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Ask HN: How do you prevent eyestrain with daily computer use?

by coned88 on 12/13/20, 6:07 PM with 126 comments

• by Someone1234 on 12/13/20, 7:03 PM

  Simply make text bigger.

  125% DPI or 125% "zoom" depending on the OS/application help with eye strain massively, and it surprises me how few colleagues are willing to try it (e.g. "I can see perfectly, why would I increase text size?!").

  Between that and lowering a monitor's brightness to below 50% (often around 35% depending on brand), are my biggest tips. Windows now has a blue light filter built right in (Settings -> System -> Display -> Night Light).

• by alex-a-soto on 12/13/20, 7:28 PM

  I've invested in using eink monitors from Dasung. I use one in landscape and the other in portrait mode. I experience no eyestrain after making this switch, using a computer for 8+ hours a day.

  My daily driver runs NixOS, i3wm as my window manager, and I've changed the editor and themes of my most commonly used applications to work with the monitors. I recommend the investment.

  https://dasung-tech.myshopify.com/products/dasung-e-ink-pape...

• by burkemw3 on 12/13/20, 7:51 PM

  I got glasses that were focused at approximately the distance my monitor is from my face (~1 arm length).

  I'm near sighted and the monitor starts getting blurry at just the right distance. I have glasses for nearsightedness that are focused very far out (the common case). Wearing them for constant work at arms length really tired my eyes out. So, I'd frequently work without my glasses, but hunch forward a little to make seeing things easier.

  With glasses dedicated for computer work, I can read everything I need to, my body can stay in the position it should be, and my eyes don't get nearly as tired.

  As a side benefit, the glasses help me focus in other areas of my life. I frequently wear them while cooking, and it helps me do one thing at time, as other stuff is blurry.

• by kazinator on 12/14/20, 2:31 AM

  Use a small font that becomes hard to read if your eyes are tired or dry and you start to strain.

  I discovered this decades ago at university. For a time, I switched to a large font, thinking naively that it would help with eye strain. But the problem became worse; my eyes became crazy tired, and it became obvious to me why: I could read the text no matter how tired my eyes were. Heck, I could stare at the screen without even blinking for minutes at a time, and still read the text. So I persisted in marathon hacking sessions without taking appropriate breaks.

  I promptly went the opposite way and used the smallest font I could comfortably read with rested, relaxed eyes. Problem went away. This established a corrective feedback loop. Firstly, I had to blink in order to continue to read. That font size was not possible to read without blinking for a minute. Secondly, straining to read when tired didn't work; I just had to take a break.

• by user5994461 on 12/13/20, 7:16 PM

  * Buy a good screen.

  * If you work on a laptop all day, buy an external screen. (Laptop always have small and often a shitty screen)

  * Adjust the brightness and the contrast. Do a google search to find some colored images with instructions how to calibrate.

  * Quick rules of thumb, you can always reduce brightness to 50% right away. Modern displays are extremely bright and the out of factory settings are insane, sometimes 80% or 100%, it's like starring at a lamppost.

  * In terms of positioning. Your eyes should be at the level of the top of the screen. Large displays (24" and above) can go quite tall even with the feet at the lowest position, it might not be possible to do that, it's okay if your eyes are only at 3/4 of the top of the screen.

• by geocrasher on 12/13/20, 8:04 PM

  1) Don't sit too close to your monitor(s). They should be as far away as they are big, so if it's a 23" monitor, at least 23" away from your eyes.

  2) Place the top of the monitor at eye level

  3) THE BIGGEST: The 20/20/20 rule. Every 20 minutes, look at an object 20 feet (6m) for 20 seconds.

  These three changed my computing life forever, and for the better, especially since I'm on a computer 10 hours a day most days.

  Laptop users- get an external screen or a laptop stand that allows the screen to follow those rules.

• by mburst on 12/13/20, 7:53 PM

  I've been running Flux https://justgetflux.com/ for over a decade now. Windows has something similar built in, but it's not as good as Flux in my experience. Flux has the ability to slower change the hue of your screen over time and gives you great control over it at every level. It also lets you set a notif for when you want to get up so when it alerts me that I'm 8.5 hours away from needing to wake up I know I need to start winding down

• by ajani on 12/13/20, 7:04 PM

  Take a break. Every half hour/hour, look away from your computer. Look at something at a distance. Outside a window. For a few minutes. 5/10 minutes.

  If you can, reduce screen time. No more than 3-4 hours a day. If you can't, take a computer free day every 2-3 days.

  This has helped me more than any setting, or app.

• by unnouinceput on 12/13/20, 8:27 PM

  Get a gaming monitor. One with plenty of Hz (>100) and low GTG (<=2ms). And also don't do compromise at all in this aspect. I remember at Siemens in 2005 I exasperated both my group leader and the IT support staff because in the span of a week I changed like 10 monitors. They said I was the pickiest they ever saw - I told them that's my eyes we talk about and I don't get another pair for the rest of my life.

• by bogidan on 12/13/20, 7:11 PM

  I use slightly weaker glasses. 0.5 diopter less in each eye for my perspective. Even with bad screen habitats and no breaks this gives ~12 comfortable hours on the screens. Reading glasses for the 20/20s!

• by thisistheend123 on 12/13/20, 7:12 PM

  I have a fit band that vibrates every one hour if I have been sitting for as long.

  I make it a point to get up and walk around. Take my eyes off the screen.

  Since the pandemic forced me to work from home, I take this hourly opportunity to get in 30-50 pushups every hour. Also helps with water intake. And takes my mind off the urge to take a tea or coffee break. But now that I think of it, I could've done the same in office.

  Having flux installed also helps.

  You need to reduce the time you are looking at the screen continuously. Realising that has helped me lot.

  Also washing your eyes with water, 3-4 times a day helps. Makes eyes relax.

  Hope this helps, cheers.

• by WillYouFinish on 12/13/20, 9:37 PM

  Water! This might sound a little weird, but I use a nose spray (any atomizer will do) filled with water and spray on my closed eyes when I feel like it. I started doing this this year and it helped me tremendously. No more eye strain!

  Before that I tried EVERYTHING!

  * Dark Mode

  * Night mode (Flux etc.)

  * Changing Brightness

  * Changing ambient light

  * a few different eyedrops

  * Looking away more often

  * Sitting farther away from my monitor

  * Different monitor positions

  * Different monitors

  * Sitting less in front of a monitor

  * Bigger Text

  Nothing helped me. I asked my doctor and he couldn't help me at all. Sprinkling some water onto my eyes? It just works.

  (I guess my eyes are just overheating or something? But honestly I have no idea.)

• by ksaj on 12/13/20, 6:28 PM

  I use dark mode everywhere it's available - even on my cell phone. And speaking of, I found out yesterday that Github now has it. Best news all day!

  I use Logic Audio on my Mac desktop a lot, but it thankfully is in "dark mode" by default. I assume they made that choice knowing that people would be staring at the screen for hours on end.

  I also set my screen brightness to a comfortable level that isn't nearly full blast, and enabled the feature that lowers blue light when the sun goes down.

  Another thing I do: My laptop runs Windows, so I also have Linux running in a terminal on screen pretty much at all times. I let the terminal take over half the screen, which is pretty much where Windows wants to place it.

  However, with my browser (chrome), I stretched it to fill 3/4 or 2/3 (or so) of the screen so that it partly overlaps the terminal, and then set the defaults for a slightly larger font. This allows me to see web-based resources when I'm tooling around on the Linux cli. You have to be careful not to accidentally move the browser window too much that it goes full-screen, but you develop super-human placement accuracy after you've done that a few times.

  Likewise, when I am watching anything that is full-screen, like YouTube for example, I set my laptop on the foot stool so that my eyes can have a different focal length for a while.

  That's about it. I hope other people post some ideas, because I spend way too much time on the screen and so I'm always looking for improvements as well.

• by jakub_g on 12/13/20, 8:25 PM

  Many good advice in this thread already. Personally I'm doing ok with good warm lighting in the room, low brightness/contrast (~60/30 during the day, ~50/25 in the evening), and I activate "night light" mode of Windows once it gets dark; window on the side, take breaks from time to time and use cold water to refresh your face. I wear glasses and as other say, I zoom in the text a lot. Big text makes things quick to read and hence less eyestrain.

  Whether to use dark mode or light mode in text editors/websites depends on the lighting condition around you. I mostly used dark mode now (except GitHub), but I make sure the contrast of the theme is not too big, not too small. But in my prev job we had white room with white everything and lots of light, and I was much more comfy with light themed terminal (although not white; soft bgcolor like HN has).

  On top of that I will add that for some reason for me, mobile usage contributes way more to eyestrain/headache/fatigue than computer use (order of magnitude diff). I can work all day long on a laptop without much issue. But checking mobile, especially as first thing in the morning or in late evening (even in blue light reduction mode), makes me much more tired nearly immediately for some reason.

• by hrafn on 12/14/20, 12:24 AM

  On a Mac, f.lux is not sufficiently strong, what has helped me a lot is to add a strong red color filter (System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Color Filters > Filter Type: Color Tint, set to red, intensity to full). I do the same on my iPhone, it's quite comfortable during the night.

  I also use the QuickShade app which makes the screen darker without reducing backligt brightness.

• by plaxitogrip on 12/13/20, 8:00 PM

  Stick LED strips to the back of your monitor to provide background illumination at the periphery of your screen

• by oblib on 12/13/20, 7:48 PM

  I bought a monitor with a "Low Blue Light" button (it's a "BENQ" brand). I didn't buy it because of that feature and had never even heard of it before.

  My first reaction was thinking it was kind of ugly so initially I didn't leave it on but after a month or so I noticed my eyes were getting strained so I tried it.

  It is ugly, but it makes a big difference. Now, when I turn off the Low Blue Light mode I can instantly feel the strain on my eyes. The picture is gorgeous but it's too bright and intense for work. Since I use several monitors I manually adjusted the others to reduce the blue.

  The biggest downside is selecting colors for design work. The Low Blue Light screws that big time, but after comparing how different colors look on different monitors I decided not to worry about that too much because I have no control over that at all.

• by trilinearnz on 12/14/20, 12:08 AM

  As others have said, increase the size of your text / OS DPI scaling value.

  If you're reading a web page or coding, use the CTRL+mouse wheel shortcut to quickly zoom in and out to suit your viewing preference at any given time. I also frequently adjust the font size of the many notepad.exe instances I usually have floating about. The important thing is making the computer work for your needs, rather than trying adapt to the computer.

  Alternatively, I've had good results by reducing the screen resolution, as counter-intuitive as that may seem. I always used to deride my Father for doing this, but now, in my mid-30's, I see his point.

  Apart from that, try moving the screen away from your eyes a bit more, and try having your f.lux equivalent enabled throughout the day.

• by zwarag on 12/14/20, 9:31 AM

  What works quite well for me is to just take breaks. (I have +7 diopters with astigmatism and all the packages)

  On MacOS there is an app called "Time Out" that dims the screen every 20 minutes for 20 seconds. It forces you to just relax for 20 seconds (you can set it up as you like). In the meanwhile you can either look at something that is far away (several meters or a good reason to learn metric), or just close your eyes and lean back.

  There might be other Apps for other OSes but if you're into Arduino you can just smack a LED on the board and let it light up every 20 Minutes for ~20 seconds to have a reminder.

  Additionally, I take a break every 4 hrs for at lest 20 minutes and go for a walk in the park, cook something, cuddle the cat or whatever.

• by fileeditview on 12/13/20, 7:37 PM

  There are already a lot of good tips here. However I see that many people advocate dark mode everywhere. I think this is a bad idea. I think it puts a lot less strain on your eyes when your screen has less contrast to your room.

  What that means is that I use a light theme for my editor during daylight and when my room gets dark and I realize that my screen "becomes bright" I switch to a dark theme.

  Also I can recommend night mode. Gnome and others have this out of the box. What it does is fade your screen to more reddish colors when it gets dark.

  Also don't use too small fonts.. this sometimes seems to be like a contest for coders: "Look i have font size 7. I need to scroll less".

  And also don't use too low contrast color schemes.

• by grae_euler on 12/16/20, 7:01 AM

  General advice:

  -Get a decent monitor (not necessary, but I prefer the wide curved ones like this[0]) and increase the font size. I never went back to my 12" laptop screen after I discovered larger monitors with big font.

  Specific to day time use:

  -Try and avoid glare. You can place your screen in front of a large source of light and turn up the screens brightness.

  Specific to night time use:

  -Use applications like Redshift or f.lux to reduce blue light as much as you can.

  -Reduce the brightness of your screen.

  -Try and get ambiant light, such as a difuse lamp or something, behind your screen to illuminate the area surrounding your work space.

  These usually work for me. Best of luck!

  [0] https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z18siG3rrBg

• by GaryGapinski on 12/13/20, 9:46 PM

  I use a 43-inch 4K TV as a monitor located about 30 inches from my eyes. I've been using such for at least a decade, and would never return to a tiny porthole facing work of interest (such as a laptop, which is comically unsuited to serious, prolonged use).

  I do use prescription glasses ground for that working distance and strongly recommend that (prescription lenses).

  I recently (four weeks ago) had to replace the monitor/TV and spent more than a short while choosing comfortable typeface, font size, and RGB/BGR pixel ordering.

  As some others have mentioned, if one's eyes are strained, corrections are warranted. I do not deliberately practice frequent distance gazing, but I suspect I do so unconsciously.

• by frankus on 12/13/20, 7:09 PM

  It depends a bit on what type of eye strain you’re experiencing.

  Dry eye typically comes from not blinking enough. It can also be worsened by blepharaitis (inflammation of the eyelids).

  If you feel like you’re straining to focus (and you haven’t already), you should see an optometrist and get computer glasses.

  I have a pair that I wear occasionally, and I find them especially helpful with low-res (e.g. medium to large 1080p) displays. On that note consider getting a 4K or better display, especially if it’s larger than 20” or so.

  Finally there’s the so-called 20-20-20 rule, which is to focus on something at least 20 feet (6m) away for at least 20 seconds at least once every 20 minutes.

• by spodek on 12/13/20, 8:06 PM

  Has anyone tried to improve eyesight using the techniques in Getting Stronger: https://gettingstronger.org/2014/08/myopia-a-modern-yet-reve... ?

  They seem plausible -- certainly that populations that don't look far away seem to need to correct their vision more, which implies behaving differently could lessen or reverse the effect. But I don't know of them being tested. I'm curious to get n higher than 1 before devoting resources to it.

• by manaskarekar on 12/13/20, 8:18 PM

  Buy a monitor that offers flicker free backlight brightness control.

  Read up on PWM flicker in displays and their effects.

  It’s one of the biggest factors yet ignored by most folks.

  This is different from the refresh rate of your monitor.

  This and the other tips mentioned in this thread.

• by auganov on 12/13/20, 7:49 PM

  Screen time itself shouldn't cause eyestrain. Reading is the most likely culprit. Pay attention to when you're actually exerting your eyes. For example, when trying to read a very small font you should feel your eyes working harder. See if reading a larger font feels easier. But sometimes it could be something more subtle like reading technique. Perhaps you're fixating on words or some details for too long.

  I hardly ever get eyestrain. But when very focused on a task for long hours, I find I may inadvertently exert my eyes more. Never happens with casual reading.

• by daneel_w on 12/13/20, 8:10 PM

  Wear terminal eyeglasses and keep the screen at least 1.5 meters away.

  This type of eyeglasses are not for helping with poor eyesight. They're specifically for reducing strain on the eyes when focusing at short distances for longer periods of time, which is the core of the problem.

  Before I got a prescription for such - which has completely solved the problems I suffered for a long time - I had to resort to tricks like taking frequent breaks just to focus my eyes on things at longer distances, which is only a band-aid rather than an actual solution to the problem.

• by username90 on 12/13/20, 10:50 PM

  I think it has more to do with diet and such than anything else. Healthy people can look at monitors every hour every day without experiencing any eye strain.

  For example spiking your blood sugar causes inflammations around your body, and when that happens in your eyes it hurts and they get blurry so it feels like you are strained. To avoid that eat better and exercise regularly. If you already do those things and are in good shape you can start searching for other fixes.

• by maltalex on 12/16/20, 7:45 AM

  I haven't seen it mentioned, but there's also dedicated computer eye-wear.

  My eyesight is 20/20, but I did start suffering from some eye fatigue and dryness recently. What worked for me was a pair of cheap computer glasses off amazon that "block blue light". They're clear and don't affect color vision, so I don't know what (if anything) they in fact block, but the improvement is noticeable.

  I'm not going to name specific brands, but

• by tiimbz on 12/13/20, 7:19 PM

  Take breaks and focus your eyes on something further away - for example by looking at something outside.

  The app Stretchly (free, open source) can display periodic reminders to take breaks from the screen. [0] I can't recommend it enough. It worked well for my RSI too. Alternative apps are Workrave or Workpace.

  [0] https://hovancik.net/stretchly/

• by jhallenworld on 12/13/20, 8:02 PM

  You have some degree of presbyopia and need weak reading glasses. As you age the auto-focus capability of your eyes (called accommodation) degrades. Look for the depressing graph in this article:

  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004269899...

  This is incredibly annoying.

• by ashtonkem on 12/14/20, 5:04 AM

  I made two changes.

  1) My regular prescription glasses now have a blue blocking coating. It gives them a slight yellow tint that I don’t notice, and it noticeably reduces eye strain (but does not eliminate).

  2) Bias lighting behind my monitor that lights up the wall behind it. Staring at a bright screen in front of a black wall is no bueno, bias lighting at least alleviates the contrast between the two.

• by m3kw9 on 12/13/20, 8:40 PM

  Every so often, listen to your body. Do you feel tired? Feel your eyes if they are dry, or uncomfortable. Some ppl can go longer on a screen, you just need to find your range and make sure you don’t over extend those all the time. Rest them by doing a completely different activity for a few minutes.

• by qz2 on 12/13/20, 7:02 PM

  Walk away regularly and do something else

• by tuanacelik on 12/14/20, 5:55 PM

  Sorry if this has been mentioned in a previous comment, there are many!: what I find really useful is f.lux for lighting and colour. Especially makes a difference later in the day. I noticed I couldn’t fall asleep after a long d’au staring at the screen and this really helped...

• by user0x1d on 12/14/20, 1:30 AM

  Can’t believe nobody mentioned Safe Eyes [0] yet. It’ll periodically suggest eye exercises. Game changer! [0] https://github.com/slgobinath/SafeEyes

• by petr25102018 on 12/13/20, 7:26 PM

  Other people are already commenting what to do while you work, I will tell you what to do when your eyes are already tired. Go to finish-style sauna. Whenever I am tired after a day with a computer and go to sauna, it completely resets me.

• by PinkMilkshake on 12/14/20, 12:14 AM

  For me, the biggest factor seems to be whether or not I've had enough sleep. If I haven't, my eyes get sore, my brow feels tense and text has a "shimmer" to it. A nap is often enough to fix it.

• by vuciv1 on 12/13/20, 6:52 PM

  i use dark mode everywhere plugin on firefox. it messes up some sites, but its rare and the tradeoff is good.

  I also use f.lux on one of the highest settings. it is jarring at first, but you get used to it and save your eyes

• by peter303 on 12/13/20, 11:12 PM

  I have a window behind my computer. Every once in a while I glance outside and refocus my eyes.

  It import not to have the sun shine in this window at the times you do this. That causes eyestrain too.

• by URfejk on 12/13/20, 6:49 PM

  Use f.lux, redshift or some other alternative.

  You can thank me latter.

• by savorypiano on 12/16/20, 3:34 AM

  Nothing makes my eyes feel as good as getting outdoor time does, really. Just make sure to mix in walks during the day.

• by lwh on 12/14/20, 1:40 PM

  Cut screen time to the shortest possible. Stop every hour look at random distances, stretch your neck and shoulders.

• by junaid1460 on 12/14/20, 6:04 PM

  we wreck our eyes to that level where computers have no chance to do any harm anymore.

  JK. Often a nap helps.

• by RMPR on 12/16/20, 3:19 PM

  Heard good things about GMG performance[0] ordered one today, might worth a look

  0: gmg-performance.com

• by pipiscrew on 12/14/20, 5:13 PM

  use this application https://iristech.co/iris-mini/

• by endori97 on 12/13/20, 8:05 PM

  OLED, ColorVeil, nightmode

• by Mockapapella on 12/14/20, 9:55 PM

  Dark mode for everything

• by brandonmenc on 12/13/20, 8:41 PM

  Bias lighting.

• by ehejsbbejsk on 12/13/20, 7:49 PM

  I am going to suggest Eizo (and similar high end) monitors. High quality and uniform monitors do wonders for prolong use. You might also want to use greyscale-only on alternate days if your work can accommodate it. Last but most important, train yourself to blink 2x more often.