Full Breathe guide

Breathe is cheerful by default, with serious tools close by when you need them. Nothing in this guide starts a timer, places a call, sends a text, or shares a note just because you read about it.

Home

Home keeps the most useful things close without trying to show every feature at once. The bright emergency button always remains available. The rest can be hidden or shown from Settings without deleting anything.

What do I need right now?

Use this when you know roughly what you need but do not want to remember where a tool lives. Choose Laugh, Calm down, Get distracted, Feel encouraged, Talk to someone, or I’m not safe and Breathe routes you to the matching area.

I don’t know / Just stay here with me

If even choosing a category feels like work, “I don’t know” narrows things to Distract me, Calm my body, or Just stay here with me. The quiet-minute screen asks for no explanation, score, or decision.

I need help right now

This opens the 10-minute support screen with 988, your safety plan, and trusted people. Starting the timer stores enough local information to offer “Continue where I left off” if the app is interrupted. When ten minutes finish, After the Wave offers gentler next steps instead of abruptly returning Home.

988 and 911 call/text buttons

Breathe does not silently place calls or send texts. A Call link hands the number to the phone’s normal calling interface; Android or iPhone controls the final call/confirmation behavior. Text 988 opens the phone’s messaging handler. On Android, the standard SMS link opens the configured default SMS app, including Google Messages or Samsung Messages when either is the default. On iPhone it opens Messages. You still decide whether to actually send a message.

After the Wave

After a 10-minute session, choose another ten minutes, grounding, something funny, a trusted person, a Tiny Win for getting through it, or simply return somewhere softer in the app.

Happy

Happy is a shuffled shelf of positive cards. “Another one” moves through the deck without immediate repeats until the deck has made the rounds. Use the heart to favorite/unfavorite a card or Rescue to pin it to your Rescue Kit.

Encouraging

Encouraging draws from encouraging, gentle-support, and “do one thing” cards. It uses the same no-immediate-repeat behavior and the same favorite/Rescue controls.

Funny

Funny is a curated shelf of stand-alone memes that make sense without needing the old conversation around them. Tap for another, favorite the ones worth keeping, and Rescue-pin ones you especially want close.

Tiny Wins

Tiny Wins has no streaks and no punishment for skipping days. Drinking water, eating, showering, resting, asking for help, laughing, getting out of bed, or a custom win can all count. The point is noticing what you managed, not grading the day.

Memory Jar

Save a funny, warm, good, ridiculous, or meaningful little memory, optionally with a photo. “Show me something good” pulls one back out. Memory Jar entries stay local and can be added to the Rescue Kit.

Ground

Grounding contains multiple ways back to the present instead of assuming one technique works for everybody. The toolbox includes sensory noticing, finding objects by color/shape/texture, feet-and-pressure awareness, cool temperature, category/alphabet tasks, counting, describing the room, present-time orientation, and small body resets. Grounding progress can resume after an interruption, and favorite techniques can be pinned to the Rescue Kit.

Breathe

The breathing tool remains separate from Grounding. It uses a simple slower rhythm with a longer exhale and can be started or stopped whenever you want. There is no score or requirement to finish.

Untangle

Untangle is private scratch space for sorting out what is happening. Its writing stays on this phone and is not sent to Companion or anyone else.

My safety plan

Your safety plan is stored locally so the important information can still be available when the core app is offline. It is not shared just because you open or edit it.

My Rescue Kit

Pin up to five especially useful things from across Breathe: cards, memes, poems, grounding tools, trusted people, or Memory Jar entries. Edit Rescue Kit lets you reorder them. If all five spots are full, adding a new item lets you choose which spot to replace.

Comfort Menu

The Comfort Menu lives inside the Rescue Kit. Add your own shows, foods, drinks, songs, people, places, routines, or other comforts. “Pick one for me” chooses from your own list when deciding feels annoying.

Notes

Save only on this phone creates a private local note. Share this with Steve deliberately sends a copy to Companion and does not secretly make all Notes shared. Brittany’s deliberately shared notes stay saved locally in Breathe and a separate copy is sent to Companion. Notes can be deleted from this phone without remotely editing Companion.

Future Brittany

Future Brittany is inside Notes and remains local-only. Leave something for yourself to find later. “Surprise me” selects a random saved note; “Choose one” lets you pick a specific note by its preview and date.

Favorites

Favorites collects cards, memes, and poems. Favoriting is reversible everywhere: tap the heart again to unfavorite, including from the Favorites screen.

Trusted People

Save one to five names and phone numbers locally. Call and Text open the normal phone apps. Quick Text offers a few prepared phrases such as “Can you call me?” and then opens the messaging app with the words filled in; Breathe never presses Send for you.

Poems

Poems live on their own optional shelf and can be favorited or pinned to the Rescue Kit. If you do not want the Poems button on Home, hide it in Settings without deleting the poems.

Continue where I left off

If a 10-minute support session or grounding exercise is interrupted, Breathe can offer to continue it. The support timer uses its stored end time so reopening the app does not pretend time stopped while Breathe was closed.

Settings

The blue butterfly labeled Settings opens local Breathe preferences. Low Stimulation Mode simplifies colors, decoration, and animation. You can also choose appearance, text size, reduced motion, decorative motion, card transitions, whether to keep the screen awake during 10-minute support, whether Poems appears on Home, and which optional Home sections are visible. None of these settings changes Companion.

Backup & Restore

Backup exports the local Breathe data that would be annoying to lose, such as private app preferences and local tools. Restore can place that data on another phone. The export does not contain the secure device session or Companion data.

Offline tools

The Offline tools page checks whether the core Breathe app and support files have been cached. Core crisis tools, grounding, breathing, the safety plan, Untangle, local notes, trusted people, Rescue Kit, Tiny Wins, Memory Jar, cards, poems, and the app shell are designed to remain useful offline. Calls and texts do not need web access, but they still need cellular service or another phone connection.

Suggestions

Suggestions lets you deliberately send Steve an idea, content request, design thought, bug report, or another change you would like. Only the category and words you type into that form are sent. It does not attach app-use history, private notes, device activity, or other Breathe data.

What’s New

After an update, Breathe can show a small “Breathe grew a little” notice. What’s New lists the changes and remains available from Settings later.

About Breathe

About shows the public version, internal build, live content counts, and a read-only local code check. The code check runs on this device, reports sensitive browser capabilities and network endpoints it finds, hash-checks public app files when online, and lets you inspect the bundled Breathe runtime source.

Companion

Companion is separate and intentionally narrow. Opening or using Breathe does not report activity to Companion. Companion can receive a note Brittany deliberately chooses to share and a suggestion she deliberately submits. Shared notes are saved in Breathe on this phone first. Suggestions contain only the category and text she types into the Suggestions form.