Zen Pause

About

Zen Pause helps you take control of your social media habits — not by blocking sites forever, but by adding friction and mindfulness to every visit.

HOW IT WORKS

When you visit a blocked site, Zen Pause shows a calming interstitial page with a breathing exercise instead of the site. After 30 seconds of mindful breathing, you can choose to continue — but with limits.

FEATURES

• Block any social media site — Twitter/X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and more
• 30-second breathing exercise before you can proceed
• Grayscale mode — sites load in black and white to reduce dopamine-driven scrolling
• 3-minute auto-close — after 3 minutes, the tab redirects to a nature page
• On-screen timer — a floating badge shows how long you've been browsing
• Simple popup to manage your blocked sites list
• Toggle blocking on/off with one click
• OAuth-safe — third-party login flows (e.g. "Sign in with Twitter") are never blocked

PHILOSOPHY

Zen Pause doesn't believe in total prohibition. Instead, it gives you a moment to pause, breathe, and decide intentionally. When you do visit, the grayscale filter and timer remind you that your time is limited.

PRIVACY

Zen Pause stores your settings locally in Chrome. No data is sent to any server. No analytics. No tracking. Your browsing habits stay on your device.

PERMISSIONS EXPLAINED

• declarativeNetRequest — to redirect blocked sites to the interstitial page
• tabs — to manage tab redirects and track active sessions
• storage — to save your blocked sites list and settings
• host_permissions (all URLs) — needed for the grayscale content script to run on any site you add to your block list