Healthy eyes are bit of a fixation for me. With all the buzz lately around blue light I started doing some digging. My theory is it’s less about blue light and more about all our time doing close up activities.
I started wearing glasses at 10. I remember being very impressed at the beauty and detail of tree leaves once I had glasses – what a gift! Also, what a pain. Glasses don’t have peripheral vision, they fog up (and break when hit with snowballs…), they get lost, etc… Contacts were the next step at 15 and wow! sports were easier, my teenage self-esteem was delighted, but there are still downsides. Water sports with contacts are risky. Beach volleyball – sand in the eye hurts anytime, add a contact lens to the equation and it’s disaster. LASIK in my late twenties was PERFECTION. Being able to wake up and read the clock, amazing!! For me, by the time I had LASIK, the big E on the eye chart was blurry so it felt miraculous to me to be able to see anything, anytime. Now that my eyes were “fixed” I didn’t think much about it – other than to frequently marvel how amazing it was to be able to do things like spot a dolphin on the horizon.
In my mid-thirties I started noticing that in the morning I could see quite well, and by evening I wasn’t sure I should even be driving! I now had a constant nagging fear, “had my LASIK worn off”. I was really fearful of having the surgery re-done (emotional fears, not logical fears) and I was terribly disappointed at the prospect of needing glasses and contacts again. Off to the eye doctor.
Good news, my vision was still excellent, 20/20. The cause of my evening vision issue was hours in front of a computer without reading glasses – even though I didn’t need them. Turns out mild reading glasses keep your eye muscle from having to contract as much during the day and therefore makes it easier to relax for distance vision. My eye doctor prescribed a mild reader (+.75) – to which I added a rose tint because…why not…and my eye strain significantly improved.
Now, in my forties I’m starting to need reading glasses for real, and I’m noticing some distance fuzziness. My last visit in 2018 did lead to a mild distance prescription and I’ve been experiencing morning fuzziness again. If you’ve been picking up on the theme, I started digging for info. I want to keep my distance vision as long as possible, and I do NOT want to have LASIK again (as before, emotional fears, not logical fears).
So – my working theory is close up work without a mild prescription is tough on our eyes, here are some ways to protect our eyes.
- 20-20-20 guideline – every 20 minutes take a 20 second break and look 20 feet away (I’m using Timer+ from iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/timer/id391564049?mt=8))
- Blue light blockers – my research leads me to believe blue light is more impactful to sleep but can’t hurt to wear blue light blockers too. (I just started using ANNRI (https://www.amazon.com/ANRRI-Blocking-Eyestrain-Lightweight-Eyeglasses/dp/B07GRPXNX4)
- Eye exercises – my logic is if the reason my eyes got blurry in my 30s was the muscle being too contracted, then “stretching” should help – anecdotally I notice a difference (link below)
For more info:
“…But according to Rahul Khurana, an ophthalmologist and clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, digital eyestrain and the negative effects of blue light on your eyes are two separate concerns. “We keep on thinking about blue lights from our computers and smartphones, but the reality is we get more exposure from blue light from the sunlight.” It’s not the blue light that’s making your eyes feel bad after a day of staring at the computer — it’s staring at a screen for hours without breaks. That’s why he doesn’t recommend any special eyewear for daily computer use. “Ultimately, I’m not really sure how it’s going to help with digital eyestrain, which really is what’s bothering people,” says Dr. Khurana”