How to Protect Your Eyes when Using a Computer

Poor Vision Habits You Need to Stop Right Now!

Nowadays, most office workers and many other workforces require computers for working. Working on computers for hours and hours, day in day out, can result in eye strain or injury. Over time, vision may become impaired, eye pain may be felt and ability to adapt to different light may also reduce. Thus, to protect your eyes from getting such symptoms, here are some tips that you can easily follow for your own eye care.

•   Let your eyes have a break. It is better to leave your seat and find a distant target to look at for about 10 seconds until your vision becomes at infinite focus and your eyes become relaxed.
• Move your eyes: If you have to sit in front of your computer for hours and do not have a chance to leave your seat, you can do some eye movement exercises as follow: Move your eyes around clockwise; Move your eyes from left to right, from top to bottom. Repeat it 3 times each for relaxing your eyes.
• Blink your eyes to make tears secrete, keep the eyes wet. This is more important if you wear contact lenses. Many people concentrate too much on their work, blinking infrequently. This results in the eyes becoming drier.
• Breathe regularly: Help with accelerating blood flow. Because of too much focusing on staring at computer screen, your breath might slow down or become shallow. Hence, remind yourself of breathing regularly and fully for relaxing.
• Put your computer on a low table, or use a portable computer so your eyes look down when you work. Looking downward means more of the eye surface is covered by the eyelid, and two other things happen: the eyes unconsciously blink more, and they produce more lubrication.
• Adjust your screen distance. The distance between your eyes and the screen should be from 50 to 70 cm and 10 to 20 cm lower than your eyesight. Since angles and distance can reduce refraction and lessen tiredness for your eyes.
• Have appropriate light: The ambient light at where you work should have moderate illumination that is helpful to your eyes. Remember that the computer screen already generates its own light that is enough for you to look. If you work in an office with conventional electro-optic lights, you may wish to use another small table lamp when using your computer.
• Limit contact lens wear: If you are a contact lens wearer and your eyes have very little tears secreted and easily get dry, you may wish to consider wearing normal glasses instead of contact lenses. People who use computers for long period of time should consider regular (e.g. 6 months) eye sight check-ups with an optician.
• Eat food for sight (DHA): Some kinds of sea fish contain DHA which can be good for the eyes' retinas and prevent eye injury and Cataract. The best sources include salmon, trout, sardines, herring and Arctic char. Vegetable wise: carrots, limes and green vegetables are also recommended for eyes. Seeds include antioxidants which can reduce eyes degeneration and may help preserve or improve eyesight.
• Get more Vitamin A from fruits and vegetables: Certain foods with Vitamin A can help with the health of your eyes. These include certain fruits (e.g., mango, tomatoes and watermelon), vegetables (e.g., carrots, pumpkin and sweet potato), cereals, fish and eggs. Drinking plenty of water also helps to reduce eyes drying as water can help with hydration.

Read the original article published on wikihow.com.

Poor vision can come from a number of things including not washing off your makeup before bed, looking at a computer screen and skipping your routine optometrist appointments.  If you have any further tips to maintain proper eye health, please feel free to share them or if you have any query about vision problem. Feel free to drop in at 20/20 Eyeglass Superstore or schedule online eye exam or call 407-767-5600. We look forward seeing you.