Ask HN: Please share tips and strategies for dealing with eye strain

See a real optometrist and/or ophthalmologist.

Good monitors, at the right distance for your eyes (& glasses).

If you're expecting your eyes to perform like they did way back when, when you were ~20, develop realistic expectations.

Essential:

* Flicker free monitor (non-PWM backlight).

* Dark Reader browser plugin.

Nice to have:

* Ambient lighting.

* Curved monitors (reduces constant eye re-focusing on large monitors).

* Matte finish on monitors, avoid glass to avoid glare.

Flicker free is the major one. Many LCD that use a PWM backlight are pure torture at lower brightness levels. Ironically very old LCD with an actual lamp backlight are naturally flicker free. Ambient lighting can help mitigate the stress of flicker too.

Samsung didn't get flicker free offerings until 2021-ish. BenQ has had them since about 2014. Most OLED monitors are flicker free.

download his free application (has also paid version)..

https://iristech.co/pwm-flicker/

author at TED - https://youtu.be/HN30fO2I2aU

LARGE font sizes, high contrast, terminal glasses, and high dpi monitors. High dpi means crisper letter shapes which are way more pleasing to look at.

I have learned that certain resolutions put too much strain on my eyes. Larger screen estaten with larger resolution isn't worth it in the long run.

It also depends on time of the year - seasonal allergy, dust, ambient light can add additional strain for my eyes.

I had lasik and struggle with this daily. My home setup is very comfortable. I got a 43" 4K 144hz screen and my eyes are a good 4 feet from it. I use a fairly reclined chair and lapdesk.

By not focusing in all day and I can still see well after work. When staring at a laptop all day and my vision will be blurry the rest of the day.

I use Systane Ultra primarily, but Visine Multi-Action is what fixes the red. You don't want to over use Visine though, once a day if possible.

I also don't use dark-mode anything. Your pupils dilate more which makes your depth of focus much narrower so your eyes have to work harder to focus. I keep my monitor in Eco mode so it's not super bright which is also a source of strain.

My monitor also has a built in KVM which is super handy to switch between my work Macbook and personal desktop. I love it.

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16824716002

Larger font + sleep + sauna

All of them make a huge difference for me. Sauna is not something that prevents it, but cures it. I can go to sauna after a tiring day and return ready to get going again (regarding eyes).

Have you seen an optometrist?

I delayed getting glasses for a very long time, and the change was shocking from the moment the optometrist dialed in my prescription. Suddenly I knew what it was to see clearly again.

10/10 would recommend

Have a window nearby and look at something far away every 5 minutes or so.

I switched to Solarized Light theme on my machine with night light always on.

When I was using dark mode I felt hella fatigued.

20 seconds of looking at something at least 20 feet away every 20 minutes. (The rule might be every 2 hours - I forget. Doing it every 20 minutes won't hurt, though.)

20mg Lutein per day. It's a supplement you can buy at many online stores.

I use a Mac app called Lunar (https://lunar.fyi) to control the brightness/contrast of my external monitor. The app uses your location to automatically brighten or dim your monitor depending on the time of day. For me, it’s well worth the money. The developer also promptly replied to a question sent via email and solved my problem.

Take a break every 30mins. Stare out a window. Be sure to blink.

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Get a 70 inch TV and mount it on the wall several feet from your desk. Now you're focusing at close to infinity. Put the computer nearby the TV and use a wireless keyboard and mouse at your desk.

  Distant object
      | |
      | |            Close object
      | |                 /\

I use preservative-free (aka "artificial tears") eyedrops every few hours. They're generally used for lubrication/dry eyes and recommended if you're applying more than 4 times a day. Though not directly related to eye strain, dry eyes can contribute to it.

Additionally, I use a Chrome extension that notifies me every 20min that it's time to take a break. I like that it has minimal features (time adjustment, enable/disable) and is only active when it detects you're actively using the computer. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/eye-blinker/fbgche...

I feel like one cause of eye strain might be psychological: I find my eyes mostly strained when I'm overly fixating on something, when the project 'must' be completed, when the bug 'must' be found. My eyes in those moments feel like the fingers of an overly anxious climber who uses way too much power in his grip, and as a consequence tires way too fast.

As the strain comes from tension, the way out of the strain is to let go of the tension, and try not to grip with the eyes but to observe calmly, just as you would calmly observe the water flowing in a river.

Observe how tense the muscles around your eyes, around your forehead are. Observe whether your jaw is tense. See if you can allow your facial muscles to relax while working, and if you can allow your gaze to remain soft. Make pauses to relax the grip (the metaphorical grip on the situation you are in, as well as the actual muscle tension) every time you catch yourself tensing up.

To reduce eye strain, simply use computers less.

- monitor set to lowest possible brightness

- blue light filter always on, on all devices with screens

- ambient contrast lighting. either buy a $5 table lamp and direct it to the wall at the back of your screen, or go crazy with expensive RGB. both work

- k-n-m rule. People say 20-20-20. but any number works, really. regularly stare away from the screen at a distance at regular interval

- use glasses with blue light filtering using ARC

- good sleep also matters

I do all these myself, and never get eye-strain, not even after intense sessions of 14 hours.

I used to work in the ophthalmology field, here are your best and easy solutions:

1. Artificial Tear Eyedrops (look for preservative free). Brands like Systane and Refresh are available at every pharmacy and will do the job. My recommendation for drops would be Optase. They recently released a new drop with ingredients that support restoring the quality and layers of your tears. They are thick and last the longest out of all the brands I've tried. They also come in a bottle while most preservative free drops come in daily use vials.

2. Punctal Plugs. These are absorbable little plugs that are inserted by an Opthalmologist into your lower eyelid where your tears drain out. They will slow down the drainage of your natural tears for 2-3 months until they dissolve and you will need it done again. Just make sure that the Dr is putting in dissolvable ones and also key here is to ask what duration plugs he has available, let him give you options usually it will be either 3 month or 6 month, you want the 6 month just so they last you longer, if you don't specify this they might put in 3 month to get you to come in sooner, usually will happen with private practice.

Optional while at Opthalmologist: Tell them about the red eyes, here in the US they will prescribe you some NSAID, basically an aspirin for the eyes to get rid of redness. It's a very cheap and safe drop to use now and then and great to just have at your house if your eyes flare up before you go to a party or some event. Prolensa is a brand name and Ketorolac is a generic (usually cheaper).

These are your easiest medical solutions. Other people in the thread have given good things to try as well so see what works for you. Take breaks as often as you can get yourself to, and maybe set your fonts a bit larger. Remember to blink! Put in drops every hour or two during a computer session.

If nothing advanced treatments like a drop called Restasis that increases your own tear production after 4-6 months of daily use is available. There's a lot of gimmicky procedures out there to heat up your eyelids and stuff, they are mostly nonsense and have ridiculous cost do not try them. You can buy a heat pad and put it over your eyes if you want to try something like that, Optase also sells one I'll link it all below. Not affiliated just a happy customer.

Regular Optase Drops: https://www.amazon.com/Optase-Dry-Eye-Intense-Drops/dp/B088P...

New drop that has ingredients that support restoring the layers of your tears:

https://www.amazon.com/OPTASE-MGD-Advanced-Dry-Drops/dp/B09X...

Mask:

https://www.amazon.com/Scope-Optase-Moist-Hydrobead-Technolo...

Also if anyone wakes up with red or dry eyes maybe a night ointment will help you (you will be blurry for a bit after putting it in):

https://www.amazon.com/OPTASE-Hylo-Night-Dry-Ointment/dp/B09...

(0) Drink more water, religiously. (1) Ensure you do not have proxy lights (eg. direct and strong sun ingress, LEDs) in your peripheral vision when working on the computer, reading or watching TV. (2) Try to work from a location where there is a distant view, and regularly look away from the computer for a non-trivial amount of time (like 30-60 seconds), focusing at a distance. (3) Close your eyes and relax occasionally, eg. when thinking or brainstorming. (4) Avoid strong, direct, artificial light. (5) Eat your veg!

NB. 25 years+ heavy screen use, no specific monitor setup, no specific desk setup, still no significant eye strain or vision degradation.

I find blue blockers helpful. When I wear mine my eyes don’t get strained at all.

1/ Go on walks for as many meetings as you can. Take notes from your phone. Any meeting I am not leading (1:1s, all hands, staff meetings, etc.), I am walking.

2/ Adjust the light bulbs and their temperature (think warm). Fluorescent lights cause problems for my co-worker.

What helped me may help you as well (but it also may not if your strain is from different causes):

"Decrease blue light form monitor using tools like f-lux"

"I have had lots of success with starring at magic eye stereograms for a minute or two once in a while. Initially I had to learn how to do it but it did pay off. As soon as the 3d image pops out move the eyes around the image including corners as well (also move eyes in circles or similarly to the infinity symbol across the image) while holding the 3d image in view. It's a bit difficult at first but once you learn it becomes easy. And as the more you do it at the beginning and as you get better at it the less you have to do it later on to de-strain your eyes. There's a version of tetris in magic eye 3d. It's challenging and fun. "

"Get further from the monitor, get a larger monitor and increase font size to make it comfortable to your eyes."

"Take eye breaks, stare in the distance through a window if not possible outdoors."

I'm in my 40s and started to have eye strain in my 20s. These helped methods me not reduce eye problems while working in front of a screen. I still have very sensitive eyes so I wear sunglasses even when it's cloudy but I do not yet wear optical glasses yet and eye strain at work is minimal, I don't even need night mode in my apps. At some point the strain was so strong that I was tempted to get glasses but the optician advised me to wait, I remember her saying that once you go that route there's no going back and am glad I didn't pursue glasses. My prescription was a bit like .5 for one eye and .75 for the other one back in my 20s and last time I checked. I assume it worsened a bit but I'm still getting by without glasses without too many issues. I'm expecting my vision to deteriorate a bit more as I get into my mid 40s early 50s.