Breathing Exercise
A breathing exercise timer paces your inhale, hold and exhale so you do not have to count. This one has five fixed patterns: Box Breathing 4-4-4-4, Relaxing 4-7-8, Calming 4-2-6, Deep Breathing 5-3-7-2 and Energizing 2-2. A 4-7-8 round takes 19 seconds, so the Rounds counter reads 1 at 00:19 and the circle is already back in the inhale at 00:20.
Pattern
About Breathing Exercise
This is a visual breathing pacer, not a course and not a clinical tool. Pick one of the five chips under Pattern and the line below them prints the exact rhythm — 4-7-8 Relaxing shows inhale 4s, hold 7s, exhale 8s — then press Start. The circle in the middle counts the seconds left in the current phase and names it: Inhale, Hold, Exhale, and Ready before you begin.
The circle is the pacer. It grows to 125 per cent of its size through an inhale, stays put through a hold and shrinks to 75 per cent through an exhale, changing colour at each phase, so you can follow the shape instead of the digits. Under it, Rounds and Time appear while the timer runs; Time counts in mm:ss and Rounds increments each time the pattern completes. A bar under the circle shows which step of the pattern you are on.
The five patterns differ only in their counts, and a round therefore takes a different length in each: 16 seconds for Box Breathing, 19 for 4-7-8, 12 for Calming, 17 for Deep Breathing and 4 for Energizing. Five minutes is roughly 18, 15, 25, 17 and 75 rounds respectively. The NHS guide to breathing exercises for stress describes a simpler routine — breathe in counting to 5, out counting to 5, repeated for at least 5 minutes — which none of these presets matches exactly; Calming, at 4 in and 6 out, is the nearest.
Limits: the counts are fixed, so you cannot enter your own; there is no sound, no vibration and no pause — Stop ends the session and the next Start resets Rounds and Time to zero. Nothing is recorded, so there is no history or streak, and nothing leaves the page. This tool does not diagnose, treat or give medical advice; if breathing exercises make you dizzy, stop, and take health questions to a clinician.
Use Cases
How to use
Under Pattern, tap one of the five chips: Box Breathing, 4-7-8 Relaxing, Energizing, Calming or Deep Breathing.
Check the rhythm printed under the chips — for example inhale 4s, hold 7s, exhale 8s — so you know how long a round takes.
Press Start and follow the circle: it grows through the inhale, holds its size through a hold and shrinks through the exhale, with the seconds left in the middle.
Watch Rounds and Time under the circle to decide when you have done enough; Time counts up in mm:ss.
Press Stop to end the session. The circle returns to Ready and the next Start begins a fresh count from zero.
Pro Tips
- Read the line under the pattern chips before pressing Start: it prints the rhythm as inhale 4s, hold 7s, exhale 8s, which tells you how long one round will take.
- Follow the circle rather than the digits if counting distracts you — it is at 125 per cent of its size at the top of an inhale, unchanged during a hold, and 75 per cent at the bottom of an exhale.
- Tapping another pattern while the timer runs stops it. Pick the pattern first, then press Start.
- There is no pause: Stop ends the session and the next Start puts Rounds and Time back to zero, so leave it running if you only want to look away for a moment.
- Energizing is the outlier at 2 seconds in and 2 out, so its Rounds counter climbs almost five times faster than the 4-7-8 preset's — do not read the two counts as comparable.
Troubleshooting
The timer stopped when I tapped a different pattern.
Choosing a pattern always stops a running session, because the round lengths would otherwise change mid-count. Pick the chip you want first — Box Breathing, 4-7-8, Energizing, Calming or Deep Breathing — and press Start afterwards.
Rounds and Time disappeared.
Both counters are only shown while the timer is running, so they vanish the moment you press Stop. They are not lost in a way you can recover either: the next Start sets Rounds and Time back to zero, so note the figures before stopping if you want them.
The screen dims part-way through a session.
The page does not hold a screen-wake lock, so your device's normal display timeout applies. Raise the screen timeout in your system settings for the length of the session, or tap the screen occasionally — tapping anywhere outside the pattern chips and the Start button does not affect the count.
The countdown drifts if I switch to another tab.
The phase countdown runs on a one-second timer inside this page, and browsers slow timers down in background tabs to save battery. Keep the tab visible for an accurate count; if you come back to a session that has drifted, press Stop and Start to restart it cleanly.
There is no sound to tell me when to breathe out.
The pacing is entirely visual: the number counts the seconds left, the word under it names the phase, the circle grows and shrinks, and the bar underneath highlights which step of the pattern is active. Position the screen where you can see it, because no audio or vibration cue exists.
Frequently Asked Questions
Box breathing gives all four phases the same length. The preset here runs inhale 4s, hold 4s, exhale 4s, hold 4s — the line above the circle prints exactly that — so one round takes 16 seconds. The circle grows to 125 per cent while you inhale, keeps its size through the hold, then shrinks to 75 per cent through the exhale.
The 4-7-8 preset runs inhale 4 seconds, hold 7, exhale 8, so one round is 19 seconds and the number in the circle is the seconds left in the current phase. Started from zero it reaches Rounds 1 at the 19-second mark; at Time 00:20 the circle is already 3 seconds into the next inhale.
The five presets are pacing patterns, not ranked treatments, and this page does not claim one works better than another. What does differ is measurable: a round takes 16 seconds on Box, 19 on 4-7-8, 12 on Calming, 17 on Deep Breathing and 4 on Energizing. Longer exhales make a session feel slower; the shortest pattern feels brisk.
This page cannot answer that for you — it is a timer, it knows nothing about your health, and it gives no medical advice. The parts people usually ask about are the holds: 4-7-8 holds the breath for 7 seconds and Deep Breathing for 3 then 2, while Energizing has no hold at all. If you feel dizzy, stop and breathe normally, and put questions about your own situation to a clinician.
Any preset here becomes a five-minute session if you leave it running and watch the Time counter, which climbs in mm:ss. Five minutes is about 18 rounds of Box Breathing at 16 seconds each, 15 rounds of 4-7-8 at 19 seconds, 25 rounds of Calming at 12, 17 of Deep Breathing at 17 and 75 of Energizing at 4.
This is a web page rather than an app: it opens in a browser, needs no install, no account and no permissions, and everything happens in the page. You can add it to a phone home screen from the browser's share menu. It has no sound, no vibration and no screen-wake lock, so a phone left untouched may dim mid-session.
The tool has no schedule and no reminders; it starts when you press Start. The NHS guide to breathing exercises for stress suggests doing it regularly as part of your daily routine and repeating for at least 5 minutes, which is roughly 15 rounds of the 4-7-8 preset. Beyond that, when you practise is personal preference, not something this page measures.
Breathing much faster or deeper than usual makes some people light-headed, which is why the tool shows a countdown and a shrinking circle rather than urging you on, and why the fastest preset, Energizing, is only 2 seconds in and 2 out. This page states no safe limit: if you feel dizzy, stop, breathe normally, and ask a clinician about your own limits.
The presets do it differently and the tool ranks none of them. Box Breathing holds after both the inhale and the exhale (4-4-4-4), 4-7-8 holds only after the inhale, Calming holds 2 seconds after the inhale, Deep Breathing holds after both (5-3-7-2), and Energizing has no hold. Pick whichever you can follow without straining.
This tool cannot tell you: it counts seconds and rounds, stores nothing and shows no history or streak, so there is no record to compare. The NHS breathing guide recommends practising regularly as part of a daily routine and repeating each session for at least five minutes. Any claim about what daily practice does to you belongs with a clinician, not with a web timer.