Focus, then refresh with meditation, movement, or other healthy breaks. Almost 90 practices guided by professionals.
Awareness with gentle curiosity. Attention, gently trained. Compassion extended to self and others.
Movements that release tension, build balance, and bring gentle awareness to the body.
Short, punchy movement sequences to shake off the fog. No gym, no change of clothes required.
A variety of body-based practices for when the nervous system needs a hand.
The quickest reset you own. Practices you can do anywhere, anytime + guided breathwork.
We legitimately believe Bearings can help anybody find more well-being and mental clarity. But Bearings is particularly good for:
Bearings has both a free version and a premium version. Premium is $11.99/month or $69.99/year.
The free version includes all the timer and scheduling functionality, along with 30+ guided break activities spanning meditation, movement, breathwork, relaxation techniques and yoga. Premium unlocks the full break library, for a total of almost 90 guided breaks, with ongoing additions.
The free version includes all functionality, along with 30+ guided breaks spanning meditation, movement, breathwork, relaxation techniques and yoga.
Premium unlocks the full break library, for a total of almost 90 guided breaks, with ongoing additions. Premium also includes all 20+ soundscapes, unlimited custom activity creation (contact us if you want to create more than 30), and the ability to put links in your custom activities.
Bearings does NOT use ads. Our goal is to help you focus and take healthy breaks. Interrupting your work or study with distracting ads runs counter to our ethos. Bearings is supported by premium subscribers and organizational wellness programs.
Bearings is much more than a focus timer. Most focus timers give you a timer for focusing, and then a timer for the break. Very few help support what you do during the break, and none have guided practices. Bearings helps you do something during your break that helps refresh your brain.
You can also use Bearings to schedule healthy breaks into your calendar.
There are a lot of ways to take a good break from work, and a lot of ways to take a bad break from work. A good break:
For more on this (including references), see our blog post What makes a healthy break?
Bearings helps you take good breaks by providing a wide variety of guided meditation, movement, breathwork and relaxation exercises. You can filter suggestions for the kinds of breaks you enjoy, and then save your favorites to keep coming back to later.
The short answer is to experiment a little bit. It depends on a few factors, like what are you working on, your own tendencies and needs, and how you’re feeling that day. Research suggests that taking either longer breaks (15–20 min) or more frequent short breaks (5 min) is helpful during the day, especially when taken earlier in the day.
As a starting point, we recommend trying a 5–10 minute break at least every hour.
Also relevant: this APA Monitor article on breaks.
Sometimes you already know what works for you, you just need some structure and a reminder to do it. Bearings lets you create custom activities for yourself that you can add to your break activity library. You can then schedule that activity into your day or add it to your focus-break flow.
To create a custom activity, go to Queue → Gear icon → Custom Activities → Create.