The biggest complaint people have at the optometrist's office is eyestrain, blurred vision and headaches combined with the complaint "the computer is hurting my eyes". Does this happen to you too?
Likely to be Visual Fatigue
Visual fatigue is the set of symptoms and signs that show that your eyes have been subjected to continuous work in near vision for a considerable period of time. That is, they are fatigued from paying attention at a distance between 35 and 60 cm, such as reading, watching videos, playing games, painting, making jewelry and others.
The most common symptoms are:
- Itching
- Tearing
- Feeling heavy, slightly swollen eyes
- Discomfort in the head, forehead, and nose at the level of the eyes.
- Vision that fluctuates, it is as if the image comes and goes.
Very important, despite these symptoms your vision and optical correction are fine. That is, eyestrain is not caused because you need glasses, however, if you do not have the proper optical correction (i.e., you need glasses and do not wear them) the symptoms of fatigue will be greater.
This is the science behind your discomfort
To achieve proper focus the eyes have muscles that move in harmony so that you can see up, sideways, down and make the image sharp both far and near.
When you see between 35 and 60 cm distance, the accommodative reflex is activated:
- The contraction of the ciliary muscle to bring the lens into close focus. This is a lens inside the eye, imagine it is like the zoom lens of the camera.
- The pupil contracts, this is called miosis.
- Convergence is activated by the extrinsic eye muscles. That is, your eyes move towards the nose.
The action of all these muscles and the lens means you can watch a movie on Netflix from your cell phone. Wonderful, isn't it?
But why do you get tired? Visual fatigue occurs because the muscles are contracted for a long time.
To make even more sense, let me give you an example. Imagine what would happen if you walked the same amount of time you spend on your cell phone, tablet and computer. Surely your feet and legs would ask for a break. The same happens to your eyes.
In order to minimize discomfort, you should always make sure that the lighting is adequate, that what you read does not have reflections (i.e. that the window does not reflect on the monitor, for example), have the right glasses in case you need them, read at a distance of no less than 40cm, preferably, and take care of your posture.
These are the three solutions to reduce eyestrain:
1.Follow the 20x20x20 rule.
The idea is that every 20 minutes that you have spent looking closely, you look up and observe an object 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Sometimes this can be difficult because you don't want to lose track of what you are doing, we understand that and that's why we created an article explaining an alternative method. You can read it by clicking on the title "follow the 20x20x20 rule".
2.Do exercises to strengthen your eye muscles.
- Turn your eyes clockwise and then counterclockwise.
- Imagine that there is a square in front of you and that you must first look at the four corners (top right, then bottom right, top left, then bottom left).
- Look up, down, left and right.
These exercises can be done 2 or 3 times each with short breaks in between. You can repeat them two to three times a day. Avoid doing them often if you are just starting out.
3. Use a special lens for visual fatigue.
- It can be a lens with a blue light filter or Blue Block. All lenses should have this filter as it helps absorb the high energy light emitted by electronic devices. It will help you with your sleep cycle and reduce fatigue. It also protects your eyes from this light in the long term.
- Use the ZEISS SmartLife Digital lens which has a special technology that supports your vision when you work more than 3-4 hours on the computer (like almost everyone these days). It's a fantastic lens. We'll tell you more about it soon.
As you can see, there are ways to manage eyestrain. If you want personalized advice for your case, you can see one of our optometrists. If this has been helpful, please spread the word by sharing this post!
