Tips to beat eye fatigue from computer usage

Whether you're working from home, playing games or scrolling through social media, we use our computers more than ever in this digital age.

Not taking our eyes off the screens for long hours has copious negative effects on our eyes, such as strained eyes, blurred vision and headaches.

Luckily, there are ways to counteract all that monitor-staring.

Here are six ways to reduce the stress on your peepers.

Take frequent breaks

Try the 20-20-20 rule, which means every 20 minutes, look at something about 6m away for 20 seconds.

This was developed by Jeffrey Anshel, an optometrist who runs a firm that works with companies to minimise computer-related eye problems for their employees.

If there is not much space in the office, just look at the furthest point away from you - or out of the window.

Adjust your screen brightness and warmth

Make sure your screen is not too bright or dim, as both extremes will strain your eyes.

You can also use software called f.lux to automatically adjust the colour temperature of your screen according to the time of the day.

It uses warmer colours at night than during the day, making white colours appear a little more reddish. This helps you get used to your screen brightness in comparison to the change in lighting throughout the day.

Blink frequently

We tend to blink less often when we are concentrating and staring at our screen, resulting in dry and irritated eyes.

The air conditioning in the office does not help either. Make it a point to blink more frequently to produce tears to moisten and refresh your eyes.

Eye massage

An easy way to release some tension from your eye area is to do a quick self-massage. Pressure points include the eye socket bones, under the brow bone and the temples.

Adjust your screen position

We tend to unknowingly crane our necks and have our eyes close to the screen when engrossed.

This is not just bad for our eyesight - in the long run, the pressure on our neck will cause aches and headaches. Remember to place your screen at least 30cm away and a little below eye level, so you are looking down instead of stretching your neck to look up.

Computer glasses

There are spectacles designed to combat eye strain, because our naked eyes are not designed to stare at artificial blue light from the computer.

Gunnar has a patented computer lens technology that aids natural focusing to provide sharper, clearer vision so there is less strain on your eye muscles.

This article was first published in Her World Online (www.HerWorld.com).