Breathing Exercise Timer and Guide
A breathing exercise timer fills the spare screen with a shape that grows and shrinks on the pattern you pick. Follow the count, and send the same setup as a link.
How to use
Choose a pattern from the chips: Box, 4-7-8, Coherent, Long exhale, or Custom. The disc sits at rest until you press Start. A three-count follows, then the first breathe-in. The circle grows while you breathe in, stays during a hold, and shrinks while you breathe out. Square walks a dot around the outline instead, one lap per breath. The session control reads Open, 3 min, 5 min, or 10 min. This page opens at five minutes. Open runs until you press End. A timed session finishes at the end of a breath, then Done shows the length and the breaths you finished. Breathe again repeats the same settings. Change pattern returns to the chips. The chips hide while a session is running, so end it before you pick another rhythm. The steppers change one length at a time and switch a named pattern to Custom, keeping the other three lengths.
Breathe gently. If you feel dizzy or uncomfortable, stop and breathe normally.
Set it up on an iPad or second screen
Put the iPad where you can see it, or send this page to the screen you are not typing on. In Safari, Share, then Add to Home Screen, so it opens like an app named Breathing Guide. The page asks the screen to stay awake. That is a request, not a guarantee: set Auto-Lock to Never under Settings, Display and Brightness. Guided Access can lock the iPad to this one page. Press F for fullscreen. After a few seconds with no touch, the bars hide while a session is running or counting in. Move the pointer, or tap once, to bring them back. They stay on the ready screen, when you pause, and when the session is done. The Sound button starts a mix from the ambient mixer. Pausing the breath leaves the mix playing.
Customize it
Pattern picks the count. The four lengths apply only to Custom, and a named pattern leaves them out of the address. A link with lengths and no pattern opens as Custom. Session zero means open. Shape is circle or square. Cue is off, bell, or tone. Bell marks the start of each breathe-in and breathe-out. Tone glides with the breath. Volume is the shared slider. Vibrate shows on phones that can vibrate, in this sheet rather than the bar. Theme, type, and dim follow you from the other tools. Copy link to this setup to keep the same pattern.
| Setting | URL param | Allowed values | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pattern | pattern | Box (box), 4-7-8 (478), Coherent (coherent), Long exhale (long-exhale), Custom (custom) | Box (box) |
| Breathe in | in | 2–12, step 0.5 | 4 |
| Hold | hold | 0–12, step 0.5 | 4 |
| Breathe out | out | 2–12, step 0.5 | 4 |
| Hold after out | hold2 | 0–12, step 0.5 | 4 |
| Session0 = open (until you end it) | session | 0–3600 seconds. URL form: 90s, 25m, or 1h30m | 300 seconds |
| Shape | shape | Circle (circle), Square (square) | Circle (circle) |
| Cue | cue | Off (off), Bell (bell), Tone (tone) | Off (off) |
| Vibrate on phase change | vibrate | On (1) or off (0) | Off |
| Theme | theme | Midnight (midnight), Carbon (OLED) (carbon), Paper (paper), Forest (forest), Dusk (dusk), Ocean (ocean), Aurora (aurora), Terminal (terminal), Graphite (graphite), Porcelain (porcelain) | Midnight (midnight) |
| Font | font | System (sans), JetBrains Mono (mono), Space Grotesk (grotesk), Fraunces (serif), Bebas Neue (condensed), Orbitron (digital), Condensed Bold (flip) | System (sans) |
| Scale | scale | 50–150, step 5% | 100% |
| Dim | dim | 0–80, step 5% | 0% |
| Burn-in shiftNudge the display a few pixels so a static clock does not mark the screen. | shift | On (1) or off (0) | On |
| Volume | vol | 0–100, step 5 | 70 |
Keyboard shortcuts
These keys work when focus is not in a text field. The shell handles fullscreen, settings, hiding the bars, sound, and this list. This page adds start, pause, resume, end, the five pattern keys, and the cue cycle. Keys 1 through 5 pick a pattern only while a session is not running.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| F | Fullscreen |
| S | Settings |
| H | Hide or show the interface |
| ? | Keyboard shortcuts |
| Esc | Close |
| Space | Start, pause, or resume |
| E | End a running session |
| 1–5 | Pick a pattern when not running |
| C | Cycle the cue |
What this breathing exercise includes
Box breathing is 4, 4, 4, and 4: 16 seconds a breath, or 3.75 a minute. 4-7-8 breathing is 4 in, 7 holding, and 8 out, 19 seconds, and the hold can feel hard at first. Coherent breathing here is 5.5 in and 5.5 out, about 5.45 a minute. Long exhale breathing is 4 in and 6 out, 6 a minute. Those two have no hold. Custom is 2 to 12 seconds for in and out, 0 to 12 for each hold, in half-second steps. A zero hold is skipped. See box breathing, 4-7-8 breathing, and coherent breathing. For a work block, use the pomodoro timer or the online timer.
FAQ
What is the breathing exercise on this page?
It is a pacer. You pick a pattern, press Start, and follow a shape that grows, holds, and shrinks with the count. Box, 4-7-8, coherent, and long exhale are built in. Custom is your own four lengths. The page does not score the breath or keep a history. When the session ends, you see the length and how many breaths you finished.
How long a session should I try?
Five minutes is the length this page opens on. Three minutes is a short first try, and ten minutes is there if you already know the count. Open has no finish time: you press End when you are done. A timed session always finishes at the end of a breath, so five minutes of 4-7-8 breathing lands at 5:04, not in the middle of the out-breath.
Should I breathe through my nose?
Use your nose if the pace is easy that way, and your mouth if it is not. The page cannot tell the difference. What it can do is keep the lengths visible. If a hold is too long, switch to Coherent or Long exhale, or set Custom and put that hold at zero. Stop if you feel dizzy, and breathe the way you normally do.
Can I play background sound while I breathe?
Yes. The Sound button uses the same mixer as the rest of the site, so a rain or café mix can sit under the breath. Pause the breath and the mix keeps going. A timed finish can fade the mix out if you set that option. Ending early does not. The cue does not duck the mix on every phase, so the sound does not pump. The full set of layers is on the ambient mixer.
Can I follow the breathing exercise with my eyes closed?
Set Cue to Bell or Tone, then Start. Bell marks the start of each breathe-in and each breathe-out, and stays quiet on the holds. Tone is a soft note that rises on the way in and falls on the way out. The three-count before the first breath ticks too, unless the cue is off. The shape keeps moving if you open your eyes again. Digits are not announced, so a screen reader hears the phase word, not a countdown.