Coherent breathing timer
Coherent breathing means breathing at about five and a half breaths a minute with the inhale and the exhale the same length. This timer opens there: an 11-second cycle, 5.5 seconds each way, twenty cycles, three minutes and forty seconds.
There are no holds and nothing to push against. Follow the circle and let the breath be quiet.
Opens at 5.5 breaths a minute already set
- Cycle: 11 seconds
- Ratio: 1:1 — 5.5 seconds in, 5.5 seconds out
- Cycles: 20
- Session: 3 minutes 40 seconds
Four cycle lengths are offered, not eleven: 10, 11, 12 and 15 seconds are 6, 5.5, 5 and 4 breaths a minute. Nothing longer belongs in this exercise.
Total seconds for one inhale plus one exhale. Pick a length you can hold for every round without straining.
Cycle 1 of 20
Start session
0
Where 5.5 breaths a minute comes from
Somewhere near six breaths a minute, the rise and fall of heart rate lines up with the breath instead of drifting against it. Practices that landed on that pace independently — resonance breathing, several older pranayama counts, the rosary and mantra rhythms studied in the 2001 BMJ paper on recitation — all sit within a breath or two of each other.
The exact number varies between people, which is why the timer offers four. Five and a half is the usual starting point, and it is the one the word “coherent” normally refers to.
Why the cycle floor had to move
The parent pacer was built for freediving warm-ups, where a cycle runs 30 to 60 seconds and the shortest option was 20. Twenty seconds is three breaths a minute — half the pace this page is about — so coherent breathing was not reachable on this site until the floor came down to 10 seconds on 4 September 2026.
An 11-second cycle also needs half-second phases. Rounded to whole seconds it splits 6 and 5, which is not a 1:1 ratio and not coherent breathing. The pacer now runs 5.5 and 5.5, and the countdown still shows whole numbers.
Twenty cycles, not five
The parent tool offers 3, 5, 7 or 10 cycles, which at 40 seconds each is already a long session. At 11 seconds those counts are over in under two minutes, so this page offers 10, 20, 30 and 55 instead: 1:50, 3:40, 5:30 and 10:05.
Twenty is the default because a few minutes is where this stops feeling like counting and starts feeling like breathing. If you are using it to settle before sleep or before a dive, 30 is the better number.
Getting the pace right
- Do not fill your lungs. The most common mistake here is treating 5.5 seconds as a target volume. Breathe smaller than feels natural, through the nose, and let the pace do the work.
- Do not hold at the top. Coherent breathing has no pauses. If you find yourself waiting at the turn, the cycle is too long — drop to 10 seconds.
- Stop if you feel light-headed. Slow breathing can do that even without holds. Breathe normally until it passes.
- This is not breath-hold training. It settles you before a session. The CO2 table generator builds the sessions with actual holds in them.
What the pacer produces at each coherent pace
Run 2026-09-04: generateBreathCycles from lib/training-tables.ts at half-second precision, ratio 1:1, across the four cycle lengths this page offers and the four cycle counts.
| Cycle | Inhale | Exhale | Breaths per minute | 10 cycles | 20 cycles | 30 cycles | 55 cycles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10s | 5s | 5s | 6.00 | 1:40 | 3:20 | 5:00 | 9:10 |
| 11s | 5.5s | 5.5s | 5.45 | 1:50 | 3:40 | 5:30 | 10:05 |
| 12s | 6s | 6s | 5.00 | 2:00 | 4:00 | 6:00 | 11:00 |
| 15s | 7.5s | 7.5s | 4.00 | 2:30 | 5:00 | 7:30 | 13:45 |
Sixteen combinations, from 1:40 to 13:45. The preset — 11 seconds, twenty cycles — is 3:40 at 5.45 breaths a minute.
The 11-second row is the one that needed the code change. At whole-second rounding the same call returns a 6-second inhale and a 5-second exhale, which is a 1.2:1 ratio, not 1:1. Only 10 and 12 seconds divide evenly in whole seconds; 11 and 15 need the half-second path.
Below 10 seconds the pacer stops being useful rather than stopping working. At 8 seconds each phase is 4 seconds, the circle moves faster than a slow breath wants to, and you are doing paced breathing at 7.5 breaths a minute — normal breathing with a metronome. Ten seconds is the floor for that reason.
Questions
- What is coherent breathing?
- Breathing at about five and a half breaths a minute with the inhale and exhale the same length, and no pauses. This timer paces it at an 11-second cycle: 5.5 seconds in, 5.5 seconds out.
- Is coherent breathing 5.5 or 6 breaths per minute?
- Both are used. A 10-second cycle is exactly 6 breaths a minute and an 11-second cycle is 5.45. The timer offers 10, 11, 12 and 15 seconds so you can find the pace that feels smoothest, which differs between people.
- How long should a coherent breathing session be?
- Three to six minutes covers most of it. At the 11-second cycle, 20 cycles is 3 minutes 40 seconds and 30 cycles is 5 minutes 30. Fifty-five cycles gives 10 minutes 5 seconds if you want a longer sit.
- Should I breathe through my nose?
- Yes, in and out, unless your nose is blocked. Keep the breath small and quiet. Filling your lungs to use the full 5.5 seconds is the most common way to make this uncomfortable.
- Is coherent breathing the same as box breathing?
- No. Box breathing gives equal time to inhale, hold, exhale and hold, so it carries a mild carbon dioxide load. Coherent breathing has no holds at all — just an even inhale and exhale at a fixed pace.
- Can I use this before a breath hold?
- Yes, as a way to settle. It is not preparation in the hyperventilation sense and must never be used to extend a hold. Any breath hold in or beside water still needs a trained buddy.
Where to go next
- Full breath cycles — the same pacer across every cycle length from 10 to 90 seconds
- Box breathing — equal inhale, hold, exhale and hold — the version with a CO2 load
- 4-7-8 breathing — a fixed uneven count with a long exhale, for winding down
- Box breathing guide — how paced breathing patterns differ and when each one is worth using