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When you are wound up, spiraling, or cannot think straight, Donna can guide you through a short exercise to settle your body: a breathing pattern or a sensory grounding exercise, paced by a calm visual. Start one anytime from the wind glyph in the top-right corner of the window, or from the menu glyph in the bottom bar on a phone. Donna also offers one on its own when it senses you are running hot. When it does, it sets the to-do aside and helps you settle first, since a wound-up brain cannot start a task.

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Two kinds of exercise

Breathing

A guided breath with a visual that expands and settles in time with you. The pace is built into the visual, so the words on screen and the motion always match. Patterns range from a simple longer exhale to box breathing, 4-7-8, a physiological sigh (two quick inhales, one long exhale) for an acute spike, or slow coherent breathing for a longer settle.

Sensory grounding

For when you are too activated to follow a breath. The classic is 5-4-3-2-1: Donna walks you down through five things you can see, four you can hear, and so on, until you are back in the room.

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Donna picks the one that fits the moment

You do not have to know which exercise you need. Donna reads how activated you are and chooses:
  • A sharp spike gets the fastest thing: a physiological sigh, or 5-4-3-2-1 if breathing feels like too much.
  • Rough but not acute gets a slower breath, like an extended exhale or box breathing.
  • A hard day gets the simplest option, or just a calming line and no visual at all.
  • Running low and flat usually gets no breathing exercise. Speeding up your breath is the wrong move when you are already empty, so Donna shifts to a slower pace and offers permission to stop instead.
If what set you off is a pile of things that all feel equally urgent, the guide on too much to do and frozen covers what to do once you have settled: get the pile out of your head and shrink it to one move.

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Starting and stopping

You start the exercise and you stop it.
  • It does not loop or run on its own.
  • It respects your reduced-motion setting if you have one turned on.
  • Run one round or ten. Stopping early does not affect anything.
Donna does not count your breathing or turn it into a streak. There is no tally and no reminder to do it more often.

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Frequently asked questions

Donna reads how activated you are and picks: a physiological sigh or 5-4-3-2-1 grounding for a sharp spike, a slower breath like an extended exhale or box breathing when it is rough but not acute, and the simplest option on a hard day, sometimes just a calming line with no visual. See “Donna picks the one that fits the moment” above.
Then Donna does not put you on your breath. If you are too activated to track one, it reaches for sensory grounding instead: the 5-4-3-2-1 sequence that walks you down through five things you can see, four you can hear, and so on until you are back in the room. If you are running low and flat rather than wound up, Donna usually offers no breathing exercise at all, since speeding up your breath is the wrong move when you are already empty.
The visual expands and settles at the pace of the breath, so you do not have to count in your head. Donna does not state seconds or count out loud, and the visual respects your reduced-motion setting if you have one turned on.
Two ways. Open one yourself: the wind glyph in the top-right corner opens a panel that asks where you are at, and one tap on a felt state starts the cadence that matches it. On a phone, the menu glyph in the bottom bar has a Breathing row that asks the same question, with the same felt states, and the one you pick renders right in the feed. Or Donna offers one on its own when it senses you are running hot, setting the to-do aside to help you settle first. Either way, you start it and you stop it.
No. Donna does not count your breathing or turn it into a streak, and there is no tally or reminder to do it more often. It is a tool for a hard moment.

When the day is rough

How everything shrinks and softens on the hard days.

Go deeper: When it's all too much

Getting it out of your head and back to one thing when everything hits at once.