4·7·8 Wind-down
Made for evenings — the long exhale tells your nervous system the day is over. The 4·7·8 pattern leans hard on the out-breath, which is the half of breathing that slows everything down, and the seven-count hold gives the stillness room to land.
In the app
Two minutes, paced on screen — the counts are drawn, so you can close your eyes between cues:
- Breathe in — four counts
- Hold — seven counts
- Breathe out — eight, slow and unhurried
When to reach for it
- Last pause of the day, after the phone goes on the charger
- When you get into bed and your mind is still at your desk
- During that 3 a.m. wake-up that needs unwinding, not solving
The honest part
4·7·8 comes from Dr Andrew Weil's popularisation of pranayama practice, and the long-exhale mechanism it uses is well supported. Rigorous trials of the exact 4·7·8 pattern are few; we offer it as an evening wind-down, not as a treatment for insomnia. If sleep is regularly hard, a doctor knows more than an app.
Background: Weil's 4-7-8 technique; mechanism in Zaccaro et al., *Frontiers in Human Neuroscience*, 2018. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2018.00353