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Box breathing, four by four
Four seconds in, four held, four out, four held. A square, symmetrical pattern that is easier to hold on to than an uneven one when your attention keeps sliding away.
There are no recordings on this page yet. TempoLife does not host narrated audio for these sessions, so rather than show a player with nothing behind it, every session is published in full as a script you can read, follow or record yourself. Audio versions are planned; when a recording exists, a player appears here automatically.
The pacer
This session runs at 4.0 seconds in, 4.0 held, 4.0 seconds out, 4.0 held empty — a cycle of 16.0 seconds, or about 3.8 breaths a minute.
The silent visual pacer needs JavaScript. Without it, use the numbers above and count — that is all the pacer does.
When to use it
Better than the others for daytime use: before something you are dreading, between two meetings, in a waiting room. It steadies without making you sleepy, which is exactly wrong at 23:00 and exactly right at 15:00.
When not to
Two holds per cycle, so the same caution applies as to 4-7-8: sitting or lying only, never driving or in water, stop if you get light-headed, and check with a clinician first if you have a heart or lung condition or you are pregnant.
The session
Read it through once before you start, so you are not reading while you are doing it. The times on the left are where each instruction lands if you keep an unhurried pace; they are a guide and nothing goes wrong if you are a minute out.
| Time | What to do |
|---|---|
| 0:00 | Sit upright with both feet on the floor. This one is deliberately not a lying-down practice — the point is to arrive somewhere steady, not to fall asleep. |
| 0:15 | Breathe out fully through the mouth to start from a known place. |
| 0:30 | Draw the square. In through the nose for four. Hold for four. Out through the nose or mouth for four. Hold empty for four. Some people find it helps to trace the four sides of a square with their eyes or a fingertip; others find that distracting. Try it once and keep it if it works. |
| 1:30 | Keep the four counts the same speed. If the hold at the bottom — the empty one — feels harder than the hold at the top, that is normal and it settles after a few cycles. If it does not settle, shorten everything to three seconds a side rather than pushing through. |
| 3:00 | Aim for around eight to ten complete squares in five minutes. Do not chase the number. A cycle you actually completed calmly is worth more than two you rushed. |
| 4:30 | For the last few cycles, drop the holds and just breathe in for four and out for four. It is a gentler way to finish than stopping mid-square. |
| 5:00 | Done. Notice, without judging it, whether your shoulders are lower than they were five minutes ago. That, rather than any feeling of calm, is the reliable sign that the session did something. |
Notes
Box breathing is popular in high-pressure occupational training precisely because it is symmetrical and therefore easy to remember under stress. That is its real advantage over more elaborate patterns: you can recall it when you are rattled.
It is not a sleep technique. Equal in and out does not favour the slowing effect of a long exhale, so if the goal is sleep, use coherent breathing instead.
Recording it yourself
Since there is no narration here, the most useful thing many people do with this page is record it. It takes one pass on a phone voice recorder and it works better than you expect, for a reason worth knowing: a familiar voice is less interesting than a stranger's, and less interesting is exactly what you want at bedtime. Read at about two-thirds of your normal speaking speed, leave the pauses longer than feels comfortable, and do not re-record it because you stumbled — the stumble will not matter to you at 23:00.
These are relaxation practices, not treatment, and nothing here diagnoses anything. Do them sitting or lying down — never while driving, cycling or in water. Stop if you feel light-headed. Breath holds in particular are worth checking with a clinician first if you have a heart or lung condition or you are pregnant. Persistent trouble sleeping, loud snoring with pauses, or sleepiness that does not lift after a full night are reasons to see a doctor rather than to try another breathing pattern.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take?
About 5 minutes as written. The timings in the left column are a guide, not a metronome — running two minutes over is not a mistake.
Do I need the recording?
There is no recording of this session and the page does not pretend otherwise. Read the script once before you start so you are not reading during it, or record it in your own voice, which many people find works better than a stranger's.
When should I do it?
Better than the others for daytime use: before something you are dreading, between two meetings, in a waiting room. It steadies without making you sleepy, which is exactly wrong at 23:00 and exactly right at 15:00.
Other sessions
Coherent breathing, 5.5 breaths a minute
The plainest of the paced-breathing patterns: in for five and a half seconds, out for five and a half, for ten minutes. No holds, no counting past six, nothing to get wrong.
4-7-8 breathing
In for four, hold for seven, out for eight, four times through. A short, deliberately lopsided pattern for the ten minutes after you get into bed and find your mind still running.
Body scan
Fifteen minutes of moving attention slowly from your feet to your head, without trying to change anything on the way. The oldest and most reliable of the wind-down practices, and the one that most often ends before it finishes because the person doing it fell asleep.
Non-sleep deep rest, 20 minutes
A longer lie-down that keeps you just the right side of awake: body scan, a little breath work, then a stretch of doing nothing at all. Twenty minutes in the afternoon, or a first-aid session on a day after a bad night.
Sleep story: the night train
A slow, deliberately uneventful story to read — or have read to you — in bed. Nothing happens in it, which is the point: it gives the part of your mind that wants a narrative something dull and pleasant to hold while the rest of you stops.
All sessions · Chronotype questionnaire · Sleep calculator · Sleep results
Source: Zaccaro A, et al. How breath-control can change your life: a systematic review on psycho-physiological correlates of slow breathing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2018;12:353 · checked 2026-09-02
Source: NHS — Breathing exercises for stress · checked 2026-09-02
See whether the wind-down changes the night
TempoLife reads sleep from Health Connect, so a fortnight of doing this before bed becomes a measurable change in when you fall asleep.