Eye strain bothering you? It doesn’t have to be this way

Working 9-to-5 is no longer the norm. When working from home, it’s tough to keep track of ours and maintain a disciplined schedule. The actual working hours might exceed the usual 8–9 hours. You will most often find yourself stuck to your computer screen for hours without any gaps in between.

The result — tired eyes, eye pain, eye strain, headache or even shoulder pains. After working for hours on computers, I also get stiff shoulders, and sleepy eyes that I can barely open. By the end of today, I feel like just crashing onto the bed and doing nothing else.

Do you feel the same too? Well, that’s how it is for millennial workers.

But well, for tired eyes, eye strain and all the computer-related problem to your body, there are few easy ways to relieve the symptoms.

1. Hydrate your eyes

You must have heard about hydrating your body. Doctors recommend normal adults to drink about 2 litres of water daily. Drinking water will hydrate your body and flush out the toxins out of your body. Water is a cheap and natural detox and you don’t need other detox drinks if you drink an ample amount of water every day.

As much as it is important to hydrate your body, your eyes also need to stay lubricated. Working indoors with AC on will make your eyes dry. Dry eyes will cause you pain, itchiness and even red eyes. Your eyes start to strain.

Tears act as a natural lubricant. But you are not some soap opera queen who can shed tears on demand. Try artificial tear solutions that will help in lubricating your eyes.

This will also clean out the dirt and dust in your eyes.

2. Take proper breaks

Are you a workaholic?

If you are, then take this advice with a pinch of salt — there will be no work if you don’t care about your health. Workaholics neglect their health.

Tired eyes, headache, shoulder pain is considered minor issues and nothing that actually matters. But you are wrong. These are only symptoms and not taking action will only make your situation adverse.

Your tired eyes and your tired body mean that you are exhausted and you need to take a rest. Well, taking a long holiday is good and all. But you can take minor breaks in between work.

Follow the 20–20–20 rule to take breaks in between work. This rule says that you should take a break of 20 seconds after working on computers for every 20 minutes and stare at any object 20 feet away from you. Sounds simple right?

What’s the benefit?

The benefit is that you are breaking the monotonous rhythm of your eyes where you are just glaring at the screen non-stop. Often people don’t even blink while looking at the computer screen. This strains your eyes a lot. Not to forget that blue lights emitted from the computer screen is harmful and causes much eye strain.

Taking your eyes away from the screen for even 20 secs can relieve your eyes. And 20 secs are not much. Surely, you can take out this much time from your busy schedule.

3. Palming exercise

After work or in between work, when you feel your eyes are too tired, you can try out this palming exercise.

In this, you need to rub your palms vigorously and put your palms on your eyes. The heat generated from your palm will relieve your eyes from pain and tiredness.

4. Avoid allergy triggers

Dirt, dust and pollen can trigger allergies. The most common outcomes of allergies are red eyes, watery eyes or red eyes. Try to avoid dirt and dust from getting into your eyes.

If you get dust in your eyes, don’t rub your eyes vigorously. Rubbing can cause abrasion in your cornea and damage your eyesight. You should use water to wash off the dust or use eye drops to get rid of it.

5. Get your eyes tested

Tired eyes and eye strain can also because of deteriorating eyesight. When you are a glasses wearer, you will hardly notice that your eyesight is deteriorating. You should get your eye tested regularly.

A regular eye test can be pricey. If you are covered under the NHS, you can get a free eye test. With Specscart, you can get a free eye test done even without an NHS voucher.

Get better eyeglasses

Getting better and efficient eyeglasses is a better option to reduce your eye strain. You must be wondering are there any better glasses that could relieve eye pain. Yes, there are. And no this is not some myth. Glasses like blue light glasses or anti-glare glasses relieve your eyes by reducing the glares felt on your eyes. Anti-glare lenses block the sun glares and sudden flashes. This will give you comfortable viewing and also reduce eye strain to great extent.

Blue light glasses on the other hand blocks the blue light emission. Computer screens emit a lot of blue lights harmful to eyes and cause eye fatigue. Wearing these glasses can relieve your eyes from eye strain.

You can get both prescription and non-prescription glasses made with blue light blocking lenses. If you have perfect vision, you can keep your vision perfect for longer by wearing fake glasses with blue light blocking lenses.

Other glasses like transition glasses also known as photochromatic lenses are also a good option that will relieve your eyes. If you’re browsing online glasses, try out transition glasses if your work includes both indoors and outdoors. One pair of glasses will work out in all locations and you don’t have to change your glasses at all. Your eyes are protected from the harsh sunlight outside and blue light or other bright lights indoors.