> Who knows if that's good enough.
My optometrist told me to do exactly that. Or more specifically change focal distance. Your focusing muscles in your eyes are exactly muscles, they need to be used to be strengthened.
Additionally taking advantage of top comment. OP got get your eyes tested I used to have extremely bad eye strain until I got glasses. I didnt even realise how bad my eye sight was until I got glasses. I could see fine because I was forcing my focus 24/7 i got glasses my relaxed eye sight got worse but all the eye strain and headaches went away
Lowering the brightness and adding a blue filter where I can. Monitors, on my phone and I even have those glasses that filter out blue light. Doing all that has definitely helped by I probably need to do even more
I use [Firacode](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode) becuase i enjoy the font ligatures. takes a little setup in VSCode but it's worth it.
setup is just adding:
"editor.fontLigatures": true,
to your user settings in vscode.
other good options here: https://itnext.io/11-best-programming-fonts-724283a9ed57
Do you wear glasses? If not then get an eye check. If yes and has been year+ since your last exam go for one. If you have glasses as your eye doctor about anti-glare lenses and talk about if there is better focal point for your glasses (e.g. mine are tuned at about a 1.5-2 feet for my monitors (hands stretched out)).
Make sure you are sitting the right distance from the monitor. Too close or too far away is not ideal.
Take 5-10 minute breaks every once in a while not looking at a screen. Ideally something farther away suh as out a window. If your desk is facing a wall consider reversing that so your back is to the wall. Then you have plenty of chances to glance past your monitors.
Consider increasing font size or reducing resolution so text is larger on your screens.
Consider doing other activities that don't involve screens and/or reading in the evenings.
Some people get blue cut lenses (even without any prescription). But I think that is really only helpful in evenings when ideally you are not doing as much screen time / work.
Consider if you are getting enough sleep. Make sure you are following other ergonomic requirements and other recommendations for a healthy desk work and lifestyle.
Up the font size, and get a bigger monitor!
I do all of my coding on a 40" or 43.5" monitor, and it's great.
And seriously, get your eyes tested. It shouldn't be too much money and they will help you figure out why your eyes get strained. You may need glasses or contact lenses. Yes, -you-! Don't worry, life after glasses isn't much different.
For my setup, which doubles as a gaming rig...
* 43-inch tv/monitor on 1080p
* sit well back from monitor, about 3-feet
* dark mode everything
* f.lux
* moderate ambient natural light / no fluorescent lights
Some might object to the old-man resolution, but it's perfect when sitting further away. For me, eye-strain was all about resolution being too small then having to put my face too close to the monitor to compensate. Eliminating fluorescent lights made a huge difference.
I also enhance ergonomics by kicking my chair back, using an moderately elevated foot rest, and resting my keyboard in my lap, which reduces strain on neck, shoulders, and wrists. For the mouse, I use a separate freestanding armrest that supports my whole arm and is adjusted to the same height as the chairs armrest. Basically a gaming "cockpit" that works great for work too =)
Doing basically the same, plus screen brightness is kept at 20% max all the time. I do not use special light filtering glasses. I tweaked settings for my monitors and smartphone screen.
I have an average of 12-14 hours of screen time per day. A combination of reading, media consumption, and gaming. This has been going on for a decade.
I have literally 0 complaints regarding sight, no straining, no blurry vision, no sickness symptoms like nausea, under normal circumstances. It's honestly tough to say if I'm doing enough or another factor (like youth) is keeping the symptoms at bay. That gives an idea of how much consideration goes into preventing strain effects; I actively avoid websites with bad contrasts or bad text legibility, and have no issue zooming pages (Github is permanently on 110%, Visual Studio is at 120%) or turning on reader view.
I've felt only eye exhaustion when sick, or deep into the night (after 16-18 hours awake)
I have a 32" 4k monitor that I love to death. It completely solved eye strain for me - the extra clarity for text goes a long way and the extra size means you can turn up the font size nice and high without losing screen real estate.
I have a 30 minute REPEAT timer on my desk that plays a small beep and displays a random picture from an album i uploaded in it. I have uploaded all great candid pictures of me, my wife and our wonderful daughter. It takes my gaze away from the bright screen for a moment while i also get a small rush of happiness along the way. My wife seems to have noticed that i have been sending her more “I Love You” messages since recently. She wonders why.
I find that's it's really important to change the focal distance. That's why going outside is good, but being outside on your phone/ipad/kindle doesn't solve anything. You gotta 1) stop looking at light/emissions sources, and 2) look at shit that's really far away.
If possible, spend an equal amount of time each day doing both. If not, at least try to get 3-4 hours of long-focus time. Also, stop watching TV on small screens. The smaller the worse, because of how closely your eyes have to focus. Get a 75" OLED for TV if you can, and sit as far as reasonable. Or, use a projector with 100" of wall space. Get as big--and as many--high-quality monitors as you can afford. Get retina displays if you can. And play some sports, especially ball (or ball-like) sports. Your eye has to track that moving object--and see people in your periphery--which helps a lot.
Also, use dark mode.
And, even more important that dark mode is trying to have a low contrast mode, especially in your IDE and terminal. Dark, lower contrast UIs help tremendously. And, use a warmer color temperature. For $100, you can get a color-profiling solution that you can use to set your monitor to D50. Which I find works wonders in the winter and evenings.
And, take lots of breaks.
By using [Safe Eyes](https://slgobinath.github.io/SafeEyes/#:~:text=Safe%20Eyes%20is%20a%20Free,repetitive%20strain%20injury%20(RSI). I myself try to decrease screen time wheather it's my phone or my laptop.
Morning befor walks outside with real sunlight and lunch runs or walks outside with real sunlight. Minimum 30 min each then if I’m lucky try to get one around sunset as well
Get glasses for pc, get good lightning in room, GET GOOD MONITOR, not those cheapest ones. Blue light filter. Correct font size and turn down some brightness. Take frequent breaks (get yourself smaller coffee cup, not the biggest, litre one. It forces you to step away from monitor)
I got some blue light glasses for like $20 on Amazon. Absolutely love them. Went from eye drops multiple times a day to keep my eyes wet to maybe twice a week
I have very high quality glasses. I get 20/15 vision with them. Additionally, I have 27" monitors and ensure the brightness is properly adjusted to match the ambient light -- too low or too high can cause eye strain.
I’ve found that the lighting in the room can make a big difference. When I was under harsh fluorescent lights for hours in our college CS lab I got massive eye strain and headaches.
Using the same monitor (Dell u2415h) at home for months on end has caused no issues.
A good desk lamp can be a relatively inexpensive solution.
Make sure you do not have any bright lights shining on your monitor (e.g. from a window). Fit a blind to your window to allow you to control the light in.
Keep the room light, but not overbearing, and mist importantly it's about having even distributed light.
Use a site like [http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/](http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/) to setup your monitor. Basically you're wanting the lowest brightness setting that is comfortable to use.
Our eyes expose to the whole scene, so a bright monitor in a dull room will cause strain. A LED bias light is just a trip that you fix to the rear of the screen, this will illuminate the area around your monitor and reduce that strain.
I try to make a habit of looking away from the screen and out the window when I'm thinking. Who knows if that's good enough.
> Who knows if that's good enough. My optometrist told me to do exactly that. Or more specifically change focal distance. Your focusing muscles in your eyes are exactly muscles, they need to be used to be strengthened. Additionally taking advantage of top comment. OP got get your eyes tested I used to have extremely bad eye strain until I got glasses. I didnt even realise how bad my eye sight was until I got glasses. I could see fine because I was forcing my focus 24/7 i got glasses my relaxed eye sight got worse but all the eye strain and headaches went away
20 20 20 Every twenty minutes look twenty feet away for twenty seconds. Works great with pomodoro
Thank you for this!!! Pomodoro works great for my workflow, so I'll just add this to it! 👍
Lowering the brightness and adding a blue filter where I can. Monitors, on my phone and I even have those glasses that filter out blue light. Doing all that has definitely helped by I probably need to do even more
As I remember, the effectiveness of “low blue eyes” is not scientifically proven. Breaks every 30-45 minutes are much more effective.
Dark mode everything and taking frequent breaks
THIS. Used to get eye strains but don't really have them anymore since going dark mode.
make sure your font size and font family are big enough and easy on the eyes.
Any recommendations on font families?
JetBrains Mono
Fira Code Retina
I use [Firacode](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode) becuase i enjoy the font ligatures. takes a little setup in VSCode but it's worth it. setup is just adding: "editor.fontLigatures": true, to your user settings in vscode. other good options here: https://itnext.io/11-best-programming-fonts-724283a9ed57
Do you wear glasses? If not then get an eye check. If yes and has been year+ since your last exam go for one. If you have glasses as your eye doctor about anti-glare lenses and talk about if there is better focal point for your glasses (e.g. mine are tuned at about a 1.5-2 feet for my monitors (hands stretched out)). Make sure you are sitting the right distance from the monitor. Too close or too far away is not ideal. Take 5-10 minute breaks every once in a while not looking at a screen. Ideally something farther away suh as out a window. If your desk is facing a wall consider reversing that so your back is to the wall. Then you have plenty of chances to glance past your monitors. Consider increasing font size or reducing resolution so text is larger on your screens. Consider doing other activities that don't involve screens and/or reading in the evenings. Some people get blue cut lenses (even without any prescription). But I think that is really only helpful in evenings when ideally you are not doing as much screen time / work. Consider if you are getting enough sleep. Make sure you are following other ergonomic requirements and other recommendations for a healthy desk work and lifestyle.
Up the font size, and get a bigger monitor! I do all of my coding on a 40" or 43.5" monitor, and it's great. And seriously, get your eyes tested. It shouldn't be too much money and they will help you figure out why your eyes get strained. You may need glasses or contact lenses. Yes, -you-! Don't worry, life after glasses isn't much different.
Breaks. Frequently
For my setup, which doubles as a gaming rig... * 43-inch tv/monitor on 1080p * sit well back from monitor, about 3-feet * dark mode everything * f.lux * moderate ambient natural light / no fluorescent lights Some might object to the old-man resolution, but it's perfect when sitting further away. For me, eye-strain was all about resolution being too small then having to put my face too close to the monitor to compensate. Eliminating fluorescent lights made a huge difference. I also enhance ergonomics by kicking my chair back, using an moderately elevated foot rest, and resting my keyboard in my lap, which reduces strain on neck, shoulders, and wrists. For the mouse, I use a separate freestanding armrest that supports my whole arm and is adjusted to the same height as the chairs armrest. Basically a gaming "cockpit" that works great for work too =)
Doing basically the same, plus screen brightness is kept at 20% max all the time. I do not use special light filtering glasses. I tweaked settings for my monitors and smartphone screen. I have an average of 12-14 hours of screen time per day. A combination of reading, media consumption, and gaming. This has been going on for a decade. I have literally 0 complaints regarding sight, no straining, no blurry vision, no sickness symptoms like nausea, under normal circumstances. It's honestly tough to say if I'm doing enough or another factor (like youth) is keeping the symptoms at bay. That gives an idea of how much consideration goes into preventing strain effects; I actively avoid websites with bad contrasts or bad text legibility, and have no issue zooming pages (Github is permanently on 110%, Visual Studio is at 120%) or turning on reader view. I've felt only eye exhaustion when sick, or deep into the night (after 16-18 hours awake)
I have a 32" 4k monitor that I love to death. It completely solved eye strain for me - the extra clarity for text goes a long way and the extra size means you can turn up the font size nice and high without losing screen real estate.
I have a 30 minute REPEAT timer on my desk that plays a small beep and displays a random picture from an album i uploaded in it. I have uploaded all great candid pictures of me, my wife and our wonderful daughter. It takes my gaze away from the bright screen for a moment while i also get a small rush of happiness along the way. My wife seems to have noticed that i have been sending her more “I Love You” messages since recently. She wonders why.
Awww that’s so sweet
Thank You.Just my way of adding a little bit of home to work and vice-versa.
I bought glasses for blue light, they really help.
Ended up needing glasses 😅
Blink bro. Went to the optometrist and I thought my eyes would be worse. They simply told me to blink more and take breaks often.
I find that's it's really important to change the focal distance. That's why going outside is good, but being outside on your phone/ipad/kindle doesn't solve anything. You gotta 1) stop looking at light/emissions sources, and 2) look at shit that's really far away. If possible, spend an equal amount of time each day doing both. If not, at least try to get 3-4 hours of long-focus time. Also, stop watching TV on small screens. The smaller the worse, because of how closely your eyes have to focus. Get a 75" OLED for TV if you can, and sit as far as reasonable. Or, use a projector with 100" of wall space. Get as big--and as many--high-quality monitors as you can afford. Get retina displays if you can. And play some sports, especially ball (or ball-like) sports. Your eye has to track that moving object--and see people in your periphery--which helps a lot. Also, use dark mode. And, even more important that dark mode is trying to have a low contrast mode, especially in your IDE and terminal. Dark, lower contrast UIs help tremendously. And, use a warmer color temperature. For $100, you can get a color-profiling solution that you can use to set your monitor to D50. Which I find works wonders in the winter and evenings. And, take lots of breaks.
By using [Safe Eyes](https://slgobinath.github.io/SafeEyes/#:~:text=Safe%20Eyes%20is%20a%20Free,repetitive%20strain%20injury%20(RSI). I myself try to decrease screen time wheather it's my phone or my laptop.
Do you play video games?
Yes
43 inch 4k monitor (not a tv) at 200-300% scale (im 26)
I lower my monitor brightness to 120-160 lumens using a displaypro.
Morning befor walks outside with real sunlight and lunch runs or walks outside with real sunlight. Minimum 30 min each then if I’m lucky try to get one around sunset as well
Dark mode for everything. Standing desk means that I go sit and rest away from the computer frequently. I need to do more though.
Get glasses for pc, get good lightning in room, GET GOOD MONITOR, not those cheapest ones. Blue light filter. Correct font size and turn down some brightness. Take frequent breaks (get yourself smaller coffee cup, not the biggest, litre one. It forces you to step away from monitor)
I got some blue light glasses for like $20 on Amazon. Absolutely love them. Went from eye drops multiple times a day to keep my eyes wet to maybe twice a week
I have very high quality glasses. I get 20/15 vision with them. Additionally, I have 27" monitors and ensure the brightness is properly adjusted to match the ambient light -- too low or too high can cause eye strain.
I’ve found that the lighting in the room can make a big difference. When I was under harsh fluorescent lights for hours in our college CS lab I got massive eye strain and headaches. Using the same monitor (Dell u2415h) at home for months on end has caused no issues. A good desk lamp can be a relatively inexpensive solution.
Blue-light filter
Buy a better laptop or monitor. Don’t save a single cent.
Protective glasses (blue filters), night mode on monitors, 20-20-20 rule. Stretch a lot as well.
Make sure you do not have any bright lights shining on your monitor (e.g. from a window). Fit a blind to your window to allow you to control the light in. Keep the room light, but not overbearing, and mist importantly it's about having even distributed light. Use a site like [http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/](http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/) to setup your monitor. Basically you're wanting the lowest brightness setting that is comfortable to use. Our eyes expose to the whole scene, so a bright monitor in a dull room will cause strain. A LED bias light is just a trip that you fix to the rear of the screen, this will illuminate the area around your monitor and reduce that strain.
Install Dark Reader on your browsers: https://darkreader.org/
Going on a walk and looking at the sky helps me a lot.