Mindful Break is a free extension for Chrome, developed by Google, designed to remind users to take breaks, as well as provide tips on how to spend your time during breaks.
The Mindful Break extension, designed for anyone working on computer for long periods of time, it is basically a simple application that offers two main functions:
- View notifications to the user as short-haul reminders from work.
- View tips and exercises to take the break time.
Sitting in front of a computer for eight or more hours is not very healthy, especially if you do not take regular breaks. These breaks, big and small, are essential for your health.
Mindful Break can help you not forget and take regular breaks, as well as using these breaks with something that makes sense. Particularly IT practitioners tend to spend their breaks in front of the computer by doing other activities.
The extension adds an icon to the main Chrome toolbar with which you can interact. Clicking on the icon shows some tips and choices for breathing exercises.
Clicking on the “try a breathing exercise” link displays a one-minute clip that helps you inhale and exhale during this time period. There is an option to view full screens to stay focused on the exercise and not be distracted by the screen.
Mindful Break will not display notifications by default. The default notification interval is set to send none. you will need to open Chrome extensions (chrome: // extensions) to enable alerts from there.
Options include the appearance notifications at intervals, e.g. every 2 hours, at a specific time, e.g. 12:00 p.m. or randomly throughout the day.
You can restrict notifications to show only at a specific time period and specify the type of notification you want the extension to use. Browser notifications, sounds, or icon alerts are supported.
The extension works offline and requires only notification rights during installation. Not updated by 2017. You can do it download from here.
Briefly:
Mindful Break is a useful extension for Chrome users and can be run on others as well programs browsers based on Chromium. Its purpose is to deal with the health problems created by long hours of computer use.
Expansion only suggests breathing exercises. It would be great to support other health-related exercises, eg. for eyes or muscle stretching, etc.
There are software for computers such as Eye Defender or Break Taker, which offer similar functionality.
