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Ask HN: how do you prevent computer related eye fatigue?

15 points by oscardelben ↗ HN
Many of us works many hours per day in front of a computer monitor. Eventually the monitor's light may cause eye fatigue and related symptoms and so I wonder if any of you is using a particular method or combination of them to prevent this effect. Thanks

28 comments

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shubhamharnal
www.gunnars.com has a range of glasses to deal with this; I have a pair from them and they really do work.
pxlpshr
I've looked at those, and even called a few of their executives to see who's in charge of TX sales. I had a friendly response but very little follow through, it surprises me that they aren't doing more with geeks TBH. Austin may not be the valley, but I was extremely surprised that I couldn't find a dealer anywhere to try them on.

Can you tell me anything more about your experience with them? Which model do you have? Thanks!

silencio
Newegg actually sells non-prescription Gunnars. I've been looking into those since I'd like a pair of computer glasses to try.

And if you thought finding a dealer was hard, I'm having a hard time finding a dealer that'll do prescription lenses, unless I'm overlooking something completely obvious and all of them can do it with an eyeglass prescription...doh.

shubhamharnal
I apologize for taking sooo long to get back to you on this: I own a pair of Sphere Halogens. I bought them since I felt at the end of the day(having stared at the screen for hours together, that I had eye-fatigue, related headaches and dryness.) After trying out the Halogens for a few days, instant relief! I would say it is totally worthwhile expenditure if you feel eye fatigue; obviously a whole lotta people seem to do good without them...so good for them. They have really helped me alleviate my eye-fatigue and I can now work longer on my computer and follow-up on other things in life after having worked on computers, without feeling burnt-out. Hope this helps.
jpirkola
I have noticed that the surrounding brightness conditions should match with monitor, that way it is not so bad for eyes. I am also using lower resolution to make everything look bigger on screen. Taking a hourly break is a great idea as well.
moe
An excellent tool for the brightness issue is f.lux: http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/
thalur
I second this, although it can be a bit disconcerting when it suddenly changes the colour temperature. Also, it doesn't affect the mouse cursor for me, which ends up appearing slightly bluey green in the evenings.
wesley
I'd like to know. I've been having eye problems for months now. Doctors (I went to 2) just give me eye drops.

My symptoms are a little different though, when I press on my eyes (the upper part) it actually hurts (nowhere else) and when I don't put in drops I'll get a grainy feeling in my eyes, like there is sand in my eyes or something..

Tacomanator
Hearing your account reminded me of when my eyes were burned by accidental exposure to welding light. It was quite painful, and basically felt like there was sand in my eyes for several days. The doctor used a special dye to detect the burns. Probably not the case for you unless you've had a particular exposure, but something to think about..
vlisivka
I use program to force short breaks (see workrave.org). I also use short play of fast arcade game (sopwith to first death, 20-30 seconds) to relax a bit.
pierrefar
I use Time Out on OSX. It forces both long and short breaks.
PeterKovacs
Make sure that you mention to your eye doctor that you stare at a computer screen all day. I have a separate prescription just for the computer and since I got them my eye-strain (not to mention neck-strain and headaches) has all but vanished. You could need a pair of computer glasses even if you don't normally wear glasses especially when you get into your 30s.
pierrefar
One tip I learned ages ago is to look at and focus on differently distant objects regularly. So every 5-10 minutes (now it's a second nature habit), I scan the room and randomly focus on objects nearby and objects at a distance. Focus on 3-5 objects per scan, each at a different distance.

If you have a window nearby, even better: look outside and admire far away things.

Of course, if you get out of your seat and take a walk while looking around, you get the double combo of moving and reducing eye fatigue.

Also adjust the brightness. After a lot of experimentation, I discovered my comfort zone of having relatively dim screens. And get a flat screen!

rodrigo
I was using regular red eye drops on a daily basis, but they seemed to increase the damage. Now i use this natural eye drops made from Hamamelis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamamelis) and they help a lot, seemingly without side effects.
silencio
I was told by my ophthalmologist to not use those red eye drops. I wear contacts half of the day, and I typically use rewetting drops or Systane eye lube... definitely cuts down my cause of red eye and discomfort (typically dry eyes or something in the contacts that the liquid tends to flush out and wetten).
christefano
I play action video games:

  Action video games improve eyesight:
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=540072
Seriously, I make sure that I:

  1. use large displays so that I'm not squinting
  2. have decent fonts to write with (Panic Sans is my current favorite for code)
  3. blink a lot
  4. have a lot of lutein in my diet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutein
manniwood
Agree with poster who said ambient light should match brightness of monitor. I always turn my monitor brightness/contrast WAY down so that I don't feel like I'm staring at a light bulb all day. This simple adjustment does wonders for the eyes.
TunaFish
What worked for me was changing from black on white setup to white on black -- in whatever editor you use, make the background you stare all day black. MUCH easier on the eyes.
dupersuper
I use a program called F.lux to automatically adjust the brightness of your screen based on the time of day and your location. It gradually dims the monitor as it gets later in the day and brightens up in the morning.

http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/

niels_olson
First, keep in mind you may be having symptoms of a refractive error or systemic disease (diabetes, allergies, thyroid disease, etc). So keep that in mind.

I'm forwarding this to a soon-to-be ophthalmology resident fiend. To make his read more functional, please describe your symptoms more specifically.

These are just some questions I came up with. It's not a validated screening tool or anything like that:

When do your eyes hurt? Do you experience loss of vision? Blurry vision? Does it feel like you're in a tunnel? Do they hurt the same on the weekends? Holidays? Summer vs winter? Do you have seasonal allergies? What medications do you take for seasonal allergies? Are your eyes red and irritated? Do you have headaches? Do you feel nauseated? Do you feel physically exhausted, like you couldn't hold your arms up to comb your hair? Do you experiences auras? Have you recently lost weight? Gained weight?

The more people who could answer the questions, the more useful it might be, at least in painting a picture of what the common symptoms are.

This not medical advice. If you are seeking medical advice, you should consult a physician. That said, I'm interested. Having been all the way to an orthopedist and having a office ergonomics study done several years ago (my issue was numbness in my hands, fixed with proper positioning), I empathize.

Here's a search of the PubMed database to get started on further reading:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&cmd=D...

Honestly, my brief survey of the literature suggests that the usual culprits are at play and there's nothing particularly evil about computers:

1) Make sure your terminal and keyboard are situated so you have good posture (that whole sit-up-straight thing really works). Otherwise the strap muscles of your neck and head will definitely get strained throughout the day, leading to a headache.

2) Loose weight. Sleep apnea is a common cause of headache, which may be mistaken for eye pain. Type 2 diabetes is at least partially reversible with weight loss and is famous for causing numerous eye problems.

3) Take breaks. Your extraocular and intraocular muscles move your eyes constantly. 5 times per second. This means two things: "eye strain" probably isn't a muscular problem. 2) A lot of that movement helps monitor your environment and helps your brain construct better 3D representations. Staring at a flat screen of constant brightness may well screw with your brain. This is entirely speculative on my part, but I suspect it is similar to the headaches one gets in the fog on a ship at sea or in the desert: there's so little detail to train your eyes on. Alternatively, it may be similar to the experience of driving at night in the rain. The constant near-to-far ranging and trying to filter rain from road can definitely cause a headache.

4) Most reports are favorable toward anti-glare screens. I think this is at least partially missing the point that antiglare screens are also polarizers that cut down about half the emitted light. At the very least, the two effects are difficult to untangle. I suppose if you have a large window behind you, then the anti-glare value might be helpful. Otherwise, I'd say save your money, dim the screen, and use Flux. That said, one study looked at blink rate as a proxy for asthenopia and found anti-glare coating reduced blink rate. I'm not sure how far to follow that though because the activity was watching a DVD, not actively typing text.

5) Some studies look at age. Not much you can do with that one, my friend.

6) One study looked at environmental vibration. So, I suppose, if you're writing code in a plane or on an oil rig, you should use a larger font. Or find dry land.

7) Think about radiologists. They do pretty much all these things: good posture, dark room, no windows (no glare), they take breaks, and the old doctors (faculty) get new doctors (residents) t...

oscardelben
Thanks for this exhaustive response, I usually feel a blurry vision when I work for more of 2/3 hours with a computer. My symptoms are not very strong but I prefer to prevent instead of cure later when a problem might arise.
vincekrish
For the past few months I have been having problems driving at night after a day's work in front of the computer. I am not able to cope with the bright headlamps of oncoming vehicles, esp. in places where there are no street lamps. On weekends though I find the problem not to be that acute. All doctors I consulted told me that I have perfect eyesight. They suggested I wear anti-glare glasses. But that solves the issue only to an extent. Apart from this issue of driving at night I have not yet experienced any other issues with my eyesight like reading or even driving in daylight. I am curious to know whether anyone else is experiencing the same problem.
dazzawazza
One of the best things to stop fatigue I have is a white board. It forces me to stand up (which is good).

I can walk around and think. I get to use my eyes in a different way and white boards rock. It's great fun.

Everyone get a whiteboard!

jcl
I've read that putting a light behind your monitor helps relax the eyes (i.e. illuminating the wall around the edges of the monitor) -- and it seems to work OK for me.

I think the theory is that it increases the amount of light entering the eye peripherally, which contracts the pupil slightly, helping focus.

corysama
One factor that helps me is to set my IDE syntax coloring schemes to minimize the amount of blue one the screen. Mostly yellow, green and brown text with hilights of grey or cyan on a black background.

Staring at glowing text is much better than staring between the glow in a futile effort to mimic paper. Blue light makes focusing more difficult.