Hey all,

We’re back with another update to Opera Air, our browser centered on the concept of mindfulness. Based on your feedback, we’ve built a new type of reminder within the Take a Break feature to help make sure you never forget to stop what you’re doing and engage in a mindful exercise.

One of the core features of Opera Air, Take a Break is a collection of mindful activities that you can engage in at any point in your day – namely, breathing exercises, neck stretches, guided meditation, and a Full Body Scan (which is another form of meditation that focuses on the mind-body connection). To get started, you just have to click the feature’s icon in the sidebar – it’s the one with three vertical lines that looks a bit like an exhale or a gust of wind. (Boosts, another core feature, is accessible from the icon that looks like a little flower.)

But between meetings to attend, slideshows to review, documents to read, and all the rest, we know that it can be hard to remember to take a moment and stop what you’re doing – which is exactly why we built reminders into Take a Break. Currently, completing an exercise will fill up all three bars of the Take a Break Icon. That’s when your “body battery,” as we call it, is full. But it will drain over time the longer you don’t engage in an exercise, until finally the line at the bottom starts to flash.

Many of you have loved that addition, as it helps you stay on track of your break goals. A few of you, however, have asked if it could be even more obvious, so your body battery never completely drains.

So now, there will be two types of reminders within Take a Break. In the “gentle” option – which is the default setting – the body battery will flash when it’s time to stop what you’re doing and engage in some self-care. But for those of you who need something a bit more in-your-face, the “strong” option entails a pop-out notification that will appear from the Take a Break icon in the sidebar. It will tell you how long you’ve been active, and prompt you to start an exercise, add five more minutes before your next reminder, or skip the break reminder altogether (because sometimes, we know, there just isn’t time). 

To turn on the “strong” option – or adjust any aspect of the reminders within Take a Break, like increasing or decreasing their frequency or even turning them off altogether – you just need to go to the settings in the feature’s menu. 

So now – whether the “gentle” option was fine to begin with, or the “strong” setting was very much required – we hope you never miss a chance to take a step back from what you’re doing and engage in a mindful break.

Keep your feedback coming and we’ll keep implementing it! We have another update around the corner that’s also the product of your suggestions, so stay on the lookout for that. And if you haven’t done so yet and need another reminder – download Opera Air now.

browsernewsoperaOpera for computers

---