In the past year, a large portion of my income has shifted to my online endeavors. That means more and more time in front of screens. There are good things and bad things about that. On one hand, technology allows me to work from anywhere. On the other, I pretty much have to stare at a screen during the hours I’m producing income-earning work.
I was starting to feel the effects. My sleep was messed up, which was making me crazy grumpy. My eyes were starting to dry out, and I started noticing that my vision was declining. It was odd because the next day, my vision would get about +20HP. Then by evening, I’d be squinting to read again.
I’m not the only person who has had odd health problems after switching to online work. After upping the ante on her online work, Sarah started having trouble with sleep, too, and got an insane migraine. Ruth recently had to take a step back because of a headache that lasted almost a week and neck pain.
The Mayo Clinic lists all of these as symptoms of eyestrain, with one of the biggest causes being too much screen time. Both Sarah and Ruth were advised by medical professionals to make a few changes, including cutting back on screen time. I didn’t go to the doctor, but I’ll get to why in a minute.
The good news is that eyestrain in itself will stop if you just stop doing things that are bad for your health, like staring at a computer screen all day. Screens of all kinds, including tablets and phones, create blue light, which is terrible for your health.
But for those of us who can’t just stop using devices because we’d lose our living, Harvard Medical School has another suggestion: wear glasses that block blue light when you’re in front of a screen.
Typically, when you shop for blue light blocking glasses, you get something like this:
Super dork!
Or something that will turn your whole world orange:
I picked my frame, the Caitlin in Black Blue Raspberry:
And they are awesome. I can see again, consistently, and I don’t even have prescription needs. My eyes no longer dry out on a daily basis. And, the most surprising part to me, my sleep patterns are about a million times better.
I thought my sleep was messed up because I lead a busy life, and just wasn’t getting enough of it. Then it got better after I started wearing the glasses, and I found out it was one of the symptoms of digital eyestrain. It turns out, I do have enough time for sleep. I just need to prevent the blue light from messing up my sleep patterns.
When I look through the glasses, I don’t notice anything different. It feels like I’m just wearing a clear lens. But when I hold them up to a screen, I can see that they’re literally reflecting away the blue light. I made a video to show you what I mean:
If you’re not having symptoms of eyestrain, it’s not a bad idea to take preventative measures because the symptoms aren’t fun. If you are, I’d highly recommend trying out blue light blocking glasses. Let’s face it: not looking at a screen isn’t an option for many of us.
In my opinion, the product is well worth the price as I’ve been seeing some immediate results. It’s also not the most expensive product on the market, especially if you try to get the same thing through a doctor. If you choose to buy from Phonetic, which I also recommend, you can save 10% by using code: FEMME10. (Just be sure to use all caps as it is case sensitive.)
Have you ever experienced eyestrain? What did you do?
This post is in partnership with Phonetic Eyewear. Regardless, all opinions are 100% honest and 100% my own. Using the promo code not only saves you money, but also supports this blog.
It’s funny I wanted to be a programmer when I was in High School, but back then the idea of sitting in front of a computer all day was still pretty foreign to most people, and I really hated the idea of staring at a screen 8+ hours a day. So I ended up in various sciences majors instead, eventually got to program a bit and learned I enjoyed it a lot. Now I’m in Electrical Engineering… and I mostly stare at screens all day… nice. You can’t get away from it very easily anymore.
I don’t think I’ve experience eye strain yet though. Just the animals that wake me up randomly throughout the night, and jump on me at 6 in the morning. I vaguely know what it’s probably like to have kids. One of the cats has to cuddle with me under the blanket, he wakes me up randomly trying to get under the blanket.
I’ll keep them in mind, I have prescription glasses that have some coating on it for computers, but I think it’s only for glare not shielding blue light.
It’s crazy how much things have changed so quickly, isn’t it? I’d wager most of us earn our income using some type of device. So glad you haven’t been having symptoms! Like I said, I love this as a preventative measure as I went a while before having recognizable ones, too, but if you want to wait, you know where to come should it ever happen!
Some unsolicited advice should you ever have kids and be able to pull this off: have an alternating schedule for sleep with your partner where one of you is nocturnal for the first couple months. Did not do that the first time, and it drove me crazy. You won’t see much of each other for a little while, but you will both actually get to sleep! I’ve never worshipped my bed so much.
I might try this next! I tried that fl.ux program but it just irritated me more to have my screen changing shades on me.
Yeah, this is a good alternative. Plus it can be used across devices… Computer, phone, tablet, etc, so you don’t need a new product for each one!
That’s so crazy. I never thought that any of my issues sleeping might be connected to the amount of time I spent on my computer that day.
Yeah it’s insane. And surprising! I highly suggest checking out that Harvard link. It talks a lot about cicadic rhythm including a host of other possible health consequences.
Wow, who knew? I’m definitely going to have to check these out next month after I get LASIK done, don’t want to be undoing the work of lasik with eyestrain.
For sure! I’d want to do everything I could to protect that investment!
I know I definitely have had problems with computer screens and they have gotten worse as I’ve gotten older, or maybe just as I spend more time looking at the screen. I’ll have to see what I can find that can complement my existing glasses, since I have to wear them all of the time anyway.
They come in Rx!
This is such a good idea. Matt and I both stare at computer screens all day for work. We haven’t noticed any odd health problems yet, but might be better to start using these glasses now so we don’t develop any!
Definitely! It was a rough couple weeks there, and sleeping was hard for a while, so I wish I had headed it off before it started!
Are these glasses prescription glasses? Or can they be? Really great idea!
They can be! I don’t have Rx needs, so mine were not, but they most definitely come in prescription!