🧘Meditation Timer

About this tool

Choose how long to sit (3 to 60 minutes), whether to have interval bells, and how long to settle in first. Then press Begin. A calm dark screen shows the time left and a slowly filling ring. One bell starts the sit, interval bells sound softly at your chosen spacing, and three bells mark the end. Press Test bell to set the volume beforehand.

Using a timer for meditation

A timer frees you from wondering how long you've been sitting, which is one of the biggest distractions for beginners. Set it, close your eyes and trust the bell. Most mindfulness courses suggest starting with 5 to 10 minutes a day and building up gradually, and regularity matters more than length. Interval bells are useful for noticing where your attention has gone. Every 5 minutes on a 20-minute sit gives bells at 5, 10 and 15 minutes, and each one is a cue to come back to the breath without judging yourself. The settling-in countdown gives you time to find a comfortable posture and let the room go quiet before the first bell. The bell itself is a singing-bowl-like tone, synthesised live in your browser from a fundamental and several softer harmonics that fade over a few seconds, so there's nothing to download and it works offline once the page has loaded. Sit upright but relaxed, on a chair or cushion, with your hands resting. When thoughts arrive, which they will, simply notice them and return to the breath. Honest limits: keep the screen on and this tab open, because phones may pause timers when the screen locks or the tab is in the background, and check your device isn't on silent. The breathing exercise, the timer and the Pomodoro timer are related.

Frequently asked questions