12 Jan 6 Easy Ways To Reduce Digital Eye Strain
Reduce Digital Eye Strain
A lot of our lives are spent staring at our digital devices. Whether we’re watching something on TV, checking our phones, working on our computers, we’re constantly looking at screens. It’s almost entirely unavoidable.
Unfortunately, constantly viewing a screen is damaging to your eye health. You can begin to experience symptoms of computer vision syndrome and digital eye strain such as eye fatigue, discomfort, dry eyes, headaches, blurred vision, neck and shoulder pain, red eyes, and more.
Sound uncomfortable? It is. Thankfully, here are 6 easy things you can do to help reduce digital eye strain.
Get A Comprehensive Eye Exam
Never skip an eye exam! They are extremely important to the lasting health of your eyes and also to preventing eye diseases. Read our blog post about the importance of never skipping an eye exam here.
Use Proper Lighting
It’s not a myth! Using your laptop, reading, or looking out at places when it is too dark or too bright is extremely damaging to your eye health. If your space is too bright, try getting drapes, shades, or blinds. Or, if your space is too dark when your eyes need to focus on something, turn on some sort of light.
Upgrade Your Display
With all the new information available about how damaging screens can be to our eye health, technologies have been developed to help reduce this damage! Instead of suffering with old technology, you can upgrade your screens to have high resolution displays and even blue light protection.
Adjust Your Computer Display Settings
If you can’t upgrade your devices to the best of the best, then there are some other simple things you can do to reduce eye strain. First, adjust your brightness so that it is consistent with your surroundings’ brightness. Then, adjust text size and contrast. Larger font on contrasting colours (black print on white background) is ideal. And finally, change your colour temperature to be slightly more yellow to reduce the amount of blue light being emitted from your display.
Blink More Often
It sounds simple and extremely obvious, but many people actually don’t blink when they are looking at screens for extended periods of time. To remind yourself to blink, start practicing the 20/20/20 rule: Every 20 minutes look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds!
Get Computer Glasses
For the ultimate comfort while looking at your computer for an extended period of time, invest in some good blue light glasses to use at your desk! All you have to do is ask your eye care professional to modify your eyeglass prescription to include blue light blocking lenses. These glasses will help in computer eye strain relief.
Make your eye health a priority, especially since our digital screens aren’t going anywhere. Visit Dr. D’Orio Eyecare today to get the best eye care advice and service in Toronto! Call us today to book an appointment: North York Eye Clinic: 416-661-5555, Toronto Eye Clinic: 416-656-2020
