A Deep Breath

A Deep Breath is a breathing app that refuses to be just a circle.

Open it and you see a paperback — Thoreau's Walden or Laozi's Tao Te Ching, your choice. Tap the cover. It lifts, curls, and settles on a real page. A soft haptic, a small amber circle at the top of the screen, and you begin to breathe.

Every third breath, the page turns — truly turns, with a corner-curl — and you are a verse deeper into the book. Over weeks of daily practice, you breathe your way through a classic of wisdom literature.


WHAT IT DOES

• Tap the cover. The book opens. Breathe.
• Every third breath turns the page of a real public-domain paperback.
• Two patterns bundled: box (4-4-4-4) and relaxation (4-7-8).
• Sessions of 5, 10, 15, or 20 breaths — your choice.
• Quiet mode: a small animated book with no text, just the breath.
• Haptics on every inhale and exhale. Session end is one gentle thud.
• iCloud sync — start on iPhone, continue on iPad.


BUNDLED BOOKS (both fully in the public domain)

• Thoreau's Walden (1854)
• Laozi's Tao Te Ching, translated by James Legge (1891)


WHAT IT DOESN'T DO

• No streaks. No "you've meditated for 7 days!"
• No voice guides, no bot, no coach.
• No subscription. No account. No ads.
• No push notifications.
• No analytics, no tracking, no data collection of any kind.


THE IDEA

Most breathing apps try to keep you engaged. A Deep Breath does the opposite: it gets out of the way. Open it. Tap the cover. Breathe. Close it. Again tomorrow, or not — we don't keep score.

Fourth in the sthreelabs paperback family, with Tallies, One Line in Time, and A Spell of Work.

Paid once, kept forever. Reading progress stays in your iCloud, readable only by you.

Made quietly by sthreelabs.