Digital Eye Strain – Does the term seem familiar? It is a condition where your eyes feel tired due to excessive screen time. This can be quite discomforting. Sometimes it leads to redness and watery eyes. However, taking out some time away from the screen can help us recover from this. But though initially, it may seem harmless, this can lead to serious eye issues that can even lead to partial, temporary, or even permanent loss of vision.
Let’s understand what causes digital eye strain.
We generally blink 15-20 times in a minute which activates the tear glands and keeps our eyes moist and healthy. Research says, that while we are on screen for reading, playing, or working, we blink less often which leads to irritation or dryness of the eyes. Also, the flickering text, the screen glare, and the contrast of the text against the screen color can cause screen eyes.
Typically, it is one of the syndromes which are caused or exacerbated by High Screen Time – time spent on digital screens and is considered to even be an occupational hazard in the IT industry. The other syndromes are Brain Fog, Tech Neck, and Burnout.
Tips to prevent digital eye strain:
- Keeping off the screen is the best way to relax your eyes, but in today’s digital world it is not possible to keep entirely off the digital screen. So, here are a few tips
- Make sure your computer screen is at least an arm’s length distance from your face and the center of the screen must be kept 10-15 degrees below the level of your eyes.
- Replace your screen with a matte screen or add a screen cover to cut down the glare.
- After every half, an hour, look away from the screen towards an object kept at least 20 feet away for another half an hour. This will help to calm the nerves in your eyes.
- Make sure your room is bright enough. Sitting in a dark room with a shiny computer screen can cause eye irritation.
- Go for regular eye check-ups to make sure your eyes are healthy.
- Go higher on the contrast of your screen and enlarge the text for better visibility.
- Reduce the color temperature of your screen which will help in reducing the emission of the blue light which irritates your eyes the most.
- Increase the device refresh rate to reduce the screen flickering. When to see a doctor?
When to see a doctor?
If you find that the complications aren’t going away. You find your eyes to be watery, and irritable for a long period of time, you have permanent eye redness, and you cannot concentrate; you know it is time to see a doctor.
Treatment for digital eye strain
The treatment for screen eyes is easy. It is advisable to try natural products which are low in chemicals. One such product is NutriDecc Eyeshield, especially made with vitamins, antioxidants like Lutein and Zeaxanthin, and essential fatty acids that keep your eyes healthy and functional. It is thought that a lack of antioxidants can make the eyes stressed and dry so the antioxidants present in NutriDecc restrict the free radicals and keeps the eyes healthy and gives you freshness of vision.
