Anima - Haptic Breathing

When I first started meditating, I kept doing it on and off. You're told, just sit down, close your eyes, and count your breath to ten. It's expected that you'd always lose count because your thoughts would distract you, that the point is the return back to your breath done over and over. The return is what builds the skill of deepening into a state of still relaxation. Practicing this skill and learning to get to this state more quickly and reliably changed my life and who I am at my core for the better. But it's quite tough to get there.

Counting my breaths felt flighty, using your thoughts to count when it's thought that pulled you away was not working for me. I found what helped me to have a consistent practice was grounding myself in some sort of sensory anchor. For me, these were prayer beads that I flicked through with each breath. When I'd be out and about, it was the haptics on my Apple Watch's meditation feature whose buzz matched my inhalations and exhalations. These anchors did for my mind what a weighted blanket does for my body. By giving my mind something simple and constant to rest on, the noise settled around it.

I created this app to offer this approach of using a sensory anchor to the world. On your iPhone it works on its own, with haptics and audible taps that follow them. On your Apple Watch you feel it on your wrist. Either way the pulse quickens as you breathe in and softens as you breathe out.

It's free, every feature, no account, and nothing leaves your device.

I hope that it will be helpful for people looking to ground themselves into relaxation amidst chaos.

I'd love to hear from people who've meditated a long time. Did you ever use an anchor like this, and did you keep it or eventually drop it?