Beachball cursor annoyance on MacBook Air M1

for a couple of weeks now, my MacBook Air M1 (basic) freezes for several minutes, displaying the beachball cursor.

I've already troubleshot by uninstalling my VPN, checking I have enough disk space, as well as checking I am not running too many apps concurrently, but the problem persists.

the issue might be related to Safari, as I seem to recall that Safari is open on each occasion, but I'm not sure.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]