Coherence is an in-app score out of 100 showing how closely your session followed the selected exercise. It is not a health or medical measurement.
What coherence is
Coherence measures how closely your session matched the exercise you chose. It is made up of three parts:
• Breath Lock — 60% — How closely your detected breathing pattern matched the exercise
• Timing — 20% — How closely the session followed its intended phase boundaries
• Completion — 20% — Whether you completed the session, including Anchoring
The overall score combines these three components.
What the labels mean
• 90–100 — Excellent
• 80–89 — Strong
• 70–79 — Good
• 60–69 — Developing
• Below 60 — Exploratory
These five labels are the complete coherence scale used by Spiral Breath+.
What Breath Lock is
Breath Lock uses your microphone to measure changes in the loudness of your breathing over time and compares that pattern with the exercise's intended breathing pattern.
It is not speech recognition and it does not analyze the words you say or the pitch of your voice. Breath Lock uses audio-level information to detect the breathing pattern.
Breath Lock is available on both Free and Spiral Breath+. It is not a paid feature.
If you don't allow microphone access
The session still works normally.
Breath Lock is simply unavailable, and your coherence score is calculated using Timing and Completion instead.
The Session Summary explains this with:
“Breath Lock unavailable for this session — scoring used timing and completion. Enable microphone access to add breath detection.”
Why scores can differ between similar sessions
Breath Lock may use a simpler or less certain measurement in several situations:
Exercises where every phase has the same duration, such as 6·6·6·6. Because the phases have identical timing, the detected pattern can be harder for the scoring system to distinguish.
A weak microphone signal. This can happen when the phone is farther away or when some Bluetooth audio devices are being used.
No usable audio signal is detected.
For exercises with very long inhale or exhale phases — over 8 seconds — the scoring system can credit some Timing information toward Breath Lock. This adjustment is part of the Breath Lock score you see.
Pausing
Pausing can reduce the Completion component of your score by a small amount.
Time spent paused is not otherwise counted against your coherence score.
Session suggestions
Each Session Summary can provide up to two suggestions based on the session, such as:
• Still Your Holds
• Extend the Exhale
• Stay for Anchoring
When the session does not trigger a suggestion, you may see:
“Beautiful Practice”
These suggestions are practice feedback from Spiral Breath+, not medical recommendations.
What coherence is not
Coherence is Spiral Breath+'s in-app measure of how closely a session followed the selected breathing exercise.
It is not heart-rate variability (HRV), heart coherence, a medical measurement, or an indicator of your health.
Use it as feedback about your Spiral Breath+ practice rather than as a health metric.