7 Massive Ways to Care & Protect Your Eyes From Computer Screen

The programmers, IT professionals, and anyone working on computers for long periods need to protect eyes as a programmer.  Computer work for a long period is very challenging. It strains your eyes and body.

Sitting in front of your computer screen on your desk for long hours poses long term health risks. You should practice healthy habits amid your hectic work schedule to maintain good health.

We have enlisted a few tips to protect your eyes as a programmer and ensure your body stays healthy. These tips will help you to be a more productive and healthy programmer.

Follow the 20/20/20 rule

You may have heard about this tip a million times. However, it is very easy to forget while you are preoccupied with your programming work. But in this case, consistency is the key to better eye health.

You can follow the 20/20/20 rule. It means after 20 minutes of computer work; you should get away from the screen. Then you should look at a cool-toned object 20 feet away for 20 seconds. This object can be a tree or simply sky. It will feel like a relaxing break after a strong workout.

This is because looking at closely-placed objects involves eye muscle strength. The ciliary muscles present in the eye constricts to focus on closely-placed objects. Hence shifting eye focus to a distant object relaxes your eyes muscles.

You should make the effort to rest your eyes. Remind yourself to take a break. Setting an alarm on your phone or phone will help it. But you should strictly follow it. With time, it will become a natural healthy habit.

Adjust your monitor settings

You can also adjust the display settings of your monitor to optimum conditions. This will ensure that your eyes do not strain. There are several options that you can adjust. They are listed below.

  • Brightness – You should ensure that the screen brightness matches that of the room. The brighter the room is, the higher the screen brightness should be. Similarly, darker rooms should have lowered screen brightness. And so, you should avoid stark differences between them.
  • Contrast – The higher contrast ratio is preferable. It causes lesser strain to the eyes. Theses such as black background-white text display give a high contrast. Try switching to such themes.
  • Color Temperature – Lower the color temperature, lesser the harmful blue light emission. You can reduce the color temperature of your computer from the display settings.
  • Text Display – If you have to squint your eyes to view the text, then it is too small. You should ensure that the texts on screen are neither too small nor too large. Large texts may give you headaches. Font settings can be adjusted by zoom-in and zoom-out.

Blue light computer glasses

Every gadget that we use emit blue light. It may be phones, computers, iPads, or TV, all of them emit harmful blue light rays. But these gadgets have become part of our lifestyle.

Hence, blue light glasses have become a need of this digital age. They are like shields that protect the eyes by blocking/filtering the blue light.

Eye strain relief exercises

One of the most common issues faced by programmers and other IT professionals is digital eye strain or computer vision syndrome.

There are several eye strain relief exercises. In conjunction with the eye breaks, these exercises provide relaxation to the eyes. It can be done at any convenient time. They prevent, help and relieve digital eye strain. They also help tired, dry eyes due to long computer hours.

Workspace lighting

You should ensure that your workplace is not darker than your computer screen. Darker workplace results in higher chances of developing eye strain. And it also increases exposure to harmful Blue Light rays.

One such way to protect your eyes is placing a backlight behind computer. This reduces the computer screen intensity. The intensity of the backlight and computer screen should resonate well with each other. One of them should not be stronger than the other.

Scheduled visits to the optometrist

Well most of the people do not visit doctor unless they are sick. Regular visits to optometrist (the eye doctor) is as rare as visit to the dentist. But these are important things that you should follow. You should visit your optometrist once every year.

It is much more important to a programmer, IT professionals and others people working long hours on computer. A good eye screening in regular interval will show up the small issues early. That way one can get the proper preventive eye care and treatment on time.

Furthermore, if you are suffering from symptoms of digital eye strain or computer vision syndrome, you must visit the eye doctor immediately. You should take a break from programming. However, you should stop exhausting your eyes. It may lead to further complications such as macular degeneration and gradual loss of vision in future.

Regular stretching exercises

This may not exactly be an eye care tip, but it is one of the most important health advice for programmers, IT professionals and gamers. So, it should be considered anyway.

First thing is you sitting posture. You must ensure that while you are working on computer you should be sitting in a good posture.

Sitting in front of computer may cause you to slouch after some time. You may use a back posture corrector or back brace. This will help you train your back. In future this will help you to keep a healthy upright position.

Additionally, you can get away from screen when you feel a strain in your neck and lower back. And then you should do some healthy exercises to stretch your arm and leg muscles.

Conclusion

Do not forget that your eyes are vital as a programmer or IT professional. This not only aids in your profession but also helps you to see the world. You should protect eyes as a programmer and care for them.

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