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- Coherent Breathing Timer30 × 5-5Five seconds in and five out, thirty times: six breaths a minute, the pace slow breathing research uses, for five minutes.Frontiers in Psychology
- Box Breathing Timer19 × 4-4-4-4Four counts in, held, out and held, nineteen times over: the five minutes Mark Divine asks for at the least.TIME magazine
- 4-7-8 Breathing Timer4 × 4-7-8In for four, held for seven, out for eight, four times: the most Dr Weil advises at one sitting in the first month.DrWeil.com
- Triangle Breathing Timer20 × 3-3-3Three counts in, three held, three out, twenty times: the three sides an NHS trust teaches, for three minutes of our own.Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust
- Cyclic Sighing Timer23 × 4+1-8LoadedTwo breaths in through the nose and one long breath out, 23 times: the daily five minutes of a 2023 Stanford trial.Cell Reports Medicine
- Meditation Timer1 × 10:00Ten minutes of sitting with one bowl to begin and two to end, the ten minutes Plum Village suggests.Plum Village
What five minutes of cyclic sighing did in a month-long trial
In a 2023 Stanford trial, 108 adults were asked to do one 5 minute exercise a day for a month: cyclic sighing, box breathing, cyclic hyperventilation or mindfulness meditation. The breathing groups did it on about 20 of the 28 days. Before and after each session people scored their positive mood on a scale of 10 to 50. It rose by 1.89 points a session with cyclic sighing and by 1.22 with meditation, and the rise was significantly larger for cyclic sighing. The daily breathing rate a wrist band recorded also fell further over the month than with meditation.
Source: Cell Reports Medicine Balban et al., 2023, Cell Rep Med 4(1):100895, PMID 36630953
The paper names its own limits. The groups held 21 to 33 people, too small to compare the breathing methods with each other reliably. It ran for four weeks with no follow-up, and from home, so nobody saw how people did the exercise. It found no significant change in heart rate variability or resting heart rate.
Source: Cell Reports Medicine Balban et al., 2023, Cell Rep Med 4(1):100895, PMID 36630953
How to do cyclic sighing
Breathe in through your nose until your lungs feel full, then breathe in once more to fill them completely, even if the second breath is short. Then breathe out slowly through your mouth until you are empty.
4 seconds in, 1 second in again, 8 seconds out, with no hold. That is the trial’s approximate timing of 1 to 0.25 to 2, at a second per quarter; the seconds are ours.
23 breaths take 4:59, just under the 5 minutes the trial asked for once a day.
Sit on a chair or lie on your back. If breathing out through the mouth feels wrong, do the whole breath through your nose, which the trial allowed.
Source: Cell Reports Medicine Balban et al., 2023, Cell Rep Med 4(1):100895, PMID 36630953
This timer sounds a rising tone for each breath in, a falling tone for each breath out and a quiet tap to breathe in again, has a fullscreen key, and keeps the screen awake where the browser allows; it is free and needs no account. Keep this tab in front, because a browser may pause the sound of a tab you cannot see.
Cyclic sighing sessions
These are our suggestions. Where one follows a published source, that source is cited under it.
- Standard
4 in, 1 in again, 8 out, 23 breaths: the timing the timer opens on.
Source: Cell Reports Medicine Balban et al., 2023, Cell Rep Med 4(1):100895, PMID 36630953
- Shorter breath
If 8 seconds out leaves you short, set Breathe in to 3, Breathe out to 6 and Breaths to 30. It still runs 5 minutes.
Load this session- Slower
For a longer breath: 5 in, 1 in again, 10 out. 19 breaths run 5:04.
Load this session- Three sighs
Three breaths, under 40 seconds, for a pause in the day when 5 minutes is too long.
Load this session
Common cyclic sighing mistakes
Rushing the breath out. It is the long part, twice the first breath in by the trial’s timing, and it should run until your lungs are empty.
Straining to make the second breath in as big as the first. It only tops up the lungs, and the trial told people it is normal for it to be shorter.
Source: Cell Reports Medicine Balban et al., 2023, Cell Rep Med 4(1):100895, PMID 36630953
Letting air out between the two breaths in. Go straight from the first into the second, then breathe out.
Carrying on when you feel lightheaded. Stop, let your breathing return to normal, and try the shorter breath next time.
Cyclic sighing questions
What is a physiological sigh?
It is the name Andrew Huberman, the trial’s senior author, gives this breath: two breaths in through the nose with no breath out between, then a full breath out. Sighs also happen on their own every few minutes, which a 2016 Nature study in mice and rats describes as the way the lungs reopen their tiny air sacs.
Source: Huberman Lab Andrew Huberman, Huberman Lab newsletter on breathwork protocols Source: Nature Li et al., 2016, Nature 530:293 to 297, PMID 26855425
How long should you do cyclic sighing?
The 2023 trial asked for 5 minutes once a day, for 28 days. This timer opens on 23 breaths, which take 4:59.
Source: Cell Reports Medicine Balban et al., 2023, Cell Rep Med 4(1):100895, PMID 36630953
Is cyclic sighing better than box breathing?
Its authors rank cyclic sighing first, but also say the groups were too small to compare the breathing methods with each other. In raw averages the daily rise in positive mood was close: 1.89 points for cyclic sighing, 1.84 for box breathing and 1.97 for cyclic hyperventilation.
Source: Cell Reports Medicine Balban et al., 2023, Cell Rep Med 4(1):100895, PMID 36630953
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