Knowing what your breathing rate while sleeping is can help you keep tabs on health conditions such as asthma and sleep apnea. It can also 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.
You can show your doctor any results that concern you.

How to Track Your Breathing Rate While Sleeping with Apple Watch

System Requirements

To use this tip, you'll need an iPhone SE 2nd Gen or newer running iOS 16 or later and an Apple Watch 3 or newer running watchOS 10 or later. These screenshots were taken on an iPhone running iOS 26, using data from a watch running watchOS 11.

Before you can learn how to track your sleep respiratory rate, you'll need to have sleep tracking enabled. Now, here's how to view the respiratory data your Apple Watch collects on your iPhone's Health app.

Open the Health app on your iPhone.
Tap the search icon.
Scroll down if necessary and select Sleep.
Tap Show All.
You can see your Respiratory Rate while sleeping.
Or, tap Show More Sleep Data for more information.
Tap Comparisons.
Tap Respiratory Rate.
Then, you can adjust the top row of settings to see your breathing rate on a graph over different periods of time: one day, one week, one month, or six months.

If you explore the Sleep section of your Health app, you'll find many other useful metrics, like your percentage of blood oxygen during sleep.

Pro Tip

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!

Now you know how to track sleep on Apple Watch and explore breathing frequency during sleep, but this does not replace professional tools and cannot be used as an accurate at home sleep apnea test. Your Apple devices are useful tools to keep an eye on your overall health, but keep in mind that they can neither diagnose you nor offer medical advice.