Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Check-ins, journal prompts, and weekly insights are structured on CBT principles.
McHugh et al., 2010 · Magill & Ray, 2009
Choose what you want back.
Lasting change isn’t giving something up. It’s reclaiming what matters. Pick two or three — we’ll build the first week from there.
Free · 2 minutes · No card
Start here
What do you want to reclaim?
Built on real frameworks. Cited every time.
- NIDA-endorsed framework
- 500+ clinical trials
- CBT
- MI
- DBT
- SMART
- Read the research
A different premise
Engagement is not the goal. Change is.
Most apps measure opens. We measure whether things actually got better.
Habit apps
- Streak counters
- Shame on miss
- Open-rate metrics
- Leaderboards
Daybreak
- No streaks
- Optional check-ins
- Outcome metrics
- Mood, then reflection
Dawn
Built to listen.
Trained in motivational interviewing — its first move is always to understand.
It hears you first
Reflective listening, then a question — never an instant prescription.
You stay in the lead
Dawn helps you find what you already know. It won’t tell you what to do.
3 a.m. is welcome
When the people in your life are asleep, Dawn is awake.
Dawn
Online · trained in MI
Hi, I'm Dawn.
I won't lecture or rush you. Pick a starter, or share what's on your mind.
Focus
Block on one device. Blocked on all of them.
Cross-device intention, without the negotiation. Decide once on your phone — your laptop honors it.
One list, every device
Set it where you are. The rest of your devices catch up.
Mornings stay clean
Build windows where the apps you don’t want simply aren’t there.
A pause, not a wall
Honest friction. When you really need through, you can. The pause is the point.
Focus is on
Until 7:00 AM
Synced
Time Vault
Lock what hurts. Open what helps.
Time-locked storage for the things you’d reach for in a weak moment — and the notes from your strong self, ready when you need them.
Lock the impulse reaches
Account passwords, contacts, anything that calls to you at 2 a.m. Sealed behind a cooldown.
Cooldown, not willpower
Denied access becomes a moment to breathe. Every attempt logged, never shamed.
Notes from your future self
Write a message today. Read it on the night you need it most.
Vault3 sealed
Recovery account password
0:08••••••••••••••
Note from your strong self
0:18You can wait t…
Sponsor — Mara
0:32+1 (55•••••••
Evidence over engagement
Every prompt has a citation.
Daybreak is built on four clinically validated frameworks. Not gamification, not hooks — published research, applied carefully.
clinical trials across the four frameworks inform how Daybreak guides you.
Motivational Interviewing
Dawn is trained on MI — reflective listening first, never an instant prescription.
Lundahl et al., 2010 · SAMHSA, 2023
Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Habit-change plans incorporate DBT skills for distress tolerance and emotion regulation.
Dimeff & Linehan, 2008
SMART Recovery
Plan structures follow the SMART 4-point program. Endorsed by NIDA.
Kelly et al., 2020
Why we built it
Recovery isn’t a streak. It isn’t a leaderboard. It’s a quiet, often hard, deeply human process.
Most wellness apps borrowed their playbook from social media. We built the opposite — clinical evidence, not engagement metrics; built to help you, not retain you.
Browser extension
Bring Focus to your browser.
Block the sites that pull you off course. One install, one list, every tab.
Add to Chrome
Edge support coming soon.
Free forever
Start where it costs nothing.
The core tools — check-ins, journal, daily Dawn conversations — are free for as long as you need them. Upgrade only when more limits would actually help.
A note, not a newsletter
Get the next note from us, not a marketing email.
Quiet updates when something genuinely changes — research we read, decisions we made, what shipped. Unsubscribe in one click.
Ready when you are
Two minutes is enough.
Free forever. No card, no streak counter.
Private by default — your data, never sold