A 20-minute sit with a bell every 5 minutes rings seven times
Set the session to 20 minutes, the interval bell to every 5 minutes, and press Start. After 10 seconds of preparation to settle into your posture, the opening bell rings once. Interval bells follow at 5, 10 and 15 minutes, and at 20 minutes the closing bell rings three times, seven strikes in all. With your eyes closed, the bells tell you roughly where you are, and because the closing bell rings three times it is hard to mistake for an interval bell.
The timer above counts down in large digits, and a stick of incense on the right burns down as the time runs out. The session score below marks the preparation time and every bell as a dot, so you can see the shape of the session before you begin. Sessions you finish are saved in this browser and build up into a five-week calendar and a streak.
A timer so you can stop watching the clock
Opening your eyes mid-session to ask "how long has it been?" moves your attention from the breath to the clock. If a bell marks the end, you no longer have to keep track of time, and all that is left is sitting. These are the situations where a meditation timer tends to help.
- A short sit in the morning or before bed: in a study of adults with no meditation experience who sat 13 minutes a day, there was no difference at 4 weeks, and attention, working memory and mood scores improved only after 8 weeks (Basso et al., 2019). Because sitting the same short time every day is what counts, the streak and calendar do the counting for you.
- A pause in the middle of work: Plum Village, the community around Thich Nhat Hanh, suggests setting a mindfulness bell on your phone or computer to ring every 15 minutes. When it rings, you stop, breathe in and out three times, and then go back to work. A long session with the interval bell set to every 15 minutes gives you the same practice.
- Sitting alone the way you learned in a zazen group or class: in Japanese Soto Zen, three bell strikes begin a sitting and one ends it. Set the bell strikes to "Start 3 · End 1" to follow the same order.
- When your breath needs a beat: at first it can be unclear what to pay attention to. Turn on breath pacing and inhale and exhale as the dot rises and falls along the curve.
How to use it, and when the bells ring
- Meditation time: pick 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45 or 60 minutes, or type any value from 1 to 240. The number keys 1 to 7 also select the presets.
- Prep time: the time after you press Start to settle into your posture. Choose none, 10 s, 30 s or 1 min. Prep time is not part of the meditation time or the log. The Soto Zen zazen bell files also ring the opening bell 10 seconds after playback starts.
- Interval bell: rings once at each chosen interval counted from the opening bell. Where an interval lands on the end time, only the closing bell rings, and if the interval is as long as or longer than the session, there are no interval bells.
- Bell strikes: choose "Start 1 · End 3" (default), "Start 3 · End 1" (the zazen order) or "1 each". Bells with several strikes are spaced 3.5 seconds apart.
- Start: the time left counts in whole seconds, so the moment the display reaches 0:00 is the moment the closing bell rings. Space starts and pauses. While paused, the clock stops and the remaining bells are pushed back with it.
- Log: a session you finish is logged as "Completed". If you press Restart after at least 1 minute, the time so far is logged as "Stopped early". A calendar square fills up at 30 minutes a day.
How many times the bell rings for each setting
The table below is calculated with the same rules as the timer. "Total time" includes the prep time, so adding it to the moment you press Start gives the time the session ends.
| Meditation | Prep | Interval bell | Bell strikes | Bell positions | Strikes | Total time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 min | 10 s | None | Start 1 · End 3 | Start, 5 min (end) | 4 | 5 min 10 s |
| 10 min | 10 s | Every 5 min | Start 1 · End 3 | Start, 5 min, 10 min (end) | 5 | 10 min 10 s |
| 20 min | 10 s | Every 5 min | Start 1 · End 3 | Start, 5, 10, 15 min, 20 min (end) | 7 | 20 min 10 s |
| 30 min | 30 s | Every 10 min | Start 1 · End 3 | Start, 10, 20 min, 30 min (end) | 6 | 30 min 30 s |
| 40 min | 10 s | None | Start 3 · End 1 | Start, 40 min (end) | 4 | 40 min 10 s |
| 45 min | 30 s | Every 15 min | Start 1 · End 3 | Start, 15, 30 min, 45 min (end) | 6 | 45 min 30 s |
| 60 min | 1 min | Every 15 min | Start 1 · End 3 | Start, 15, 30, 45 min, 60 min (end) | 7 | 61 min |
How long to sit: durations in research and in practice traditions
There is no single right length, but putting the durations used in research and in practice traditions side by side gives you something to choose from. Short sits are easy to keep up every day, while long ones usually belong to training courses or group practice.
| Source | Per sitting | How often, how long | What was observed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Balban et al. (2023) | 5 min | Daily, for a month | Compared three breathing practices with mindfulness meditation. The breathing practice with a longer exhale improved mood and lowered breathing rate more than meditation did |
| Basso et al. (2019) | 13 min | Daily, for 8 weeks | Adults with no meditation experience. No difference at 4 weeks; attention, memory, mood and anxiety scores improved at 8 weeks |
| Soto Zen zazen bell files | 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 min | Sitting alone at home | Opening bell 10 seconds after playback starts, one bell at the end |
| One "chū" (stick of incense) in Japanese zazen groups | About 40 min | The time one incense stick takes to burn | Varies by temple (Unseiji FAQ) |
| Retreats in Korean Seon monasteries | 50 min sitting | Alternating with 10 min walking, several rounds a day | The daily schedule of intensive practice for monks (Beopbo Shinmun, 2004) |
| 8-week MBSR course | 45 to 60 min | Daily at home, for 8 weeks | The recommended home practice time in the mindfulness-based stress reduction course |
If you are new to this, start with 5 to 10 minutes, 10 seconds of prep and no interval bell, and sit every day for a week. When the squares on the calendar start to link up, add 10 minutes at a time. Beyond 20 minutes, an interval bell can serve as a cue to come back from drowsiness or wandering thoughts.
Three ways to pace your breath
With breath pacing on, a dot moves along the curve in time once the opening bell has rung. Inhale as it rises, exhale as it falls, and hold your breath on the flat sections.
| Method | One breath | Breaths per minute | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resonance breathing | Inhale 5 s · exhale 5 s | 6 | Reviews of heart rate variability research found the effect largest at about 6 breaths per minute (0.1 Hz) in most studies (Lehrer and Gevirtz, 2014). There is no breath-holding, so it is the easiest to start with |
| Box breathing | Inhale 4 s · hold 4 s · exhale 4 s · hold 4 s | 3.75 | One of the breathing practices compared in 5-minute daily sessions by Balban et al. (2023) |
| 4-7-8 breathing | Inhale 4 s · hold 7 s · exhale 8 s | About 3.16 | The longest exhale. To practice it on its own for a set number of rounds, the 4-7-8 breathing guide is a better fit |
Ordinary breathing runs at about 12 to 20 breaths per minute, so all of these paces are quite slow. If you feel breathless, dizzy or tight in the chest, turn breath pacing off and breathe naturally. Pacing is only a beat to support meditation, and simply watching your breath without controlling it is meditation too.
What meditation does: what is established and what is not
A meta-analysis of 47 clinical trials with 3,515 participants (Goyal et al., 2014) found moderate evidence that mindfulness meditation programs reduce anxiety (effect size 0.38), depression (0.30) and pain (0.33) at 8 weeks. The evidence for stress and for mental-health-related quality of life was low, and for positive mood, attention, substance use, eating habits, sleep and weight there was either no effect or too little evidence to judge. There was also no evidence that meditation is better than other active treatments such as drugs or exercise.
Meditation is not always calming. In a systematic review of 83 meditation studies (Farias et al., 2020), the overall prevalence of adverse events was 8.3% (3.7% in experimental studies and 33.2% in observational ones), and the most common were anxiety and depression. If anxiety rises during a sit or old memories surface and become hard to handle, shorten the session or stop, and talk to a professional if the symptoms continue. Meditation is not a substitute for treatment.
How the bells and background noise are made
- Sounds made without audio files: the bells are not downloaded recordings. The browser generates them on the spot. A singing bowl layers three higher overtones that are not whole-number multiples on top of the fundamental tone, and the beating of two slightly detuned sounds creates the shimmer. The gong swells slowly from a low tone, and the wood block is short and clipped.
- Bells scheduled ahead of time: when you start or resume, every remaining bell is scheduled on the audio clock. Chrome wakes repeating timers in tabs hidden for more than 5 minutes only once a minute, so the numbers on screen may update late, but the bells still ring on time.
- Background noise: brown noise has more low frequencies and sounds heavy, like distant waves, while pink noise mixes high and low evenly and is closer to the sound of rain. It fades in over 4 seconds when you start and fades out over 5 seconds after the closing bell.
- Screen stays on: the timer asks for the screen to stay on during the session (in browsers that support the Screen Wake Lock API). When you switch tabs, the browser releases the request, and it is made again when you return.
Common mistakes
- You can't hear the bell: browsers don't allow sound until you have interacted with the page. Pressing Start unlocks it, but if the device is in silent mode or its volume is at 0, you won't hear anything. Check with "Listen" before you start.
- Counting prep time as meditation time: with 20 minutes and 1 minute of prep, the total is 21 minutes. Only the 20 minutes of meditation go into the log.
- No interval bell rings: on a 10-minute session, an interval of 10 or 15 minutes is as long as or longer than the session, so there is none. The number of dots on the session score shows this at a glance.
- Locking the phone screen: on many devices the browser stops the sound when the screen locks. Open the full-screen view and lay the phone face down.
- Looking for the log on another device: the log exists only in the browser where you meditated. If you switch between a phone and a computer, each builds its own calendar.
Limits
- The meditation time must be a whole number of minutes, and interval bells ring only at a fixed interval. There are no bells at random intervals.
- The bells are synthesized imitations, not recordings of real singing bowls or gongs, so they differ from the tone of any particular instrument.
- If you close the browser, or the device goes to sleep or locks its screen, the bells may not ring. Breathing cues can be skipped if you spend a long time on another tab.
- The log, your presets and your last settings are saved only in this browser, and are not kept in private mode or in a browser that blocks storage. Dates follow this device's clock and time zone, and a session that runs past midnight counts for the day it ended.
- Resuming after a reload works only in the same tab. If you close the tab and open it again, nothing is kept.
- The effects of meditation differ from person to person, and this timer only measures and announces time. It does not assess your health.
As of the research figures were checked against PubMed abstracts and the full texts on 2026-10-19, and the Soto Zen zazen etiquette and bell file guide on the official Soto Zen site the same day. The bell-count table above is calculated with the same rules as the timer.
Sources
- 01Goyal M et al. (2014), Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: a systematic review and meta-analysisJAMA Internal Medicine 174(3), 357–368. 47 trials, 3,515 participants; at 8 weeks, anxiety 0.38, depression 0.30, pain 0.33
- 02Basso JC et al. (2019), Brief, daily meditation enhances attention, memory, mood, and emotional regulation in non-experienced meditatorsBehavioural Brain Research 356, 208–220. 13 minutes a day for 8 weeks; no difference at 4 weeks
- 03Balban MY et al. (2023), Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousalCell Reports Medicine 4(1), 100895. 5 minutes a day for a month; three breathing practices compared with mindfulness meditation
- 04Farias M et al. (2020), Adverse events in meditation practices and meditation-based therapies: a systematic reviewActa Psychiatrica Scandinavica 142(5), 374–393. Overall adverse event prevalence 8.3%; anxiety and depression most common
- 05Lehrer PM, Gevirtz R (2014), Heart rate variability biofeedback: how and why does it work?Frontiers in Psychology 5, 756. In most studies the effect is largest at breathing around 0.1 Hz (6 breaths per minute)
- 06曹洞宗 SOTOZEN-NET: 坐禅の作法Three bell strikes (止静鐘) begin zazen; one strike (放禅鐘) ends it
- 07曹洞宗 SOTOZEN-NET: 坐禅鐘 MP3 downloadOpening and closing bell recordings for sitting at home, 3, 5, 10, 15 and 20 minutes; opening bell 10 seconds after playback starts
- 08雲晴寺: 坐禅についてのよくある質問The time one stick of incense burns is called a chū (一柱), roughly 40 minutes depending on the group
- 09법보신문 (2004), 동안거 특집 2 - 안거는 이렇게Korean-language news article (Beopbo Shinmun): a Seon monastery's daily practice, built on 50 minutes of sitting and 10 minutes of walking
- 10UMass Memorial Health Center for Mindfulness: MBSR8-week course; home practice of about 45 to 60 minutes a day
- 11Plum Village: Mindfulness AppsWhen the bell rings every 15 minutes (or as often as you like), stop, breathe three times, then go back to work
- 12Chrome for Developers: Heavy throttling of chained JS timers beginning in Chrome 88Chained timers on a page hidden for more than 5 minutes are checked once a minute
- 13MDN: Screen Wake Lock APIRequests that the screen not dim or lock; the system releases the lock when the document is not visible
Frequently asked questions
How many minutes a day should I meditate?
There is no set answer. In a study of adults with no meditation experience who sat 13 minutes a day (Basso et al., 2019), there was no difference at 4 weeks, and attention, memory and mood scores improved after 8 weeks. The 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course recommends 45 to 60 minutes of practice a day at home. A reasonable approach is to start with 5 to 10 minutes, keep it up every day, and lengthen it once it feels familiar.
What is the prep time?
It is the time after you press Start to settle into your posture and close your eyes. When it ends the opening bell rings, and the meditation time starts counting from then. Prep time is not part of the meditation time or the log. The zazen bell files published by Soto Zen also ring the opening bell 10 seconds after playback starts, so the default is 10 seconds.
When do the interval bells ring?
They ring once at each chosen interval, counted from the opening bell. With 20 minutes and every 5 minutes, they ring at 5, 10 and 15 minutes, and the closing bell rings at 20 minutes. If an interval lands on the end time, only the closing bell rings, and if the interval is as long as or longer than the session, there are no interval bells.
What is the style with three strikes at the start and one at the end?
It is the bell order of Japanese Soto Zen zazen. The official Soto Zen guide says three strikes (shijōshō, 止静鐘) begin zazen and one strike (hōzenshō, 放禅鐘) ends it. The default "Start 1 · End 3" rings the closing bell three times so you can tell the closing bell from an interval bell by sound alone. Bells with several strikes are spaced 3.5 seconds apart.
Will the bells ring if I switch tabs or turn off the screen?
They ring when you are on another tab. All remaining bells are scheduled on the audio clock when you start, so they ring on time even if Chrome slows timers in hidden tabs to once a minute. However, the browser may stop sound if you close it, the computer goes to sleep or the phone screen locks. The timer asks for the screen to stay on during meditation, so leaving the screen on and laying the phone face down is the most reliable.
Where is my log stored?
Only in this browser's storage (localStorage), and it is never sent to a server. Only sessions of 1 minute or more are kept: a finished one is logged as "Completed", and if you press Restart partway, the time so far is logged as "Stopped early." It does not carry over to other devices or browsers, and it disappears if you clear browser data or press "Clear log."
Which breath pacing should I choose?
Resonance breathing is a 5-second inhale and 5-second exhale, 6 breaths per minute, the pace (about 0.1 Hz) at which heart rate variability research found the largest effect. Box breathing is inhale, hold, exhale, hold for 4 seconds each, and 4-7-8 is inhale for 4, hold for 7 and exhale for 8. If holding your breath is uncomfortable, resonance breathing is the safe pick, and if you feel breathless or dizzy, turn it off and breathe naturally.
Does meditation reduce anxiety and stress?
A meta-analysis of 47 clinical trials (Goyal et al., 2014) found moderate evidence that mindfulness meditation programs reduce anxiety (effect size 0.38), depression (0.30) and pain (0.33) at 8 weeks, and low evidence for stress. Attention, sleep and weight showed no effect or too little evidence. Anxiety can also increase during meditation (about 8.3% in a systematic review), so if discomfort continues, stop and talk to a professional.