Looking at screens throughout the day is nearly unavoidable in our daily lives. There’s a good chance you’re looking at screens during work hours, and when you get home, it feels nice to relax with some TV or a movie, or time on your phone or computer. All this screen time adds up.

Our eyes were not made to stare at screens for hours every day, and it can take a toll on us. The experts at Fite Eye Center want to help you keep your eyes healthy and comfortable despite the growing use of screens in our world. We have some tips to help you minimize the pain of digital strain on your eyes.

Symptoms Of Digital Strain

Digital strain has become a common problem people deal with. It only takes about two hours a day of screen viewing to start feeling the effects of digital strain. Here are some symptoms to look out for:

• Dry, itchy eyes
• Headaches
• Difficulty focusing your vision
• Light sensitivity
• Aching shoulder or neck muscles

If you’re experiencing any of these things, they could be due to your screen time. If there’s no way for you to avoid looking at screens for that long, follow these tips to help minimize the digital strain you’re feeling.

Tips To Ease The Digital Strain On Your Eyes

Even if you have to look at a computer screen every day for work, you don’t have to suffer from the symptoms of digital strain. Use these ways to lessen the digital strain on your eyes.

20/20/20 Rule

This has become a popular way to fight against digital strain. It’s a simple routine that will give your eyes a break when you’ve got a long project to work on. The 20/20/20 rule means that every 20 minutes, you should focus your eyes on an object that is 20 feet away and look at it for 20 seconds. This gives your eyes a break from focusing on up close, digital screens. It’s a refresher for your eyes, allowing them to relax by looking at something that is a comfortable distance away.

Correct Monitor Height

This tip helps if you frequently experience soreness in your neck and shoulders throughout the workday. Adjusting your monitor height to the correct position will allow you to look straight ahead without having to tilt up or down to see what you’re working on, which puts extra stress on your neck and shoulders. The correct and most comfortable monitor height is to have the top of the monitor in line with or just above your eyes.

Use Blue Light Eyewear

The part of digital screens that strains your eyes is the blue light that they emit. Luckily, there is a wide range of affordable blue light eyewear that filters out this light to make viewing the screen more comfortable. There are also blue light glasses that block out some of the glare too since glare makes your eyes work harder to focus.

Fite Eye Center| Experts In Eye Health And Care

The doctors and staff at Fite Eye Center are committed to helping you take proper care of your eyes so they can stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible. We can help with regular checkups, glasses and contacts, LASIK surgery, special testing, eye disease treatment and prevention, and more. Nobody takes better care of your eyes than Fite Eye Center, see for yourself how much we care about our patients!