Start a Breathing Exercise With Siri, Spotlight or Shortcuts on iOS 27

The hardest part of a breathing break is not the breathing. It is the ten seconds between “I should breathe” and actually starting: unlock, find the app, find the exercise. By then the meeting has started.

The latest BreathInU update removes most of that gap. Every exercise in the app is now available to Siri, Spotlight and the Shortcuts app, on iPhone and iPad with iOS 18 or later, including iOS 27. This page shows what you can say, what you can type, and three shortcuts worth setting up.

What changed in the app

BreathInU now gives iOS three actions:

• Start Exercise opens an exercise and starts it. If you do not pick one, it starts the exercise BreathInU recommends for you.
• Open Exercise opens a specific exercise.
• Search Exercises opens the app’s search with your words already typed.

The app also adds its 22 exercises to Spotlight: breathing (Box Breathing, Steady Box 4-6, Alternate Nostril, Diaphragmatic Breathing and more), slow walking, neck and shoulder stretches, and eye exercises.

Open BreathInU once after updating. That is when it registers its exercises with the system.

Start an exercise with Siri

Say one of these:

• “Start an exercise in BreathInU”
• “Breathe with BreathInU”
• “Find a breathing exercise in BreathInU”
• “Search exercises in BreathInU”

When Siri starts an exercise, it confirms with a short card showing the exercise name and what it does, then BreathInU opens on it. The start and search phrases also work in French, German, Spanish and Italian when Siri uses those languages.

Siri works well when your hands are busy or your eyes need a break from the screen. It is the fastest route to the eye exercises after a long stretch of screen work.

Find an exercise in Spotlight

Swipe down on the Home Screen and type the name of an exercise, for example “box breathing” or “alternate nostril”. The BreathInU exercise appears in the results. Tap it and the app opens straight on that exercise, with no menus in between.

Spotlight is the better choice when you know what you want but cannot say it out loud: in an open office, on a train, or next to someone sleeping.

Three shortcuts worth setting up

The Shortcuts app lists BreathInU actions under the app’s name. Each one takes a minute to create.

1. A one-tap reset on the Action button. On iPhones with an Action button, go to Settings, then Action Button, choose Shortcut, and pick a shortcut that starts Box Breathing. Press and hold before a call or a presentation.
2. A breathing break when work starts. In Shortcuts, open Automation and create one that runs when your Work Focus turns on, with the Start Exercise action. A 1-minute reset is a realistic first habit.
3. A wind-down at a fixed time. Create a Time of Day automation for the evening that opens a slow exercise such as Steady Box 4-6. The 4-6 breathing guide explains why a longer exhale helps you settle.

Keep one or two shortcuts at most. A breathing break that fires five times a day turns into a notification you swipe away.

On Mac

On Mac, BreathInU now uses the standard macOS layout, with Home, Library, Progress, Me and a Search tab with the usual search field. Search looks through exercise names and descriptions, so typing “neck” or “eyes” finds the matching stretches.

Privacy

What BreathInU shares with Siri, Spotlight and Shortcuts is the exercise catalog: names, short descriptions and categories. Your sessions, streak and Apple Health data are not part of it.

Try it

If you already use BreathInU, update from the App Store and open the app once. If you are new, the guides on this site teach each technique for free, and the app adds the timing, haptics and now the shortcuts.