Breathly - The Simple App To Exercise The Lungs And Relax The Body While Breathing.
utopian-io·@rufans·
0.000 HBDBreathly - The Simple App To Exercise The Lungs And Relax The Body While Breathing.
The word **Exercise** has different meanings to different people, Some refer to it as the time to get down to the pitch for some regular body warm up while some easily seat back for some breathing exercise. ***In case you don't know, breathing is another form of exercise. Keep reading as I explain.*** Practicing breathing exercises can help to manage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other diseases related to chest tightness, shortness of breath, and large amounts of mucus that collect in the lungs. Breath exercises can also be done for stress management. I am glad to have seen a mobile application to aid breath exercise. **Mmazzarolo** is a mobile developer who started the development of an application back in 2018 and titled it [Breathly](https://github.com/mmazzarolo/breathly-app). Breathly is a React-Native mobile app and it's 100% ready for download. It's available on both Android and IOS devices.  The developer's aim is to help users to focus on their daily breathing. And I am glad to be one of its users for it had helped me to relax my mind when it's needed. It also helped me to know how long I can take in, out or hold my breath. One other advantage of this app is that It can be used for daily relaxation. I give kudos to the developer for being able to target users on different operating systems. I successfully got it installed on my Android device from [Playstore](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mmazzarolo.breathly), IOS users can also get the awesome application from [AppStore](https://itunes.apple.com/app/breathly/id1454852966) The simpleness and neatness of Breathly was the first feature I appreciated after launching it. Also, it's an open source project which means I can always suggest an idea to the developer. ***Let us talk about its interfaces.*** Breathly has five user interfaces and they are; * Welcome SplashScreen * Main Activity * Breathing Template * Running screen * Settings It's normal for any app to display its logo on the welcome screen, Breathly did display it too but different from other apps. It displayed it with style, Its logo only pops up and a neatly designed background for less than 3seconds upon app launch. Here's a screenshot of it. I was fast enough to get a screenshot.  The home screen immediately opens after the splash screen. I refer the home screen as the main activity screen because I can easily access other parts of the application from this page. The buttons are placed on the main activity screen. Below are the lists of the buttons that link to other activities. * Exercise Template Button * Running /Start Task Button * Settings Button Those are the only buttons present on the home screen. Now let's imagine just three buttons on the home screen, an Android screen resolution ranges from 240 X 320 to 1440 X 2560, so this simply means Breathly has a clean interface because it doesn't have the home screen messed up with buttons. Check the image Below.  I must confess I have never used any Android application that is as neat as Breathly. The main activity only includes a beautiful and well-written text *Breathable* text at the center of the screen and the three buttons explained in the previous paragraph. ## Features In a gym house, the gym instructor has a different pattern of counting different exercises. The push-ups for an example, the instructor might decide to count it as 1-2-3-4 or 2-4-6-8. The same technique is applied to Breathly app. The developer has been able to include five different types of templates for breathing exercises, some of which is common, or we unintentionally use on a daily basis. Below are the types of templates.  The very first one is the **Awake** template. This template is designed in a way to slowly let the user take in a breath and releases it at a faster rate. The developer programmed it to let users take in breath for 6seconds and exhale it for just 2seconds before breathing in again. It's assigned to work with the color red. I so much love this pattern. Although, what I don't like here is the rate at which I'm allowed to exhale before inhaling again. I do not like it doesn't mean it's a bad idea for the app. It's only a pattern and I'm constantly getting used to the pattern. The next one is the **DeepCalm** template. The developer tagged it with, **the breathing exercise for natural tranquilizer for the nervous system.** It holds the breathing code of (4-7-8-0) with a purple color. This pattern isn't so hard for me because the rate at which I inhale, exhale and hold the breath are of different timing. I prefer it this way than having to release breath at a faster rate when compared to how long it takes me to inhale it. The third template is the **Pranayama** template. The pranayama template is assigned to work with the (7-4-8-4) breathing pattern. It's the formal way of controlling the breath which holds the vital life force. It's assigned to work with color green. The **Square ** template makes it the fourth template on the **Template Activity**. It's assigned to work with the color blue and the breathing code of (4-4-4-4). ***Hmmm... What comes to your mind when you read the (4-4-4-4)?*** The (4-4-4-4) surely looks like a box right? A four-sided box of equal sizes. This is why it's called the square breathing pattern. The time to inhale, exhale and hold the breath is set to last for 4seconds each. It performed exactly as I expected. The (4-4-4-4) is the code. Lastly, it's the **Ujjayi** template. This template holds the code of (7-0-7-0). It is used when the mind and body are needed to be calmed. I found this template so easy to use, maybe because the rate I inhale is equal to the time needed to exhale. I often use this template first before thinking about other templates. Oh! I almost forgot to say it holds the orange/yellow color. That is all about the breathing templates. But, you might have been wondering why are the templates assigned to different colors? Well, this question leads to my observation. ### Observation It occurred to me that the home screen color changes every time I change the template. Breathly automatically apply the colors assigned to every template just after the template is chosen. Let us practice breathing exercises with the **Square** template and at the same time explain what happens to the home screen when different templates are selected. The images below are the screenshots showing I have chosen Awake/Ujjayi breathing template. You can confirm this in two ways. * Check the top right corner of the home screen. * Note the color appearing on the home screen.  The images above have a start button at the bottom of the screen. This button is used to start any breathing activity of your choice. I have stated that I will practice with the **Square template**. Check out the gif below. https://img.esteem.ws/1y3n01zfab.gif The last Activity screen I will be discussing is the Settings UI. This is where I have options to change the countdown timer of any breathing exercise. It also has an option to change the app appearance. <div class="pull-left">  </div> <div class="pull-right">  </div> Breathly is free to use, no ads, no in-purchase, unlike other similar apps. I downloaded a similar app with the name **Prana breath**. Prana breath is filled with awesome features like sound effects and other options. Although, it has an in-app purchases option for pro users.  # Summary Breathly is a lightweight app running on Android and IOS devices, helping users to relax their body and mind by timing the rate at which they inhale, hold and exhale breath. Breathly is a newly developed app both on Playstore and Appstore. The last code update was 5days ago as of when I published this post. The developer merged a PR from Fabrizio Giordano. The PR is all about an update on ***AsyncStorage to use react-native-community/async-storage***. There hasn't been any suggestion or bug report on the repo. I believe things will change as time goes on. The application is only 5days old on Github. This blog post covers the introduction to Breathly, my thought, and experience using it and a code update on the GitHub repo. I recommend it to everyone out there and I also encourage you to also recommend it to every living soul out there for regular breath exercise. Thank you for stopping by, see you next time bye.
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