Begin
Sleep → WakefulnessYou are awake but not yet here. The phone is already in your hand and the morning has begun somewhere without you.
- First Light
- Weight
- Cold Edge
- Follow
- Near and Far
A minute between two states.
Mirellis Companion is a short ritual for crossing from one part of the day into the next — waking, ending work, putting the day down. You pick the boundary you are standing at, follow one instruction at a time, and then it sends you away from your phone.
Three boundaries, fifteen rituals
Not a library to browse. Three states you already recognise, and a small set of things to do at each one.
Close
Work → RecoveryThe work is over on paper. Nothing in the room has told your body that yet, so it keeps going.
- Name the Ending
- Unclench
- Hands
- Two Breaths In
Release
Stimulation → RestorationYou keep taking in more because stopping has not become possible yet. Tired, and still going.
- Dim
- Long Exhale
- Blind Trace
- Nothing
- Down the Body
- Three in the Morning
How one ritual runs
Start to finish, most of them take a minute.
- 1
Pick the boundary you are standing at
Not a mood, not a score, not a questionnaire. Three states, and you already know which one you are in — that is the only thing the app asks you to decide.
- 2
Read why it works, if you want to
Every ritual explains itself before it starts: the mechanism as the research describes it, and a plain statement of what the app is offering. A minute of light and a pace to breathe with. A boundary to mark. Somewhere to put your attention.
- 3
Follow one instruction at a time
Most rituals take a minute. There is nothing to press once it starts, one line on screen at a time, and a soft tick at each turn so you can follow the pace without watching. Stopping is fine at any point and changes nothing.
- 4
The app sends you away
Every ritual ends with something to do off the screen — open a curtain, close the laptop, put the phone face-down out of reach. There is no next ritual, no queue, and no prompt to do another one. The job ends when the transition begins.
- 5
Write one line, or do not
Afterwards you can save a sentence in your own words. Skipping is a complete ending and nothing asks you again. What you write stays on your phone — there is nowhere else for it to go.
What it looks like
Newsreader and Mulish, square corners, hairline rules, and a lot of paper. Nothing on any screen is trying to keep you there.
MIRELLIS
Right now
What needs to change?
Three boundaries. Pick the one you are standing at.
BeginSleep → Wakefulness
The day is starting without you in it.
CloseWork → Recovery
Work has ended but your body is still working.
ReleaseStimulation → Restoration
You cannot find the door out of the day.
Observations
StopFirst Light
First LightClose
Light reaching your eyes is the signal your body uses to decide the day has started.
There is a set of cells at the back of the eye whose only job is detecting how bright things are — not shape, not colour, just light. When light hits them in the morning they signal the brain’s master clock to stop making melatonin and to release cortisol instead.
What this app is offering
Sixty seconds of light and a pace to breathe with. The app is not metering the light and is not claiming to move your clock on your behalf.
In, as it opens.
Out, as it closes. Five seconds each way.
PauseStop
MIRELLIS
That was the whole thing
Put the phone down. Find the nearest daylight.
Stand up and open a curtain, or step outside for a moment.
Write one line
Not now
Why each one is there
Every ritual is drawn from a specific mechanism in the research, and says so. Three of the fifteen, as examples.
First Light
There is a set of cells at the back of the eye whose only job is detecting how bright things are. When light hits them in the morning they signal the brain’s master clock to stop making melatonin and to release cortisol instead — what the research calls the Cortisol Awakening Response.
So the ritual is sixty seconds of light and a pace to breathe with, and then it sends you to a window. The app is not metering the light and is not claiming to move your clock on your behalf.
Two Breaths In
The small sacs in the lungs where air meets blood tend to collapse after hours of shallow breathing at a desk. One deep breath does not reinflate them; two in quick succession — a long one, then a short one stacked on top — does. The research calls it the physiological sigh.
Five rounds. The app is offering the shape and the timing, because the two-part inhale is the only thing about it that is easy to get wrong.
Three in the Morning
Waking at three is not insomnia going wrong. It is the circadian temperature trough meeting the start of the cortisol rise, and being awake then is ordinary. What turns it into two hours awake is checking the time and the arithmetic that follows.
Dim red light at the lowest brightness the phone allows, a four-in and eight-out pace, and deliberately no clock anywhere on the screen. The app is not going to get you back to sleep. It is trying to be the least harmful thing to look at while you are awake.
What it does not do
These are not omissions. They are the design, and tests in the codebase fail the build if any of them stops being true.
- No streaks or countsThere is no total, no completion mark, no days-since and no chart — not on any screen, and not in the database either, so no surface can grow one later.
- No feed, no queueNothing autoplays, nothing recommends, and the player has no path from the end of one ritual into another.
- No accountNo sign-in, no email address, no name. Nothing to set up before you can use it.
- No analyticsNo telemetry, no crash reporting, no advertising identifier, no tracking of any kind. The app makes no network requests at all.
- Nothing leaves your phoneObservations, preferences and reminders live on the device. Deleting them is two taps, and deleting the app does the same.
- No sound to manageEvery ritual works by sight and touch alone. There is nothing to plug in, turn down, or forget to mute.
Get it
Free. No account, no payment, nothing to sign up for.
Android
Available now
A direct download from us, not the Play Store. Android 8.0 or later.
Download the app- Tap the file when it finishes downloading.
- Android will ask whether to allow installs from your browser — allow it.
- You may see a warning because the app did not come from the Play Store. Tap “Install anyway”.
iPhone
In progress
The iPhone version is built and being tested. Apple does not allow apps to be installed from a website, so it has to come through the App Store — that is the step we are working through now. No date yet, and we would rather not guess at one.
In the meantime the same fifteen rituals run in your browser, and Safari can add them to your home screen. No vibration, no brightness control and no reminders — a browser cannot do those — so it is a smaller thing than the app. The next page lists exactly what is missing before you install it.
Use the web version on iPhoneWorth having until the app arrives. Not a replacement for it.
This is not treatment
Mirellis Companion is a short ritual for crossing from one part of the day into the next. It does not diagnose anything, does not treat insomnia, anxiety or any condition, and is not a substitute for care from a person. One ritual involves cold water and carries a caution — skip it if cold water on the face is uncomfortable for you, or if you have a heart condition.
If you need urgent support — free, 24/7, and not run by us: Tele-MANAS 14416 · iCall 9152987821 · Vandrevala Foundation 1860-2662-345