How Hug a Tree Works: Tie a Worry, Breathe, Let It Go

Hug a Tree is a small app for iPhone and iPad with one simple idea at its centre: instead of carrying a worry around in your head, you tie it to a tree, breathe for a little while, and leave it there.

It's inspired by an old Slavic custom of tying ribbons to birch trees and confiding in them. This post walks through how the app works, step by step.

The forest

When you open Hug a Tree, you see a forest. It's the only screen — there are no tabs, no feeds, no dashboards. The trees in it are yours, and each one is holding something for you.

The forest never shows your worries back to you as text. Ribbons hang on the branches, but what's written on them stays inside the tree until you choose to look. Someone opening the app before sleep shouldn't be handed their worries all over again.

1. Plant a tree for what's on your mind

A tree holds a theme or an area of your life — anything from "Moving house" or "Mum's operation" to "Work" or simply "Everyday stuff". When you plant one, you choose what kind of tree it is:

• It has a day — for something with a date: an exam, a flight, an appointment. The app asks how it went the morning after. See worries with a date.
• It clears itself — the evening tree. Empty your head onto it before sleep, and it lets all its ribbons go by itself at half past five the next morning. See the evening tree.
• It stays with me — for the ongoing things: work, money, health, someone you love.

2. Tie a ribbon

A ribbon is the specific thing: "I'll miss the connection in Frankfurt", "What if they say no?", "Haven't heard back from Sam". You write it, and it's tied to the tree.

A ribbon can be a Worry or a Thought. Worries are for things you fear might happen. Thoughts are for everything else — a hope, a wish, something you want to keep. The difference matters later, when you say how things turned out. More in worry or thought?

Once a ribbon is written, you choose: breathe now, or just leave it here. Both are fine. Writing it down and leaving it with the tree is already the ritual; breathing is an invitation, never a requirement. Whatever you write is saved straight away.

3. Breathe with your companion

If you choose to breathe, a small companion — Bubble or Spark, whom you can rename — breathes inside the pacer with you. (You can meet them here.) You can pick from several gentle patterns: Even Breathing, Physiological Sigh, Calm Breathing, Box Breathing, Deep Calm, 4-7-8, and Count to ten. Sessions run for two, five or ten minutes. Not sure which to choose? See which breathing technique to choose.

There's an eyes-closed mode, where a soft vibration marks each change of breath so you don't need to watch the screen. And in the evening, a dark, silent bedtime session lets the rhythm fade into vibration and ends with nothing at all — no sound, no question, so you can drift off. See bedtime breathing.

You can also just tap your companion in the forest at any time to breathe together, without tying anything.

4. Or settle another way

Some moments aren't breathing moments. Under Another way, Hug a Tree offers a few alternatives that don't involve watching your breath at all: Look around, Walk with it, Hug a tree (a gentle standing posture with your arms around an imaginary trunk), and Tense and let go. More in not in the mood to breathe?

5. Let it go

At the end, your companion carries the ribbon up to the branch and hugs the tree. That's the moment the app is named after. The worry is on the tree now. You can close the app and get on with your day.

6. Later: untie it and say how it turned out

Worries pass. When one does, you untie its ribbon and answer one simple question: how did it turn out? For worries, the answers include "It never happened", "It happened, but not as badly", "It happened, and I got through it", and "I'm not worried about it any more". For thoughts and hopes: "It turned out that way", "Not yet", or "I don't need it any more".

When a whole tree is behind you — the exam is over, the move is done — you mark it "This has passed", and it moves to The Old Grove, keeping every ribbon. Nothing is lost. See The Old Grove.

Over time, the Journal quietly shows you how many of the worries you let go turned out kinder than you feared. It's not a score; it's evidence, in your own words, that your mind's forecasts aren't always right. See kinder than you feared.

What Hug a Tree doesn't do

Just as important is what's missing on purpose:

• No streaks, no guilt. Nothing withers if you stay away. The forest simply waits. See why Hug a Tree has no streaks.
• No nagging. At most two quiet reminders: one the morning after a day you've marked on a tree, and one when a ribbon has hung for a few days.
• No accounts and no ads. What you write stays on your device and in your own private iCloud. We can't read it. See private by design.
• No promises. Hug a Tree is a calm-down companion, not a treatment or a medical device.

Free and Premium

Planting trees, tying ribbons, letting them go and looking back at what happened are free. Guided breathing has a free daily allowance, and a Premium subscription removes the limit and adds a few extras.

Who it's for

Hug a Tree is for anyone whose mind loops: overthinkers, night-time worriers, people waiting on news, students before exams, anyone who has a lot on and nowhere to put it. You don't need to know anything about breathing or meditation. You just need something on your mind and a couple of minutes.

Find out more about Hug a Tree.