Хотя бы пять минут отдыха вечером помогают мне успокоиться.

Yes, хотя by itself often means although, but хотя бы is a very common fixed expression meaning at least, even just, or if only.

So in this sentence, Хотя бы пять минут means something like:

• at least five minutes
• even just five minutes

It adds the idea that a small amount is already enough.

After numerals like пять, шесть, семь and higher, the counted noun usually goes in the genitive plural.

So:

• пять минут = five minutes
• десять часов = ten hours
• двадцать дней = twenty days

The base form is минута, but after пять it becomes минут.

This is one of the standard number patterns in Russian:

• 1 → nominative singular: одна минута
• 2–4 → genitive singular: две минуты
• 5+ → genitive plural: пять минут

Because отдыха depends on минут.

The phrase пять минут отдыха literally means five minutes of rest. In English we often use of; in Russian that relationship is usually shown by the genitive.

So:

• минута отдыха = a minute of rest
• пять минут отдыха = five minutes of rest

Here:

• минут is genitive plural because of пять
• отдыха is genitive singular because it means of rest

So the structure is basically:

• five minutes
  • of rest

Вечером is the instrumental singular of вечер.

Russian often uses certain time words in the instrumental without a preposition to mean at/in that time of day:

• утром = in the morning
• днём = in the daytime / during the day
• вечером = in the evening
• ночью = at night

So вечером here simply means in the evening.

This is a very common pattern, and it is something learners usually just get used to as a set of time expressions.

The grammatical subject is Хотя бы пять минут отдыха вечером.

Because the core counted noun is минут, Russian can use a plural verb here: помогают = help.

Numeral subjects in Russian can be tricky, and with numbers like five there is sometimes variation in other contexts. But in this sentence, plural помогают sounds natural because the phrase is being treated as an active subject: those five minutes help me calm down.

So the basic agreement is:

• пять минут ... помогают

not:

• пять минут ... помогает

Even though English often treats a time amount as singular, Russian does not always do the same.

Because the verb помогать / помочь takes the dative case for the person being helped.

So:

• помогать мне = to help me
• помогать тебе = to help you
• помогать ему = to help him

That is why the sentence has:

• помогают мне успокоиться = help me calm down

This is just the normal case pattern of the verb помогать.

Because успокоиться means to calm down, while успокоить means to calm someone/something down.

Compare:

• Я успокоился. = I calmed down.
• Я успокоил ребёнка. = I calmed the child down.

In your sentence, the speaker is the one becoming calm, so Russian uses the reflexive form:

• успокоиться = to calm down / to become calm

That -ся ending often shows that the action comes back to the subject or describes a change in the subject’s own state.

Because the meaning here is about reaching a result: to calm down.

• успокоиться = perfective, to become calm, to achieve calm
• успокаиваться = imperfective, to be calming down / to calm down habitually or as a process

After помогают, Russian often uses a perfective infinitive when the point is that something helps you achieve a result.

So:

• помогают мне успокоиться = help me calm down

If you used успокаиваться, the meaning would shift more toward the ongoing process rather than the achieved state.

Yes. Russian word order is fairly flexible, because cases show the grammatical roles.

The version here is natural:

• Хотя бы пять минут отдыха вечером помогают мне успокоиться.

But you could move things around for emphasis, for example:

• Вечером хотя бы пять минут отдыха помогают мне успокоиться.
• Мне помогают успокоиться хотя бы пять минут отдыха вечером.

The basic meaning stays similar, but the focus changes a little.

In the original sentence, the emphasis naturally falls on even just five minutes of rest in the evening as the helpful thing.

By itself, вечером can mean different things depending on context:

• in the evening
• in the evenings
• sometimes this evening, if the situation makes that clear

In this sentence, it most naturally means in the evening or in the evenings as a general habit:

• Even just five minutes of rest in the evening help me calm down.

So it sounds like a general truth or personal routine, not necessarily one specific evening.

Yes, отдых is a very natural word here. It means rest, relaxation, or a break.

So пять минут отдыха suggests:

• five minutes of rest
• five minutes to relax
• a short break

It is broader than just sleep or doing nothing. It can mean taking a little time to recover mentally or physically.

That is why it fits well with успокоиться: a short rest helps the speaker become calm.