Breathe – Box Breathing & Relaxation Timer Autor: unleashself

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 set that low deliberately, because a streak you can maintain on a bad day is a streak worth having.

Breathing exercise or breathing timer — which do you need?

If you know the pattern you want and just need pacing, this works as a plain breathing timer: pick the rhythm, hit start, follow the ring. If you're less sure, treat it as a guided breathing exercise — the on-screen cues tell you what to do with each phase, so there's nothing to learn beforehand.

Both modes are the same screen. The difference is only how much attention you give the guidance text, which you can switch off entirely once the pattern is familiar.

More questions

Is box breathing the same as square breathing?
Yes — the two names describe the same 4-4-4-4 pattern, named for the four equal sides. You'll also see it called four-square breathing or tactical breathing.

Can I use this for panic or acute anxiety?
Many people find slow breathing helps in the moment, and 4-7-8 in particular is often recommended for this. But it isn't treatment, and if you're having panic attacks regularly, that's worth speaking to a doctor about rather than managing alone with an app.

How is this different from a meditation app?
A meditation app usually asks for ten minutes and some instruction. This is a breathing exercise timer for two minutes with no learning curve — closer to a tool than a practice. Plenty of people use both.

Does it need to be on screen the whole time?
No. Turn on sound cues and you can close your eyes or look away entirely; the tones mark every phase change so you can follow along by ear.

Guided by a real voice

Following a ring is easy while you're looking at it — and the whole point of a breathing exercise is often to close your eyes. So Breathe includes five narrated voices: Brian, Sarah, River, George and Alice. Each one counts you through the inhale, the hold and the exhale, so the pacing reaches you with the screen off, the tab in the background, or your eyes shut.

Pick a voice from the sound controls, adjust its volume independently, or switch back to plain tones whenever you'd rather have silence with cues. All voice audio is bundled inside the extension, so nothing streams and it works completely offline.

Breathe is a box breathing app, 4-7-8 breathing timer, relaxation timer and guided breathing exercise in one small, free, private extension — for two calm minutes whenever you need them.