General: Coping with Eye Strain

Anyone who has been monitoring my Twitter feed will be aware I've been having some trouble with my eyes recently. I use computers a lot - like every waking moment - so it's not surprising that I get eye strain almost all year around.

When it comes round to the summer, it gets too bad to cope with - so much so that I've had to take days off at a time because I just can't look at a computer screen for more than 5 minutes. Not only do I get eye pain stopping me from taking the visuals in, but it will be accompanied with a head ache so severe that I can't think straight or hold a decent conversation.

Why it seems to be at its worst during summer, I'm unsure. Certainly the bright sunlight doesn't help matters - I've always found myself sensitive to bright lights and this makes me frown and squint a lot (which can cause headaches).

The other possibility is that it could be Hay Fever related some what. I certainly don't have the typical symptoms of this, but it's entirely possible I could have sinus congestion which makes the headaches worse.

So my first trip was to the opticians. After forking over £21, I was told my eyes were identical in prescription to how they were some 18 months ago. I'm 0.5 dioptre short sighted. Frankly this is so little that most people wouldn't bother, so I don't. I tried getting glasses 18 months ago when I last had an eye test and they didn't help at all - then I promptly lost them...

I've tried gel tears, sprays, baths and drops. None of it really helped in the long term, although did alleviate some discomfort for a short while. A final talk to the doctor and he said that there was nothing I would get out seeing a consultant and it was "just eye strain". His suggestion? 20 minute breaks every 40 minutes... In other words "do less" - the classic doctor response. Try taking 20 minute breaks every 40 minutes and see how productive your day gets...

Anyway, this is what I've done to help reduce my problems - maybe some of this might help you too?

Medication

Of all the drops I tried, the gel tears worked the best and can certainly help relieve things slightly. I think dry eyes are a secondary symptom of the problem and these seem to stick around the most. Certainly, when playing games such as Guitar Hero - I become very quickly aware of the fact that I don't blink much, so I try and make a conscious effort to do so. According to my girlfriend Hannah, I also sleep with my eyes partially open which can also cause dry eyes.

I've had a small amount of success with decongestants - either Sudafed (I went for the stronger Pseudophedrine hydrochloride) or a bowl of hot water with a Karvol tablet in it. Put your head over that with a towel and breath it in,

Monitor Adjustments

This is where I found the most success. I previously had my brightness to 100% and then scaled the contrast in order to the most colour accuracy. I did this originally using a website with a colour chart. I have now bought the brightness all the way down to 0% (which is remarkably bright still) and the contrast to 40%. This seems to maintain most of the colour accuracy whilst significantly reducing the strain on my eyes. This was instantly noticeable. If things get too bad, I'll also wear a pair of sun glasses (yes, inside).

The next on my mind was the position of the monitors themselves. I have a large desk and to make the most of it, I had the monitors pushed almost all the way to the back and wondered if this was a problem. Googling for the topic turned up only a few results - but a HardOCP thread suggested RTFM. So I found the manual for my monitor and was surprised to find advice on positioning near the back.

Upon measuring, I realised I was close to double this distance away. Bringing them as close as suggested seemed a little extreme though - mainly because I have two monitors and I started to get neck ache moving between the two. I'm now around 60cm from the monitor when sitting in my chair in the correct posture. If I lean forward, I can get even closer. This is using two 22" Samsung 225BW monitors.

The downside is that I've lost a considerable amount of space on my desk, so I'm looking into getting some monitor arms, which will recover some of this lost space.

Desktop Background

The problem with interesting desktop backgrounds is that it can get very difficult to read the icons on a desktop. My solution to this was to edit the background in GIMP. I added a layer over the top and flood filled it with black (it could equally work well with any colour). I then adjusted the opacity of this layer to around 75% (IIRC). This faded the whole picture and allowed the icons to show up better.

As you can see here, I can still make out the lovely Katy Perry in the background, but it's a lot easier to make out the icons! Who would have thought Katy Perry and subtlety would go so well together?

Exercises

Eye strain is caused by being focused on the same point for extended periods of time. If you have a google (or a bing - dare I say?), you'll find plenty of exercises to help with this. One I found was holding your thumb in front of your face and shifting focus between your thumb and an object 20ft away. No particularly easy to do in my office mind you.

Exercise as a whole, is a common doctors recommendation. Hitting the gym certainly meant I could rest my eyes a little - as long as the air conditioning wasn't put on too high, and this is a good general stress relief.

Rest and Relaxation

I often find my eyes are at their worst when I've been really putting the hours in. Right now, Think Bikes is booked up every weekend and I'm working hard during the week too.

A decent lie in did wonders for my eyes - but it's not an overnight cure and within a few hours things were back where they were. It's very difficult to find activities to do that don't involve your eyes. Watching TV/Films are traditional, but don't help your cause. Driving doesn't help either. Instead I found going for a walk, swim and steam helped the most. Closing my eyes and playing guitar has also been a good activity and also helps me get the chords without needing to see my hands

Finally - I have booked a short holiday to go and see my parents in Italy. 4 days with no technology to give my eyes a much needed break.

Oh dear, another casualty of the dreaded eyeball miasma!

The distance is what I find helps the most and having the right glasses set to a slightly longer focal length. Only some opticians will make these up, independent ones usually.

"Use large icons", deffo, that really helps, even if your whole desktop is covered. So what, all that real estate may as well be used usefully.

"Control/scroll". Make it bigger! trying to read long texts without paragraph breaks is really painful. I tend to look at the keyboard when typing, mainly due to poor spacial ability to find the right key. This does mean a break from looking constantly at the screen and doesn't really make much difference time wise.

This monitor is just plain awful! I guess iiyama have gone down hill with this one, but I'm still trying to find a decent replacement for this 22" wide thing the manufactures call a monitor! Any suggestions would be most welcome. (Up to around £250 or so)

Something here may help Spode, I hope you have a good holiday and give those peepers a rest.

I could be wrong - but is she long sighted?

I'm short sighted - so why would I make a difference to computer use?

Hi Spode, interesting post, last summer I lost close to a month due to eye issues... the same story as you, couldn't spend 5 minutes in front of a monitor without
excruciating pain, at one point I thought that I'd have to find a new career, cos after all what was the point in developing a career in something thats going to cause you that much strife, its no fun living with constant headaches. In the end it was the monitor trick that worked the most for me, I drop the brightness to zero and just pop it up occasionally if I need to check colours, but once my palette is set, then back to zero it goes.

I also did some shopping for a new laptop and secondary monitor as I found a huge fluctuation between manufacturers and models, the best for me turned out to be this acer I'm on right now. It seems to emit considerably less light then my previous dell config, while still offering fairly good screen definition.

...just as yourself, when I went to get medical help, the only advise I was given was take regular breaks. Thats really great advise but completely unworkable for most of us, as I'm sure you and many of your readers know, once you get knee deep in pixels or code, it sucks you in, escape is impossible, the only thing that will get you away from that task is falling of your chair with tiredness, or world collapse.

Another discovery in all of this, was ambient room brightness, I found contrasting light the primary aggravation for example if my monitor was bright in a dull / dark room, or trying to work in very bright conditions, even if thats just a beam of direct sunlight in an otherwise shaded room, it seams that my eyes flicking between the two extremes causes the biggest problem.

KrazyIvan suggested some back lighting, for me this didnt work well, as i'd find that that light source would bounce off the screen and increase the light intensity on my eyes

A happy end to the story is by managing room and monitor light levels I can code well into the night, and all the next day