What you can do with it

The two main kinds of session

You choose how long, what sound plays, and whether a voice guides you. Then you sit or lie down and follow the breathing. Something like this: a gentle tone pulses slowly, rain plays quietly behind it, and a calm voice paces your breathing until you have the rhythm. Then the voice says less and less and lets you carry on.

The last few sessions you ran are kept on the screen so you can tap them again. You can also give one a name and keep it. A kept session remembers your choices, not a recording.

For when you want to work on something. You pick a goal: calm, confidence, winding down for sleep, focus, or letting go. A calm voice takes you through a set routine, then repeats gentle suggestions about your goal, for example, for sleep, "when you let yourself rest, rest comes easily". It takes 15 to 25 minutes.

Two safety steps run every time, and cannot be skipped. First the app checks you are steady before it starts. At the end it reminds you not to drive for a while. The app never claims you went "into a trance", because it cannot know that.

Two more things you can try

Settle. Open your eyes. Settle again. A few times over. The app times how long it takes you to get back to calm each time. Over the weeks you can see that number change. It is the one score the app keeps, because it is the one thing it can honestly measure.

Three guided imaginings, found under Self-hypnosis. A younger time: you picture a doorway into a scene from earlier in your life and look at it from a comfortable distance. Another life: the classic past-life form, a corridor towards a light and whatever you find at the end of it. Drifting back: no doorway, no scene, just a drift towards an easier feeling.

Before any of them starts, the voice says plainly that what follows is imagination, not a memory coming back, and not something to base a real decision on. The voice never suggests what you should see, because that is how false memories get made. You can stop at any time.

A few people in the same room, each doing their own session, with one person watching how settled the group is. Not yet released. It has its own page, with a drawing of how it runs.

Something to hold in mind

In a Settle session you can add a focus. Deep rest. Follow your intuition: think of a question, let it go, and see what comes. And two more, marked as experiences to explore rather than facts: Distant perception and Reaching outward. Each one gives you a few quiet words to hold during the deep part of the session. Choosing none is fine too.

Before you start: calls, alarms and interruptions

If a call, Siri or an alarm takes the sound, the session pauses itself the moment the sound goes. When you come back it asks: carry on, or end. The clock stopped when the sound did, so nothing is lost.

To stop it happening at all, the surest way is Airplane Mode: swipe down into Control Centre, tap the aeroplane, then tap Bluetooth back on if you use a heart strap. Your iPhone remembers that Bluetooth choice for next time. In Airplane Mode nothing can ring. A Focus such as Do Not Disturb is gentler, but calls from people you have allowed still come through.

For a group session, turn Wi-Fi and Bluetooth back on as well. The phones talk to each other directly, not through the internet.

Alarms and timers set in the Clock app still go off either way. Check them before a long session. Leave the app on the screen; it keeps the screen awake during a session, and Dim gives you darkness. If the battery is low, plug in first.

The settings, one by one

Shape (how long, and how deep)

Settle and stay is short and gentle. Focus settles you and then keeps you alert. Descend and explore is longer and goes deeper. This is the main choice that sets how long the session lasts. Each shape moves the pulse through the brain speeds explained on The science page.

Sound (the pulse)

The app plays a slow, steady pulse for your body to follow. There are three ways to make that pulse. They sound slightly different, and one of them only works with headphones.

• Isochronic (the usual one). One tone switched on and off. Clear, and it works through a speaker.
• Monaural. Two tones blended together so the pulse swells rather than switching. Softer than isochronic. Also fine through a speaker.
• Binaural. A slightly different tone in each ear. The pulse only appears inside your head when your ears combine them. Headphones needed. Through a speaker it just sounds like the monaural one.
• None. Just the background sound and the voice. This is a proper choice, not a lesser one: the breathing does most of the work anyway.

Which one? Start with isochronic. If the pulse bothers you, try monaural. Only choose binaural if you have headphones on. And to be honest about it: we know a steady pulse gets a response from the brain. Whether it changes how you feel for long afterwards is much less certain. See the science.

Background sound

Every background sound is made fresh by the app while you listen. None is a recording, so you never hear the same bit twice.

• Rain. Steady and even. Best for covering up a noisy house or traffic.
• Ocean. Waves every 7 to 15 seconds, no two the same.
• Wind. Gusts with no rhythm to them.
• Forest. Soft wind and distant birdsong. The most outdoorsy, but the birds can catch your attention.
• Storm. The heaviest cover. Good for a noisy room, less good for going deep.
• Soft noise. No scenery at all. The clearest way to hear the pulse.
• None.

The background sound is there to cover up the room. The pulse is the part your body follows. If you are somewhere quiet, a lighter background leaves more room for the pulse and the voice.

How the session is run (the "drive")

• Guided. Runs on the clock, the same every time, whatever your body is doing. Nothing needed but the phone.
• Adaptive. The app listens to your breathing through the microphone and senses how still you are. If you are settling slowly it waits at a stage and keeps the voice going. If you are settling well it says less and moves on. It can also nudge the pulse a touch slower or faster, never by much. Wear a Polar H10 chest strap and it sees your heartbeat too, which is a better read on how settled you are. The strap is optional: Adaptive works with the phone alone. One thing it never changes is the breathing pace, about 6 breaths a minute, because that suits most people.
• Adaptive takes energy out as you settle. A coherence drive does the opposite: it pushes you toward a target, then feathers the throttle to hold you there.
• Brain coherence (locked). This would hold your brain at a chosen speed and ease off as you get there, like feathering a throttle. It needs a brain sensor (EEG). None is supported, so it stays locked rather than faked.
• Heart coherence (coming). Breathing near 6 a minute brings your heartbeat into one smooth wave, about one every 10 seconds. A chest strap can see that wave. A drive that steers by it is being built and will appear in the list when it works, not before. Not the same thing as brain coherence above: one word, two different things.

Voice

On, and it says less as you settle. Or off, for sound only. The voice is recorded, not made up on the spot, so it sounds the same every time.

Blessing

An optional short ending. A moment of goodwill: wish yourself well, then, if it comes easily, someone you care about, then wider.

Doing the same session again

Your recent Settle sessions are on the screen ready to tap. My Presets is where the ones you named live. Either way, a saved self-hypnosis session still runs its two safety steps every time.