The 20/20/20 Rule & Other Tips to Reduce Eye Strain
/Have you ever heard of the 20/20/20 rule? Ophthalmologists like Dr. Jennifer Yang created this as an exercise to protect ourselves from digital eye strain. Learn about the 20/20/20 rule and more tips from her in this video!
Transcript:
How can we protect ourselves from digital eye strain (aka Computer Vision Syndrome)?
So, I think we can all admit that screens are here to stay. This is going to be part of our lifestyle, part of our work schedule and routine. So it's not that helpful to say, “well, just stop looking at screens so much.” It's part of our life. But I think it does emphasize the importance of having a balanced lifestyle so that when you don't have to be at a computer or a screen, you have other activities, other hobbies that you incorporate into your life that can give you that natural break.
The most practical thing is to make sure you do take a break. A break doesn't mean switching from your computer to your phone to check your email or to check your text messages, or social media and things like that. That's essentially the same thing. So when you're taking a break from your computer screen, you have to look at something non-screen basically. It also doesn’t mean that you have to go outside and go jogging or spend a half-hour somewhere outdoors. There's a big middle-ground that you can strike here when you do take a break.
The 20/20/20 Rule
We, ophthalmologists, have come up with a little catchy recommendation that we call the 20/20/20 rule. So basically, every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. So what that does is, usually there's not a screen 20 feet away, so it really makes you look out a window or down the hall and helps relax all those muscles on the eyes that you were using to converge to look at your computer screen up close.
20 seconds doesn't sound like a lot, but I think you'll be amazed that when you count it out, is actually longer than you think. Better yet if you can stand up, stretch, and take a break, obviously, that's all good for other parts of your body too. But at the minimum, every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. So it's a very simple way to get your eyes a regular break.
Eye Drops
Apart from taking a physical break, you can use over-the-counter lubricant drops like dry eye drops to help put down that layer of water that you need or liquid that you need. Just putting a drop in your eye, you’ll naturally blink a little bit as well and it's triggering all the things that you need to be doing to keep a healthy ocular surface.
Adjust Computer Screen Position
One other sort of easy way to help your eyes is actually to position your computer screen a little bit lower. When you are looking down, the eyelids close a little bit and it acts as a natural protector for your eyes so that you're not looking up and the eyes are more exposed. However, this is counterintuitive to all the posture recommendations. I think a lot of people are very conscious about sitting up straight and having good posture. They put their screens a little bit higher so they can look straight ahead or maybe even up to discourage slouching. So that's a little bit of a tricky area. You know, which one’s worse, which one's better, you kind of have to play around with it and see what works best for you. So that's for dryness in terms of other things to take the burden off your eye muscles.
Font size adjustment
You can make the font bigger on your screen, so you don't have to have the smallest font possible. One great thing about technology is that we can contort it, we can kind of adapt it to the right size of what we need.
Reading glasses
You can even consider a weak pair of over-the-counter reading glasses. Even though you may not be the traditional age to really need to have reading glasses, you have enough focusing power on your own to see it. It’s just when you do it all day long, again, the muscles get tired, so if you can take a little bit of the burden off for the entire day with a week pair of reading glasses, that may be helpful as well.
What did you think of the video? Are there any other topics you want our doctors to talk about? Leave your comments or questions below this video. Like and share this video to spread the knowledge! Make sure to subscribe and click the bell to get notified whenever a new video is posted!
Related Links:
Related Videos:
