Breathe – Box Breathing & Relaxation Timer

Breathe is a guided breathing timer that lives in your browser sidebar, for the moments in a workday when you need to slow down — before a difficult meeting, after a hard email, or at the point in the afternoon where everything feels like too much. **Why guided breathing works** Slow, controlled breathing is one of the few genuinely quick ways to influence your nervous system. Extending your exhale, in particular, is associated with a shift toward the parasympathetic ("rest and digest") state. You don't need to believe anything or learn a practice — you just need something to pace you, because counting in your head while stressed doesn't work well. That's the entire job of this extension: give you something to follow for two minutes. **Four rhythms, for four different situations** • **Box breathing (4-4-4-4)** — inhale, hold, exhale, hold, all equal. Used in high-stress professions to steady nerves and regain focus. The best default if you're not sure. • **4-7-8 breathing** — inhale 4, hold 7, exhale 8. The long exhale makes this the one to use when winding down, dealing with anxiety, or trying to fall asleep. • **Coherent breathing (5-5)** — roughly six breaths per minute, the rate associated with heart rate variability benefits. Good for a sustained, balanced session. • **Custom** — set your own inhale, hold, and exhale timings if you're following a specific practice. **A visual you can actually follow** Press start and the ring traces each phase of the breath while an orb in the centre expands as you inhale and contracts as you exhale. Coloured arcs on the ring are sized to each phase, so you can see the shape of the rhythm before it happens — no guessing when the next transition is coming. A soft tone marks every phase change, so you can close your eyes or look away from the screen and still follow along. Short guidance cues appear under the label ("through the nose, fill the belly first," "let your shoulders drop," "empty all the way out") — enough to correct your form without turning it into a lecture. **Session goals and streaks** Choose a session length of 2, 5 or 10 minutes, or leave it open-ended. A progress bar fills as you go, and the app tracks: • **Cycles completed** in the current session • **Minutes today**, so a short session still counts for something • A **daily streak** that advances with one full minute a day One minute is a deliberately low bar. The failure mode of breathing apps is setting a goal so ambitious you quit in week two; a streak you can maintain on your worst day is a streak that survives. **Small details that matter** • **Sound on/off** with one tap from the main screen, plus a choice of tone or bell • **Guidance text** can be turned off if you'd rather have a clean screen • **Space** starts and pauses, **R** resets — no reaching for the mouse mid-session • **Light and dark themes**, with a calm teal palette designed not to jar you • **Reduced-motion support** — if your system asks for less animation, the orb transitions are removed rather than just sped up **Why in the browser?** The moments you most need to reset are usually the moments you're already at a computer, mid-task. Reaching for your phone means opening the device most likely to distract you further. A side panel you can open, use for two minutes, and close again keeps you in the context you were already in. **Who this is for** • Anyone dealing with **work stress or anxiety** during the day • People who want to **wind down before sleep** using 4-7-8 • Those doing **breathwork or meditation** who want a simple, reliable pacer • People in high-pressure roles who need to reset quickly between calls • Anyone curious about breathing exercises who doesn't want a subscription app **Private by design** No account, no sign-in, no cloud, no analytics, no ads. Your session history and streak are stored locally in your own browser. Nothing is transmitted anywhere, there's no server, and there's no upsell screen waiting after your third session. **A note on health** Breathe is a general wellbeing tool, not medical treatment, and it makes no health claims. Breathing exercises are not a substitute for care if you're dealing with a panic disorder, a respiratory condition, or ongoing anxiety — please talk to a professional. If you feel lightheaded during any breathing exercise, stop and breathe normally. **Which rhythm should I start with?** If you're new to this, start with **box breathing**. The equal four-count phases are easy to follow, there's no uncomfortably long hold, and it works well for the most common use case — resetting during a stressful workday. Move to **4-7-8** when your goal is winding down rather than focusing. The seven-count hold and eight-count exhale feel long at first; if that's uncomfortable, use the custom rhythm to try 4-5-6 and build up. There's no benefit to forcing a hold that makes you tense. Use **coherent 5-5** for longer sessions, ten minutes or more, where you want a sustainable pace you could hold indefinitely rather than something that feels like an exercise. **Frequently asked questions** **How long should a session be?** Two minutes is genuinely enough to notice a difference in how you feel. Five minutes is a good default. Ten is plenty. The app defaults to a five-minute goal for this reason. **Do I have to breathe through my nose?** The common guidance is nose in, mouth out, which is what the cues suggest. But if you have a blocked nose or it just feels wrong, breathing through your mouth throughout is fine — the pacing is doing the work, not the specific route. **What if I feel lightheaded?** Stop and breathe normally. Lightheadedness usually means you're breathing more deeply or quickly than you need to. Breathing exercises should feel calming, not effortful — if a rhythm feels like a struggle, use a shorter one. **Does the streak reset if I miss a day?** Yes, but the bar to keep it alive is one minute — a single short session. It's se…