Most of the jobs nowadays require the use of computers. Some professionals even stay and work in front of the computer for 8-12 hours daily. Working hard does not mean compromising your health. Here are some of the things that you can do to protect your eyes from working at the computer for long hours.
1. Adjust the Lighting of Computers
Use of proper lighting may help eye strain. When we are working in front of a computer for so many hours daily, we have to make sure to take care of our eyes. Eye strain is caused by excessive bright light, to avoid this, we can change the brightness of our monitor screen. Doing so will help us make our eyes comfortable.
Aside from adjusting the light of our computers to make our eyes feel better. We should also have ambient lighting in our offices. Make sure to eliminate exterior lights and avoid working under overhead fluorescent lights.
2. Upgrade Your Display
Office staff should always protect the health of their employers. If they have an extra budget they should replace the old-tube style monitor with flat-panel LCD. Screens of these monitors usually have an anti-reflective surface and are easier on the eyes of the user.
Flicker of images is one of the major cause of computer eye strain. Which is not an issue with LCD screens. Selecting the highest resolution possible for the screen is the best solution to this problem.
3. Modify Work Station
Another cause of eye strain is the improper posture into the computer when we are working. To prevent this, we can adjust our workstation and chair to the correct height.
If our work requires looking at the printed page and then on the screen, then we should place the written pages on the copy stand. Light the copy stand properly and is adjacent to the monitor. We can also use desk lamp to see this written pages clearly.
4. Keep Distance from Monitor
Always remember to keep distance at the monitor for it is really dangerous to our eyes. We should have a distance of at least 50-100cm from eyes. Offices should also purchase and use ergonomic furniture to enable their employers to position their computer 20-24 inches from the eyes. The most comfortable and ideal position of our head and neck to the screen should be about 10-15 degrees below our eyes.
5. Consider Computer Eyewear (Use anti-radiation glasses)
Protect our eyes from too much light of the computer. The use of anti-radiation glasses will help a lot. The company may not afford it but if we have an extra budget, maybe we can buy it for ourselves. There are also normal computer glasses that we can wear. We can consult our eye care professional regarding this matter. These glasses will surely bring greatest comfort to our eyes.
6. Blink More Often
When we are working in front of the computer, we should blink more often while we stare at the monitor. It is very important because blinking moistens our eyes to prevent dryness and irritation. To help us reduce the risk of dry eyes, we should blink 10 times every 20minutes.
7. Take Frequent Breaks
Rest our eyes for 10-15 minutes and avoid looking at the monitor for a long time. We can take a rest for our eyes by closing our eyelids for a moment. We can also look at the distant objects for 10 seconds to relax our eyes.
We should also make a supplementary of five-minute breaks throughout our work day. This will not only prevent the risk of our computer vision syndrome but can also help us avoid neck, back, and shoulder pain. When we are doing these five-minute breaks, we can stand, and do some stretching.
8. Exercise Your Eyes
We can also use our mini breaks to exercise our eyes. Having an exercise for eyes help us avoid focusing fatigue that leads to eye strain. Looking far away from our computer monitors relaxes our focusing muscles inside the eye. Here are some exercises that we can do for our eyes:
Exercise #1: Move eyes in circle from left to right. This should be 6-8 times and then repeat the process to the opposite side.
Exercise #2: Move eyes from top to bottom for 10-12 times carefully. We have to do it slowly to avoid hurting our eye muscle.
Exercise #3: Move eyes from left to right horizontally for 10-12 times. And do it opposite direction.
About the Author:
Dawn Atkins loves reading, writing and traveling. It is her dream to set foot on Paris. She is currently a junior college student who works as a part-time contributor for bestessay.com. Dawn’s goal in life is to have her own business someday.