 4 / 0 / 4 / 0 s per nostril | 16 s (there and back) | focus | 5 min |
| Energising breath | 0.6 / 0 / 0.4 / 0 s | 30 breaths then 30 s calm | energy | 3 rounds |
For techniques measured in minutes, the session counts the whole number of cycles closest to the chosen length:
4-7-8 is counted in cycles (4, 6 or 8, 12 at most) and energising breath in rounds (1 to 3, 5 at most). A session lasts 60 minutes at most; it starts with a 3 s countdown, and a session shorter than 10 s is not saved.
Depending on your mood
| You feel | Suggested techniques |
|---|---|
| stressed, anxious | coherence, box breathing |
| angry | box breathing, belly breathing |
| unable to sleep | 4-7-8, belly breathing |
| tired | belly breathing, energising |
| low on energy | energising, belly breathing |
| scattered | alternate nostril, box breathing |
| calm, happy | belly breathing, coherence |
You can log your mood after the session: the app shows the "before → after" pairs.
Why this choice
- Breathing around 6 times per minute is the rhythm studied in research on cardiac coherence and heart rate variability biofeedback: it is around this rhythm that heart and breathing oscillations synchronise best in most adults.
- Reviews on slow breathing link these practices to reduced physiological arousal and better reported well-being; a 2023 study found that breathing with a prolonged exhale, practised 5 minutes a day, improved mood.
- 4-7-8 breathing was popularised by Dr Andrew Weil; alternate nostril breathing (nadi shodhana) and energising breath (inspired by kapalabhati) come from yoga.
Limits
- No medical effect is promised: these exercises replace neither treatment for anxiety nor sleep care.
- The app's coherence is set at 6 breaths per minute; each person's ideal rhythm may be slightly different (often between 4.5 and 6.5).
- The app does not measure your heart rate or its variability during the session.
- Energising breath is not for everyone (see the warning).
References
- Lehrer PM, Gevirtz R. Heart rate variability biofeedback: how and why does it work? Frontiers in Psychology, 2014;5:756.
- Zaccaro A, Piarulli A, Laurino M, et al. How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2018;12:353.
- Balban MY, Neri E, Kogon MM, et al. Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Reports Medicine, 2023;4(1):100895.