Anxiety Spiral Unwinding
About Anxiety Spiral Unwinding
Anxiety Spiral Unwinding is a checkbox built with a keyframe animation and transforms. Its stylesheet runs to 101 lines across 13 rules, declaring 28 distinct properties. It styles checked state explicitly, so the component responds to interaction rather than sitting still. The animation is driven by keyframe sequences named anxiety-spin, anxiety-reverse-spin, anxiety-pulse, calm-slow-spin, calm-gentle-spin and calm-breathe, which you can retime or remove without touching the rest of the styling. Every format shown on this page is the same component, so you can take CSS and Tailwind depending on how your project is set up. Nothing is minified and nothing depends on a framework.
When to use
- Settings panels and forms, where state has to read at a glance, where a emotion and psychology checkbox fits the surrounding design
- A single prominent checkbox rather than a row of them, since the anxiety-spin animation runs continuously and several at once compete with each other
- Palettes built around red, orange and green, where this checkbox can be dropped in without retheming
- Places where one control is meant to be memorable, since 101 lines of CSS is a real investment for a single element
How it works
The base rule sets the shape with border-radius, display, height and position. Movement is done with transforms rather than by changing position or size, which is what keeps it smooth: transforms are composited and do not force the browser to lay the page out again. State changes are eased with a transition, so hovering does not snap. The looping motion comes from anxiety-spin, anxiety-reverse-spin, anxiety-pulse, calm-slow-spin, calm-gentle-spin and calm-breathe. Changing the animation-duration is usually the only edit needed to make it faster or calmer.
Accessibility
No focus style is defined. Add one before shipping, or keyboard users lose track of position. Animates without a prefers-reduced-motion guard. Wrap the animation in that query if motion sensitivity matters to your audience. Those are 2 things to fix before this ships in front of users.
Browser support
Everything this component uses has been supported across browsers for years, so no fallback is needed.
Related components
Frequently asked questions
Anxiety Spiral Unwinding
What is inside Anxiety Spiral Unwinding
Anxiety Spiral Unwinding is a CSS checkbox built with a keyframe animation, transforms, defined in 101 lines across 13 selectors.
Techniques used
Animations defined: anxiety-spinanxiety-reverse-spinanxiety-pulsecalm-slow-spincalm-gentle-spincalm-breathe
CSS properties in this component
align-itemsanimationbackgroundborderborder-bottomborder-bottom-colorborder-colorborder-leftborder-left-colorborder-radiusborder-rightborder-right-colorborder-topborder-top-colorcolorcursordisplayfont-weightgapheightinputjustify-contentopacitypositiontransformtransitionuser-selectwidthAccessibility check2 to fix
- No focus style is defined. Add one before shipping, or keyboard users lose track of position.
- Animates without a prefers-reduced-motion guard. Wrap the animation in that query if motion sensitivity matters to your audience.
These notes are generated by reading this component's own source, so they describe what it actually does rather than what a template says. Copy the code above in CSS, Tailwind and adapt it freely.