5 minute meditation timer
One bell after 5 min. Starts with 10 sec to settle in.
Space start/pause R reset Esc stop
Settings
One bell after 5 min. Starts with 10 sec to settle in.
01
What this one is for
A 5 minute meditation timer is the length to use for a first sit, and the length to come back to on the days you have already decided you do not have time. Five minutes is short enough that the excuse does not survive contact with it, and long enough that you will notice your attention moving.
If you want something to do rather than nothing, count breaths. One on the out-breath, up to ten, then start again at one. You will lose the count somewhere around four. Losing it is not the failure; noticing that you lost it is the entire exercise, and five minutes gives you several goes at that.
The other instruction, which sounds unhelpful until it is not, is to just sit. No counting, no technique, nothing to get right. Ten seconds of settle-in, one bell, five minutes, one bell. Nothing in between asks anything of you.
02
Good for
- A first attempt at sitting, before committing to anything longer
- A morning sit that fits before leaving the house
- Resetting between meetings without lying down
- Days when the honest choice is five minutes or nothing
03
How it runs
One bell after 5 min. Starts with 10 sec to settle in. Press Start, or hit Space. The digits turn green while a work block runs and grey on rest.
The only sound is one soft bell: at the start, at each interval, and at the end. No ticks before it. Mute with the speaker button for a silent sit. The screen stays on while the timer runs.
Change anything in Settings under the timer. The last setup you used on this page is remembered in your browser.
Questions people ask
- What does the bell sound like?
- A single soft tone generated in the browser, with a slow decay. It is not a recorded singing bowl or a struck gong, and it will not pretend to be one. It is the same tone every time, which is what you want from something that marks a boundary.
- Does it keep the screen on?
- Yes, while the page is in front. It requests a screen wake lock when you start and drops it when you stop, so the phone should not sleep mid-sit. Turn the brightness down by hand first if a lit screen bothers you with your eyes closed.
- Can I change the interval?
- Yes. The bell interval and the total length are both editable in Settings under the timer. At five minutes they are the same number, so there is one bell at the start and one at the end.
- Will it sound if the phone locks?
- The timing stays right either way, because position comes from timestamps rather than counted ticks. The bell only plays while the page is open, so keep the tab in front rather than switching away or locking the screen.