Avoiding Digital Eye Strain: Seven Easy Tips

By LuAnn Schindler

If I squint just enough, jut my neck for­ward until it feels like it’s going to snap, and swal­low enough aspirin to give this headache a 1–2 punch, I’ll be able to type this blog post.

Then I will take a break.

Or, maybe I need bifo­cals. I mean, I have lived just over half a cen­tury, and my eyes aren’t get­ting any younger. Plus, med­ical stud­ies show that long blocks of time in front of a com­puter screen can increase the chance of glaucoma.

Seri­ously, if you spend a huge chunk of time in front of a com­puter mon­i­tor, sev­eral sim­ple adjust­ments can give your eye­balls a break! Test these tips to cut down on dig­i­tal eye strain.

Check your work space. Do you con­stantly adjust the angle of your mon­i­tor? I was, until I moved my lap­top closer to the front of my desk. (Genius, I know. ) It’s the Goldilocks and Three Bears effect: too far away = squint­ing, too close = headache. But when the screen is at the per­fect angle, I could write for hours. (Well, I usu­ally do…) Pro­grams like f.lux or Google Sun­glasses adjust the mon­i­tor bright­ness to the time of day.

Turn on lights. Remem­ber when your par­ents would say, “Turn the lights on or you’ll hurt your eyes. You can’t watch TV in the dark.” Same prin­ci­ple applies to the com­puter screen. Once I added a lamp on my com­puter desk, my aching eyes felt imme­di­ate relief.

Adjust the font. Increas­ing font size is an easy fix. Why not bump up the type to 12 or 14 instead of that tiny 10-point?

Take a break. My eye doc­tor sug­gested I write for 20 min­utes, then take a break and focus on an object that is 20 feet from my com­puter. I’ve been try­ing to keep this sched­ule, but some­times, when I’m in my groove, I for­get. That’s when I …

Set a timer. Com­puter pro­grams like Eye­De­fender (Win­dows) or Workrave (Win­dows and Linux) remind you that it’s time for a cup of tea or a walk, time to get up and step back from the screen.

Stay hydrated. Drink water. Period. Those scratchy, itchy eyes will thank you, too.

Blink. Not only does blink­ing bring mois­ture to the eyes, those built-in wind­shield wipers keeps dust and irri­tants from the eyes.

Okay, my 20 min­utes are up and the timer is beep­ing, demand­ing I take a break and grab a glass of water.

No headaches. No neck break­ing. And best of all, no eye strain.

Reprinted by per­mis­sion by LuAnn Schindler

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Posted by Staff Reports on Oct 25 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.