Free sleep tool
Breathing Pacer
A visual guide for 4-7-8, box, and coherent breathing — follow the circle, slow your breath, wind down for bed.
A long hold and a long exhale. The most demanding of the three — start here only if breath-holding feels comfortable.
What this does and doesn't do
Breathing slowly, at around six breaths a minute, has measurable effects: heart-rate variability rises, EEG alpha power increases, and people report feeling calmer. That much is well documented. What is not established is that any particular count beats any other. The most tightly controlled trial we could find compared coherent breathing against a well-designed breathwork placebo and found no advantage for the real pattern — everyone improved, nobody improved more.
4-7-8 in particular is sold with far more certainty than its evidence supports; it has almost no direct sleep research behind it. Its long exhale and slow overall rate are sensible, which is why it is here, but pick whichever of the three you will actually keep doing. That appears to matter more than the numbers.
If holding your breath makes you dizzy or uncomfortable, stop. Coherent breathing has no holds at all and is the gentler place to start.
Where these numbers come from
- Slow-breathing physiology: Zaccaro et al. 2018, a systematic review of breathing at under about ten breaths a minute.
- No advantage over a matched placebo: Fincham et al. 2023, a randomized trial of coherent breathing against a breathwork placebo.
- One pattern that did beat a real comparator (cyclic sighing, over meditation, on mood): Balban et al. 2023.
This is general information, not medical advice. Sleep that stays bad for weeks is worth taking to a doctor.