How to Track Your Breathing While Sleeping with Apple Watch

Stay on top of health conditions like sleep apnea with Apple Watch.

By Olena Kagui Updated 10/25/2021

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Knowing your sleeping respiratory rate can help you keep tabs on health conditions such as COVID-19, asthma, or sleep apnea, and help you gauge when to seek medical attention if necessary. Fortunately, Apple Watch offers an effortless method to track this and other health information in a private and secure way. We'll show you how.

Why You’ll Love This Tip

Track your breathing if you have concerns about your respiratory health, including while sleeping.
Apple Watch makes it easy to keep track of your health.

How to Measure Respiratory Rate With Apple Watch

Before you can learn how to track your sleep respiratory rate, you need to make sure you have an Apple Watch 3 or newer and have sleep tracking enabled. Then:

Open the Health app on your iPhone.
Tap Browse.
Scroll down if necessary and select Sleep.
View the data and graphs on this first page, or tap Show More Sleep Data for more information.

The Sleep Foundation reports that the normal sleep respiratory rate for adults under 60 is between 12 and 20 times per minute. For adults over 60, between 12 and 28 times per minute is normal. If you have any concerns, please make sure to consult with a medical professional! Your iPhone and Apple Watch are useful tools to keep an eye on your overall health, but they can neither diagnose you nor offer medical advice.

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Author Details

Olena Kagui

Olena Kagui is a Feature Writer at iPhone Life who lives in Hawaii. With a BA in International Relations from Anglo American University, Olena traveled the world. She has lived in Ukraine, the Czech Republic, China, and the USA. Olena won an excellence award for a controversial article, got a grant to blog from a war-zone, and published a short fictional story. She hopes to publish a full-length novel and continue writing up a storm on her blog The Travel Bug Bite! When she’s not typing or flying, she is loving on animals, crafting bizarre creations, and devouring all-you-can-eat sushi.

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