The Breathing Interruptions
The Apple Watch actively promotes mental health through an integrated app called Mindfulness (formerly known as the Breathe app). By default, this app operates in the background and will randomly tap your wrist several times a day, throwing a notification on the screen urging you to “Take a minute to breathe” or “Reflect on your day.” While this is helpful for managing stress, the timing is often terrible. Having your watch aggressively vibrate and tell you to breathe while you are in the middle of a tense business meeting or driving through heavy traffic is incredibly distracting and frequently causes more stress than it relieves. You must disable the automated schedule.
How to Turn Off Mindfulness Reminders
You can completely silence the automated mental health prompts via the app settings.
- Open the Settings app directly on your Apple Watch (the grey gear icon).
- Scroll down the main list and tap on Mindfulness.
- In the “Reminders” section, you will see toggles for Start of Day and End of Day. Toggle these Off.
- Tap on Add Reminder and ensure no custom schedules are set.
- Scroll down further and tap on Weekly Summary. Toggle this Off.
Manual Sessions Only
The change is instantaneous. The Apple Watch will completely delete its background schedule. The watch will never again interrupt your workday to tell you to breathe or reflect. The Mindfulness app remains fully functional on your watch; however, you must manually open the app and tap “Start” whenever you are actually ready for a session.