Contents
- Computer eye fatigue symptoms
- How to relieve eye fatigue from the computer?
- Prevention of eye fatigue from the computer
- Popular questions and answers
- What is more useful when working at a computer: glasses or lenses?
- During the session I have to read a lot from the computer, how to protect my eyes?
- Is it true that blue light from displays is particularly harmful to the eyes, so what should we do?
- Where do your eyes get more tired – when working on a phone, tablet, computer?
- What are the basic rules children should follow?
- When is it necessary to see a doctor?
Computer eye fatigue is a type of computer vision syndrome associated with eye strain during prolonged work at a computer or other digital device. But it is wrong to think that the eyes get tired only because of the computer. The office space as a whole also plays a role, for example, the effect of air conditioners and fans on the organ of vision.
When working for hours at a computer in the office, you are forced to constantly look from the screen to the text and keyboard, they are located at different distances and are lit in different ways – it is not surprising that your eyes get tired. In addition, the number of blinks when working at a computer is halved, which is why the tear film from the surface of the eyes evaporates faster, not giving them sufficient moisture. Ultimately, this can lead to the development of dry eye syndrome.
Computer eye fatigue symptoms
Signs of computer eye fatigue include:
- inflammation and irritation of the eyes;
- problems with focusing vision;
- Pain in the eyes;
- sensations of dry eyes and lacrimation;
- blurry or double vision;
- increased sensitivity to light;
- decrease in visual acuity.
Most often, eye fatigue is manifested by one or two symptoms, and not all at once.
How to relieve eye fatigue from the computer?
As a rule, if you normalize or completely stop working at the computer, the symptoms of eye fatigue gradually disappear. Ideally, you should rest your eyes every 20 minutes by looking away from the screen for at least 20 seconds. This is enough to restore your eyes. You can reduce the load on them in other ways, such as lowering the brightness of the display to reduce glare, which provokes visual fatigue.
Eye fatigue can be associated with dry eye syndrome, where the cornea and conjunctiva do not get enough moisture. This is either due to the fact that the tear film evaporates too quickly, for example, when you rarely blink, or because the composition of the tear film is broken. In the latter case, one change of scenery is no longer enough, treatment is necessary.
The most common way to solve the problem is to use tear substitutes. These are special eye drops that moisturize the cornea, relieving discomfort. At the first signs of fatigue and dry eyes, solutions with a low degree of viscosity are prescribed – watery. If the desired effect is not observed, more viscous artificial tears, helium, can be prescribed.
But you need to understand that, unlike the natural tear film, tear substitutes do not contain organic and inorganic nutrients (glucose, lipocalin, lacritin, immunoglobulins, enzymes, vitamin C), but they are necessary to protect and nourish the cornea of the eye. Therefore, the goal of treatment is to restore the natural process of moisturizing the eyes.
Diagnostics
Primary diagnosis is based on the analysis of the patient’s complaints and on his anamnesis. Complaints of eye burning, dryness, pain in the eye area, eye irritation, problems with focusing of vision speak in favor of computer vision syndrome and dry eye syndrome.
If eye fatigue is associated with it, the doctor may resort to the Norn test, which will show the stability of the tear film, and the Schirmer test, which gives an idea of the total tear production. The norm according to Norn is 10 seconds or more, according to Schirmer – 15 mm strips in 5 minutes.
Prevention of eye fatigue from the computer
If you regularly work at the computer, you should try to reduce its negative impact on the eyes.
1. The workplace must be properly organized. It should be well lit, ideally evenly. Rays of light should not fall directly into your eyes, preferably from the side.
2. You need a good LCD or plasma monitor that can be customized. It is better if it has a large diagonal. It is believed that the flicker frequency should be at least 60 Hz, and preferably up to 100 Hz. Adjust the screen to your preferred brightness and contrast.
3. Position the monitor so that its center is 10-20 cm below your eyes. The distance to it should be 60-70 centimeters.
4. Try to work at the computer no more than 4 hours a day.
5. Take breaks during work every 20 minutes. In order not to forget about them, you can set an alarm.
At these times it is useful:
- 20 seconds to look into the distance at something 20 steps away from you;
- with eyes closed, rotate the eyeballs clockwise and counterclockwise four times;
- look up and down with eyes closed;
- Blink rapidly for 30 seconds while looking straight ahead.
6. You can use tear preparations. If you forget to blink, they will moisten the cornea of the eyes and prevent them from overworking.
7. If you have a fan constantly running, point it to the side so that the wind does not blow in your face. If the office has an air conditioner, try not to sit in front of it.
8. Install humidifiers in your office.
Popular questions and answers
What is more useful when working at a computer: glasses or lenses?
During the session I have to read a lot from the computer, how to protect my eyes?
Is it true that blue light from displays is particularly harmful to the eyes, so what should we do?
If you want to protect your eyes while working with computers and other equipment, you can purchase special “monitor protection” glasses. You will squint less and feel better. There is a point of view that the blue light emitted by the monitor can disrupt a person’s circadian rhythms and provoke sleep problems. Therefore, many doctors advise finishing work with computers and tablets a couple of hours before the end of the day, as well as turning off the displays at night or putting them on a special night mode.
Where do your eyes get more tired – when working on a phone, tablet, computer?
The eyes are equally tired from long work in front of the monitor, and from scrolling through the pages on the smartphone. However, the latter are slightly more dangerous. If we still sit in front of the computer, and usually at some distance, albeit not sufficient, then with smartphones we are free to take any position, for example, lie down on the couch and bury our noses in the screen. The same goes for tablets. This makes their negative health impact greater than that of computers.
What are the basic rules children should follow?
Naturally, if parents succeed in restricting a child’s access to a computer, then it will be more difficult to keep track of the use of smartphones, but they are no less, if not more dangerous for the eyes.
Enter the 20-20-20 rule for children: every 20 minutes you need to take a break for 20 seconds, during which you look at distant objects and objects 20 steps away from you and blink frequently. Also, make sure that the child does not play with smartphones in the dark and keep the phone as far away from eyes as possible.