Caring for your eyes in the digital age
We expect a lot from our eyes these days. Whether it’s work, entertainment, or even some social gatherings, large portions of our lives are spent in front of screens. While this technology comes with many benefits, our eyes aren’t designed for that much screen time. Many of us finish the day with headaches, fatigue, or neck and shoulder pain.
The good news is digital eye strain is preventable with the right tools and strategies. The eye care team at Optical Eyeworks can help you enjoy the digital age without compromising your eye health.
Request an appointment to talk to an optometrist about digital eye strain.
What is digital eye strain?
We call it digital eye strain because it so often occurs when working on a computer or spending significant time on a mobile device. But the truth is that digital eye strain is not much different from regular eye strain.
Imagine sitting in a kneeling position. This would probably feel fine for the first few moments, but within 10 minutes, your feet would fall asleep, the muscles in your back would start to ache, and the floor would feel too hard against your knees. Your body was not meant to hold this position for extended periods.
The concept is roughly the same for your eyes. They were designed to focus on objects at a wide range of distances in different lighting conditions. Forcing your eyes to focus on near objects for hours at a time exhausts your eye muscles, causing a range of uncomfortable symptoms.
Symptoms of digital eye strain
Symptoms of digital eye strain can include:
- Headaches
- Neck, shoulder, or back pain
- Sensitivity to light
- Trouble concentrating
- Heavy eyelids
- Dry eyes
- Excessive tearing
- Sore, itchy, or watery eyes
Strategies to manage digital eye strain
Computer glasses work differently than your standard eyewear. They may use lenses that are specially designed to sharpen digital images, or they may offer blue light protection, which can reduce eye strain and prevent unwanted changes to your sleep cycle.
Studies show that we hold mobile devices like smartphones and tablets closer to our faces when using them than we would hold a book or magazine. This reduced distance forces our eyes to work harder, which ultimately causes eye strain to develop faster.
Make sure your phone is approximately 20 inches away from your face. You may need to adjust the font size.
Consider your workspace and make some adjustments. Your monitor should be positioned an arm’s length away from you and slightly below eye level. Be sure to keep your monitor clean and put it somewhere that won’t produce a lot of glare.
Employ the 20-20-20 rule. Every 20 minutes, take a break from your screen. Find an object that’s roughly 20 feet away and look at it for 20 seconds. This is essentially the ocular equivalent of getting up to stretch your legs.
