2breathe review – breathe yourself to sleep

Many sleeping apps have been developed to address insomnia using music, meditation, hypnosis, sleep-tracking etc. What sets 2breathe apart is that it’s essentially your own breathing that creates the tones used to guide you to sleep.  In this 2breathe review you will find out more about this device and why it works so well.

I  identified the value of breathing exercises to help me fall asleep some time ago. The trouble was that the more I tried to focus on my breathing, the more anxious I became.  2breathe is easy to use and you don’t need to know how to empty your mind or to meditate.  The ancient wisdom of breathing exercises is facilitated by using smart technology.  The device captivates your racing mind, reduces neural sympathetic activity and helps you begin to disassociate from internal and external stimuli. Before you know it, you have drifted off to sleep.

Who created 2breathe?

Dr. Benjamin Gavish and his son, Erez, are pioneers in the digital therapeutic device field. The elder Gavish, a biophysicist,  invented a device called RESPeRATE  about 25 years ago.  He was trying to help his wife with her headaches and found that changing breathing could affect other systems in the body. The device he invented is used to lower blood pressure by promoting slow, deep breathing.  Over a dozen well-designed clinical trials of the device provided significant results and the FDA gave it clearance as a hypertension treatment device. Since it was recommended by The American Heart Association in 2014, doctors frequently recommend it to patients.

“When 90 percent of users reported that beyond lowering their blood pressure, it also improved their sleep,” says Erez, CEO of the company, “we decided to turn the side effect into a feature and adapt the technology to help the millions who suffer from sleeplessness.”

What is 2breathe?

The device consists of the following components:

• a wireless sensor powered by blue tooth low energy that sends real time information about your breathing back to your Apple iOS app.
• an elastic belt worn around the torso.
• a mobile app that can be downloaded to any compatible iOS device such as an iPhone or an iPad.

How and why does it work?

You put on the belt before you climb into bed, lie down and begin to breathe normally. As you exhale, you tighten the belt to fit snugly and turn on the sensor. The app is launched to begin a session. As you breathe, the sensor detects your breathing patterns and every time you inhale or exhale, information is sent wirelessly to your smartphone using a low energy blue tooth connection.

The app processes and analyses your breathing pattern. Once your breathing tone is established, guiding tones are created for you. The guiding tones help to prolong your exhalation until you become drowsy. It becomes harder to follow the guiding tones as you drift off to sleep. Once you are asleep, the app continues to play guiding tones for about 10 minutes and then shuts off automatically.

Information session report

At the top of the report you will see the session duration (from start of guiding tones until 10 minutes after you fall asleep), the minutes you took to fall asleep, your breath duration and the exhale portion. Showing the exhale portion of your first and last breaths is helpful because it is associated with relaxation.

You can see the whole process of falling asleep by viewing a breathing rate graph. White dots are breaths that were in sync with the tones. Red dots are breaths out of sync with the tones as you begin to drowse. Finally, turquoise dots show breaths in passive mode which starts three minutes after sleep was detected.

The built-in reports form a sleep diary, helping you to see your progress.

How is 2breathe different from other sleep aids?

Relaxing music/White noise devices and apps – these apps use all kinds of methods like sounds, relaxing music and meditation to relax you. 2breathe also uses relaxing tones but in a slightly different way –  you do not listen to pre-recorded tones – they all created in real time to fit your breathing pattern.
Sleep trackers – these can help you to understand your sleeping patterns but they don’t induce sleep.
Cognitive behavioural therapy and apps – these have been proven to work and one of the most effective elements is  breathing exercises. However, these are not that easy to perform  and this is where 2breathe comes in. It provides the proven breathing exercise part without any training or effort.
Sleeping pills – are drugs containing chemicals. If you use them you often feel  ‘next day grogginess’ and you may experience drug-to-drug interactions or develop long term dependency. 2breathe induces sleep completely naturally.

What are the benefits?

Customers who have tried out this device found that it had a cumulative effect when they used it every night. They usually saw gradual improvement over a week or two.

Customers also reported that it helped with two types of problems – battling to fall asleep as well as waking up during the night. Those who had problems with waking up during the night used it before they went to sleep and found that they went back to sleep without having to reactivate the device.

Customers voiced their appreciation of the breathing rate graph because they could compare results and see the improvements. They could see consistent improvements and reduction in the time it took to fall asleep. .

Possible objections

People may ask “doesn’t using a smart phone while in bed at night do exactly the opposite of helping you to go to sleep?” This app is dimly lit and doesn’t stimulate the brain the way playing a video game or checking emails might. It works on the emotional rather than the cognitive side of the brain.

People may query why they should pay a significant amount for the device when so many sleep apps and programs are available to download for free or at a cheap price.  The device sells for $179.95  because it is made by experts in the digital therapeutic device field with a proven track record of success. It also comes with a 60 day money-back guarantee, so you have absolutely nothing to lose.

Why sleep is so important?

Deep relaxed sleep is essential to correct the damage that occurs throughout the day. This is why lack of sleep has been called the “silent killer”. Your body cannot function properly either mentally or physically when it is sleep deprived and insufficient sleep has been linked to a wide variety of health problems. If you are getting less than five hours of sleep per night your risk of stroke, heart disease or a heart attack  double. Studies have also shown links between lack of sleep and weight gain, insulin resistance, and diabetes.

Dr Charles Czeisler, one of world’s leading sleep scientists,  led a panel of experts who reviewed more than 300 studies published between 2004 and 2014 to figure out how many hours of sleep most people need in order to maintain their health.  Their recommendation was that adults (26-64) needed 7-9 hours and that seniors (65 and older) needed 7-8 hours a night. If you are only getting about 5 hours or less a night, you need to do something about it before it seriously affects your mental and physical health.