For men who spend a lot of time in front of their screens working away — sometimes late into the evening or even all night and right into the morning — computer caused eye strain can become a serious and downright uncomfortable problem.
And this isn’t just a case of made-up pain created out of nothing; aside from the symptoms we all know as guys who spend a lot of time in front of their computers, many eye doctors themselves have also agreed that computer related eye strain is a real and potentially harmful problem that might lead to visual damage down the road.
The list of symptoms, including persistent itchy eyes, dry eyes blurry vision, headaches or soreness and aching in the eyes is a good indicator that you’re staring at your computer for too long and need to get started defending yourself as soon as possible.
If you don’t, the possible future consequences can include scratched corneas, chronic headaches and eye pains, and possibly even loss of vision down the road. Do you really want to deal with all these things if you can fix the problem easily and now with a few of the following easy to apply tips?
Avoid Extra Physical Discomforts
Aside from protecting your eyes directly, avoid as many of the other physical discomforts associated with being at a computer all day as you can. This means keeping your screen height well positioned so that you don’t have to tilt your head or strain your neck; keeping your seating comfortable so that you’re not in contorted or painful positions all the time and generally avoiding any physical discomfort that can make concentration worse and also augment your eye related strain.
Take Periodic Breaks
Keep careful watch over your own time use and make sure that you stick to a relatively strict schedule of occasional breaks from the screen. While you might not like this because you think it’s going to interrupt your work, it’s better that you get used to it and find some non-computer related stuff to do for at least a few minutes every couple of hours. Aside from these little breaks, give your eyes constant even smaller moments of rest by not staring at the screen constantly as if it were hypnotizing you and letting your eyes wander to other things, like the window, your cute coworker, your frowning boss, or whatever you like for at least a few seconds every couple of dozen minutes.
The Palm Trick
Here’s another neat eye protection and relaxation trick that you can try when you start to feel your eyes getting tired and uncomfortably itchy. Its supposedly something yogic, but either way, it seems to work well at giving a sort of balm-like effect and inducing a bit of relaxation. If you feel the eye soreness coming on sharp and heavy, put the palms of your hands together and rub them vigorously against each other until the friction makes them both warm. Then just place them over your eyes, softly without pressing down or massaging, and leave them there for a good 30 seconds.
You should feel better right after, especially if you follow this with some visual distraction from the screen itself.
Keep your View Clear and Easy
This is an obvious enough trick and involves making sure you can always see your screen clearly while you work. Thus, don’t allow deep glare to strike your screen, either from sunlight or artificial light. Furthermore, keep your screen free of too much dimness since this can make you strain too much to see the words and only make your potential eye strain problem worse than it would be under normal conditions.
Additionally, since it relates to screen viewing clarity and comfort, keep the screen itself at a decently comfortable length. You don’t want it to occupy your entire vision while at the same time also not wanting it too far away to read clearly. Thus, a good arms length of distance is probably the ideal length from which to work. It will keep the screen clear while also giving you an eye-relaxing view of external peripherals.
Blink and Massage your Eyes
Be sure to blink regularly and keep your eyes comfortably moist, even if it might mean having to use an eye moisturizer from time to time. This might seem like overkill, but the dryness that often comes from too much computer use is principally caused by eyes drying out because you simply forget to blink at the regular and healthy intervals.
Author Bio: Emily Joseph is an author for QualSight Lasik Providers. Emily enjoys writing about eye health and preventative eye care.
