Life & fun · November 30, 2023
Interactive exercises for stress and anxiety that respond to breathing
Hey HN! I’m an NHS doctor and the founder of Pia (https://www.piahealth.co) which developed Lungy (https://www.lungy.app). Lungy is an app (iOS only for now) that responds to breathing in real-time and was designed to make breathing exercises more engaging and beneficial to do. It’s been one year since Lungy launched (here’s the original ShowHN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34534615) - I was absolutely delighted with the response. One year on, we have re-designed and rebuilt the whole app, and added a real-time, 3D soft body solver which gives some…
In plain words
Lungy is an iOS app that uses real-time breathing detection to guide stress and anxiety relief exercises. Developed by an NHS doctor, it responds to the user's breathing patterns with interactive 3D animations that inflate and respond as they breathe, making breathing exercises more engaging. The app is designed for anyone seeking practical tools to manage stress and anxiety through guided breathing techniques.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hey HN! I’m an NHS doctor and the founder of Pia (https://www.piahealth.co) which developed Lungy (https://www.lungy.app). Lungy is an app (iOS only for now) that responds to breathing in real-time and was designed to make breathing exercises more engaging and beneficial to do. It’s been one year since Lungy launched (here’s the original ShowHN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34534615) - I was absolutely delighted with the response. One year on, we have re-designed and rebuilt the whole app, and added a real-time, 3D soft body solver which gives some really cool interactions like blobs / objects that inflate as you breathe. My background is as a junior surgical trainee and I started building Lungy in 2020 during the first COVID lockdown in London. During COVID, there were huge numbers of patients coming off ventilators and patients are often given breathing exercises on a worksheet and disposable plastic devices called incentive spirometers to encourage deep breathing. This is intended to prevent chest infections and strengthen breathing muscles that have weakened. I noticed often the incentive spirometer would sit by the bedside, whilst the patient would be on their phone – this was the spark that lead to Lungy! Since making the first version we’ve made exercises fully customisable (you can dial in exact timings for each breath phase), added new breathing indicators, learning modules, e.g. self-care for anxiety symptoms, and lots of new visuals. The UI is now much nicer and is AA-compliant. The free version gives you access to a new breathing exercise each day, whilst premium ($14.99 per year, $39.99 unlimited) unlocks the full library of exercises. The visuals are mostly built using Metal (a couple use SpriteKit) and there are lots to choose from - boids, cloth sims, fluid sims, a hacky DLA implementation, rigid body + soft body sims - each one reacts to breath and touch. The audio uses AudioKit with a polyphonic synth and a sequencer plays generated notes from a chosen scale (you can mess around with the sequencer and synth in Settings/Create Music). The nice thing about the visuals + audio being generative is that the download size is very small (~ 50MB) with no other downloads. We’re still working on improving the breath detection, using ML - currently, it uses microphone input, with optional camera input to guide positioning. We’re also close to finishing the medical device version - “Lungy Health” - designed as a pulmonary rehab platform for patients with asthma and COPD, it should hopefully be released in the UK early next year. Thanks for reading - would love to hear any feedback! Version 2.0 here: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1545223887
Does the same job
all alternatives →- IMI'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for stress and anxiety2023 · lungy.app · ▲666
Hey HN! Some more info: I’m an NHS doctor and the founder of Pi-A (https://www.pi-a.io) which developed Lungy (https://www.lungy.app). Lungy is an app (iOS only for now) that responds to breathing in real-time and was designed to make breathing exercises more engaging and beneficial to do. It hopefully has many aspects of interest to the HN community – real-time fluid, cloth and soft body sims running on the phone’s GPU. My background is as a junior surgical trainee and I started building Lungy in 2020 during the first COVID lockdown in London. During COVID, there were…
- IMI'm a doctor and built a responsive breathing app for anxiety and sleep2025 · apps.apple.com · ▲103
Hey HN! I’m an NHS doctor and the founder of Pia (https://www.piahealth.co) which developed Lungy (https://www.lungy.app). Lungy is an iOS app that responds to breathing in real-time and was designed to make breathing exercises more engaging and beneficial to do. It’s been two years since Lungy launched (here’s the original ShowHN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34534615) and it's had a huge update and complete redesign. We rebuilt the whole app, and added a real-time 3D soft body solver which gives some really cool interactions like blobs /…
- IBI built an interactive cloth solver for Apple Vision Pro2024 · youtube.com · ▲99
A bit more context - the cloth sim is part of my app, Lungy (https://www.lungy.app). It's designed to be an active meditation / relaxation app, so you can play relaxing instruments in space and immersive breathing exercises. The original Lungy is a breathing app available for iOS, that uses real-time breathing with interactive visuals. The cloth sim is a Verlet integration, running on a regular grid. For now, I have tried a couple of different cloth scenes - a sort of touch reactive 'pad', where different parts of the cloth are mapped to different sounds and a cloth that blows…
More life & fun this month
the category →- TL
Life & fun · 10d ago · louisabraham.github.io
Photosynthesis fires two of your iPhone
Life & fun · 29d ago · photosynthesis.camera
SoloUno▲310Take control of hair pulling, nail biting & skin picking
Life & fun · 28d ago · solouno.io
Scroll through all 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 reachable Rubik's Cube permutations.
Life & fun · 27d ago · everycube.alen.is
Hi HN, I built Eigendrum, a web tool that solves the 2D wave equation for arbitrary shapes so you can hear what they sound like as drums. How it works: * Solves -∇²u = λu using finite element analysis (Kφ = λMφ) on a triangle mesh. * Validated to <0.1% error against closed-form solutions for circles (Bessel zeros) and rectangles. * Sound model factors in strike location, Rayleigh damping, and mallet width. * Includes Kac drums I & II to demonstrate identical sound spectra from different geometries. * No frameworks, build steps, or dependencies. Repo and tests:…
Life & fun · 27d ago · baselashraf81.github.io
Launched alongside, November 2023
the whole month →
Discover & book top creators to promote your product
Growth · 2023 · passionfroot.me
