49 exercises, tools and stories. All free.
Every breathing exercise, meditation, psychology exercise and tool on the site, in one filterable list. None of it requires an account and none of it requires buying anything.
Coherent Breathing
Equal in, equal out, at roughly six breaths a minute. The most studied pace in the whole of the breathing literature, and the one almost everything else is measured against.
Box Breathing
In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. Symmetrical, easy to remember under pressure, and almost impossible to get wrong.
4-7-8 Breathing
In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. The exhale is twice the inhale, and that asymmetry is the entire point.
The Physiological Sigh
Two inhales stacked on top of each other, then one long slow exhale. The fastest voluntary way most people have to bring arousal down.
Extended Exhale
Make the out breath longer than the in breath. No counting scheme, no holds, no dogma. This is the single principle underneath most calming breathwork.
Diaphragmatic Breathing
Breathing low, into the belly, rather than high into the chest. Less a calming technique than a repair job on a habit most of us have drifted into.
Alternate Nostril Breathing
Breathe in through one nostril, out through the other, alternating. A traditional yogic practice that people reach for when they want to feel more even.
Humming Breath
Breathe in normally, then hum all the way through the exhale. It sounds ridiculous and is one of the more reliably settling things in this library.
Pursed Lip Breathing
In through the nose, out slowly through pursed lips as though blowing through a straw. The gentlest technique here and the one with the clearest clinical use.
Ocean Breath
Breathing through the nose with a slight constriction at the back of the throat, producing a soft ocean sound. An anchor you can hear.
Body Scan
Move attention slowly through the body, part by part, without trying to change anything you find. The most concrete meditation there is, which is why it suits people who find the rest of it vague.
Loving Kindness
Silently repeat a few simple good wishes, first for someone easy to care about, then gradually for harder people, including yourself. Awkward for the first week and then oddly effective.
Noting
Silently name whatever shows up. Thinking. Hearing. Aching. Planning. One quiet word and then back to the breath. Best technique here for people whose minds will not sit still.
Breath Focus
Rest your attention on the sensation of breathing and bring it back every time it leaves. That is the entire instruction. Simple to describe, genuinely difficult to do.
Open Awareness
Stop choosing an object. Let attention rest wide open and notice whatever comes and goes without following any of it. Do not start here.
Walking Meditation
Walk slowly and pay attention to walking. For the very large number of people who find sitting meditation intolerable but are perfectly happy in motion.
Non Sleep Deep Rest
Lie down and be guided through progressive relaxation and body awareness while staying just barely awake. The most passive practice here and the easiest to do badly with no consequences.
Mountain Meditation
Hold a single image of a mountain standing through changing weather, and borrow its stability. The one openly metaphorical practice in the library, and the one people reach for on genuinely bad days.
Sound Meditation
Use whatever you can hear as the anchor instead of the breath. The right first practice for anyone who finds attention to their own breathing unpleasant.
5-4-3-2-1 Grounding
Name five things you can see, four you can feel, three you can hear, two you can smell, one you can taste. The most taught grounding exercise there is, and the one most people forget when they need it.
Thought Record
Write down the situation, the thought, the feeling, the evidence for and against, and then a more balanced version. The single most used worksheet in cognitive behavioural therapy.
Spot the Distortion
Ten recognisable shapes that stressed thinking tends to fall into. Learning to name them takes an afternoon and pays off for years.
Worry Time
Book a fifteen minute appointment with your worries at the same time every day. Outside that window, write them down and postpone them. Counterintuitive and unusually effective.
The Worry Tree
One question sorts every worry: can I do something about this? If yes, plan it. If no, practise letting it go. Nearly all wasted worry lives in the gap between those two.
TIPP
Four physical interventions for when emotion is too high to think. Cold, movement, slow breathing, muscle release. Designed for the moments when talking to yourself has stopped working.
Opposite Action
Work out what the emotion wants you to do, then deliberately do the opposite, fully and wholeheartedly. Only when the emotion does not fit the facts.
Behavioural Activation
Schedule small specific activities and do them regardless of whether you feel like it. Motivation follows action rather than preceding it. A treatment for depression in its own right.
Values Compass
Work out what you actually care about, in your own words, then check whether your week reflects it. Not goal setting. Goals finish; values only give directions.
Leaves on a Stream
Picture a stream. Put each thought on a leaf and let it float away. You are not getting rid of thoughts, you are practising being the person watching them rather than the person inside them.
Self Compassion Break
Three sentences: this is hard, other people find this hard too, may I be kind to myself. Short, structured, and specifically aimed at the voice that gets crueller the worse things get.
Three Good Things
Each night write three things that went well and, importantly, why. The why is what makes it work rather than becoming a chore you abandon in a fortnight.
Urge Surfing
Watch an urge rise, peak and fall without acting on it. Urges behave like waves rather than like escalators, which is not obvious from inside one.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Tense each muscle group hard for a few seconds, then release completely. Work through the body. Nearly a century old and still one of the most reliable ways to unclench.
Decatastrophising
Follow the catastrophe all the way to the end instead of stopping at the scary bit. Then ask what you would actually do. Most catastrophes are frightening precisely because they were never finished.
The Breathing Pacer
A configurable pacer. Set any in, hold, out, hold pattern you like, or load one of the presets, and let it run.
Meditation Timer
A plain timer with a soft synthesised bell at the start, the end and optional intervals. No account, no streaks, no notifications.
Sleep Calculator
Enter when you need to be up and get suggested bedtimes based on ninety minute sleep cycles, plus the time you should stop drinking caffeine.
Caffeine Half Life Calculator
Enter what you drank and when. See roughly how much is still in your system at bedtime. Most people are surprised, and not pleasantly.
Noise Machine
White, pink and brown noise generated in your browser. No files, no streaming, no data. Plus a slow breathing tone if you want an audible pacer.
Which Shape Are You
Six questions about the moments you actually want help with, and an honest recommendation at the end, including the possibility that you do not need a patch at all.
Wind Down Builder
Pick from a list of evidence informed wind down steps and get a printable sequence with times, working backwards from your bedtime.
Practice Tracker
A simple grid to mark the days you practised. No streaks, no badges, no guilt when you miss one. Stored in your own browser and nowhere else.
Panic First Aid
A guided sequence for a panic surge, one step at a time, in large text. Nothing to read ahead, nothing to decide.
Resonant Pace Finder
Work through five breathing paces, a minute each, and rate which felt easiest. Most people have one pace that is noticeably more comfortable than the others.
All of this is free, and it always will be.
The patch is a physical reminder to do exercises that cost nothing. We would rather you tried them and decided you do not need us than bought something on a promise.