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About this tool
Audio-guided breathing pacer with adjustable inhale, hold and exhale ratios, box breathing, 4-7-8 and coherent presets.
Breathing Pacer with Tones guides any inhale-hold-exhale-hold rhythm with a tone that glides upward as you breathe in and back down as you breathe out, so you can pace with your eyes closed. Set the four counts yourself or load a known pattern — box breathing 4-4-4-4, Dr Andrew Weil's 4-7-8 relaxing breath, or coherent breathing at 5.5 seconds each way, which works out to about 5.5 breaths per minute. It shows the resulting breath rate, the number of breaths in the session and how the exhale compares with the inhale.
Open Breathing Pacer with Tones on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Add your input to the workspace.
Adjust the options until the result looks right.
Copy or download the output and put it to work.
A rising and falling tone means you can close your eyes instead of watching an animation.
Inhale, both holds and exhale are set independently, and the tool shows the breath rate that results.
Breaths per minute, cycle length and session totals are calculated from your counts, not rounded to a preset.
Box breathing uses four equal counts: breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 4, breathe out for 4, hold for 4. That is a 16-second cycle, or 3.75 breaths per minute, and it is commonly taught for steadying yourself under pressure.
You inhale through the nose for 4 seconds, hold for 7, then exhale through the mouth for 8, giving a 19-second cycle of about 3.2 breaths per minute. The long exhale relative to the inhale is the active ingredient, so keep the ratio even if you shorten all three counts while learning.
Slow breathing around 5 to 6 breaths per minute — roughly 5 seconds in and 5 seconds out — is the range most often used in coherent or resonance breathing practice. Normal resting breathing is about 12 to 20 breaths per minute, so this is a deliberate slow-down rather than an everyday rate.
Short holds of a few seconds are generally comfortable for healthy adults, but stop immediately if you feel dizzy, tingly or light-headed and return to normal breathing. Never practise breath holds in or near water or while driving, and speak to a doctor first if you are pregnant or have a heart, lung or blood-pressure condition.