In an era where our work is deeply tied to digital consumption, stepping back has become increasingly difficult.

Opera Air is a browser designed with built-in wellness features, all easily accessible from the sidebar.

Buttons for soundscapes and break exercises in Opera Air’s floating sidebar.

You can easily start guided activities like breathing exercises, neck stretches, and meditation to take a break from browsing and work.

Mindful break options from breathing to neck exercises in Opera Air.

Guided neck exercise in Opera Air.

It also offers background sounds for focus, commonly known as binaural beats, which are said to enhance creativity and concentration.

Built-in binaural beats and sound player in Opera Air.

My experience with these features alone has been positive.

They’re well-built and easy to use. Incorporating background sounds for deep work is already something I find helpful, and adding guided neck stretches to my daily routine could be a great plus for my health.

But do these features really need to be built into a browser?

Personally, I use Endel to play various soundscapes directly from my Mac menu bar, and LookAway, a desktop app that reminds me to rest my eyes every 25 minutes.

Endel soundscape player in the Mac menu bar.

LookAway intervention screen.

Keeping my browser open for mindfulness exercises or background music feels like an unnecessary extra step, despite the good intentions.

That said, I still appreciate the effort to encourage a more mindful digital experience in our dopamine-saturated world.