Relax Guided Breathing Sessions

[DerrickS]

Charge 2 provides Relax, an on-device personalized guided breathing sessions, based on your heart rate to help you find moments of calm throughout the day. You can choose between two-minute and five-minute long sessions. You can begin a Relax guided breathing session by:

1. Pressing the button on your Charge 2 until you see "Breathe".
2. The two-minute session is the first option. Tap to choose the five-minute session.
3. Press and hold the button to start.
4. Remain still and breathe deeply during the calibration period, which lasts 30-40 seconds. You’ll see the phrase “sensing your breathing” on your tracker’s screen.
5. When prompted, follow the guide and breathe deeply. Sparkles will appear on your tracker’s screen to indicate how closely you’re following the guide.
6. After you’ve completed the session, press the button to return to the clock.

What's important to note is that all notifications are automatically disabled during a guided breathing session. If you’ve set a silent alarm, your Charge 2 will vibrate at the time specified.

Click here for more information about Relax, including the benefits of practicing deep breathing and safety information.

[SunsetRunner]

@Ekeiram welcome among us! Glad to see you on the Community! 

In your case if you usually do breath slowly then I am not sure of how well the relax feature will work for you. If the rhythm for the breathing cues is too fast then it will certainly not relax you. What you can do is use the relax feature to concentrate on to help you relax but breath at your own rhythm. The important part is for you to take slow deep inhalations and exhalations for this to relax you.

[john-is-my-name]

Hi Ek;

Try the breathing exercise below; ( I do this to a music metronome, which i adjust the tempo bpm to my pace.)

• Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound.
• Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four.
• Hold your breath for a count of seven.
• Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of eight.
• This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths

[SunsetRunner]

@john-is-my-name that is definitely more detailed that what I advised. 

Thank you for that breathing exercise. @Ekeiram you should definitely try this out! with the metronome it also has a nice soothing effect due to the rhythmic noise. Another thing you can do to help clear your mind is light a candle and look at the flame. 

If you do not have a metronome you can download an app that can take over. 

[Wolfy111]

Hello everyone. I have the Fitbit Charge 2. With the new update you can set the interval timer to light up the screen every minute (or minutes). I find this option to be particularly helpful not just when I am exercising. I found that it is helpful to use when trying to lower my heart rate during a certain period. I set it for 15 seconds active and 15 seconds rest. I start doing breathing exercises and get a 15 second update for as many cycles as I choose. It is as good (or better) as having the option of keeping the screen on permanently! It essentially solves the issue of not being able to adjust the screen time out feature. Also, by using the interval timer, the user is getting second by second monitoring of one's heart rate. Has anyone used this option the way I have?

[SunsetRunner]

@Wolfy111 I have yet to explore the possibilities of the new update to tell the truth. With Christmas presents work and all that I have been pushing the update off so I have not enjoyed the benefits yet. 

This option really does seem pretty useful. Even if battery consumption must be affected.

As for Breathing I saw that you can now have a vibration alert you when to go from inhale-exhale. That really does seem useful!

[Wolfy111]

Thank you. happy holidays! 
Yes, I also recommend the new breathing feature additions!:)
 
peace

Moderator Edit: Format

[Memyselfmanders]

Now that they have updated the relaxation feature to vibrate I'm really not liking it... Maybe it's because the vibration is so intense that I get a little jolt of panic or surprise every time it vibrates. Does not feel relaxing. There's no way to turn it off. 😞 I understand why they added the feature but it might be better if the vibrations were short and quick. And if there is an option to turn it off. 

[meoww]

I just bought the Charge 2 yesterday, mainly because of the relax function.

I constantly hold my breaths unknowingly when I feel tensed at work.

Seems like the relax function is only on demand? Is there anyway there can me a reminder for me to relax, when less breathing is detected?

I also had a Xiaomi Band2 for a while before I lost it in the airport. It would remind me to move if I have not walked for an hour or more. Is there such function too?

Thanks in advance! 🙂

[Wolfy111]

I hear you. I must say that after a little while I got used to the vibtlration.  

[droolpillow]

New user here. Is there a way to increase to more than 5 minutes? This looks like the closest thing to a meditation function without it going into sleep mode. Is there a separate meditation function I don't know about? Thanks,  

[john-is-my-name]

Hello Meoww;

"I constantly hold my breaths unknowingly when I feel tensed at work." You are invoking your 'flight or fight response' with shallow or no breathing.  While there are aspects of this we can't control, breathing is a bodily function that we have 'manual override' for. When you ctach yourself going into ForF, create a pattern interupt. I imagine a big red octagontal STOP sign. Then take slow deep breaths. There is more to my pattern interupt but try this for now and it will become habitual!  Conisder setting a alarm on your watch or phone every hour to do the 2 minute reminder drill.

[Wolfy111]

Hello.  Please see my above post. With the recent interval workout feature update...I have set the interval to 12 seconds-for 10 cycles (you can set it for many more cycles than that). 

The 12 seconds setting enables me to breath (4inhale/4 hold/4exhale) which then vibrates (and turns on the watch-where I can view my heart rate) every 12 seconds. 🙂

[trishka317]

I agree, it breathes too quickly for me which makes it less relaxing.

[Calathea77]

Droolpillow - I noticed that using the relax function for five minutes dropped the battery life by 5%. With a battery chomper like that, they're wise not to offer it for longer periods, otherwise everyone would be panicking about the battery life. 

I really like the Android app Peaceful Breathing. You can follow a sound and/or a moving bar, and it allows you to set the number of beats individually for inhale, hold, exhale, hold, as well as the tempo. Annoying you can't change the volume, but I'm planning to record a session and then make that play from a widget on my homescreen. The convenience of the Fitbit relax function has made me realise how much that's a factor. 

[SunsetRunner]

@Memyselfmanders I get what you mean, I like the vibrations as I don't need to keep watching the screen but the first time I definitely jumped a little. Not very relaxing I must say, you do get used to it though as @Wolfy111 said. 

@meoww, @john-is-my-name's advices seems really helpful to help you relax at work, I really hope you can get a little more relaxed thanks to this. As for the alert if you do not walk that is the reminder to move feature, it allows you to get an alert if you have not done 250 steps in an hour. 

@droolpillow, @trishka317 welcome to the Community! As @Calathea77 mentioned having the breathing exercise longer than 5 minutes would involve a huge battery drain. The app she recommended seems like a nice alternative. If you don't want to add more apps to your repertoire then using the breathing app to get your breathing cycles can be a start, then setting up intervals as @Wolfy111 could help you set longer sessions. 

[meoww]

Hi Sebastien, I set up the Reminder to move alert from 9am - 9pm, but so far I've not received any notifications for the past 4 days even though I did not move 250 steps for every hour. Not all the dots were coloured in the hourly activity chart, so I should have received notifications to move. Is there anything else i can do?

@john-is-my-name do you mean to manually set "Silent alarms" to remind myself to use the Relax feature?

Thanks and Happy New Year guys!

[BlushSinger]

Don't you just love the "Relax" feature? I do it before I go to bed, it makes me sleepy! 😜

[john-is-my-name]

"@john-is-my-name do you mean to manually set "Silent alarms" to remind myself to use the Relax feature?"  You could do this.  Workwise, I use alot of alarms including an hourly alarm and one every four hours. I cannot 'snooze' these alarms.  I have to act on them immediatley.   I do my 2 minute relax on the hourly and the 5 minute relax on the four hour.   I use a 3rd party ap on my phone that just beeps once to prompt me.

The fitbit alarm requires that you press the button to stop it.  If you don't do this, it goes into a 'snooze' mode for ten minutes before re-invoking the alarm. 

I use the fitbit alarm as a daily reminder to wake me up in the morning and an hour before I want to be in bed. (To start 'closing up' the day and to not look at a computer or phone screen for the rest of the day...as that will interfere with sleep effectivness.)  In this usage the fitbit alarm's 'nag' is a very useful feature!

As I mentioned, my work is tied to the clock so I can't do this ---  try a simple dollar-store kitchen timer and set it for the interval you want to do a relax session.  There is a producitivy method called Pomadoro, which is basically to work for 25 minutes and break for 5 minutes. 

[BethMa]

I am interested in the Charge 2. Does it recognize when your heart is beating too fast and prompt you to do a breathing exercise or does it only do it on demand?

[droolpillow]

Thanks (also a thanks to @Calathea77 ). I agree with the battery drain, as using the breathing exercises too long would drain the battery (and the long battery life is one of the good things about the fitbit charge 2). The breathing cycle works well for me if I just count two breaths on the device as one of my own. 

I don't necessary need a app for breathing as I do regular meditation, but just wanted something that would not count my meditations as sleep.