Avoiding Eye Strain – Tips to Help Your Eyes

Eye strain is a common malady in students and working people alike, anyone who puts in long hours using their eyes is subject to it. Your eyes need rest just like the rest of you does. Burning the midnight oil so to speak in doing anything that requires your eyesight, even driving, can put you at risk for developing this problem. What are the symptoms of eye strain? What exactly causes it? How can you help to alleviate it? What are some practices that help to prevent eye strain? Lets take a look at some of the answers that may help. Avoiding eye strain can be tough but it is important to at least try to take steps to avoid it.

Symptoms of eye strain – So, what are the signals to make you realize that your eyes are indeed strained? Eyes that are watery, red, sore to the touch or soreness felt when moving your eyes, blurriness in vision, light hurting your eyes, headaches and neck and shoulder fatigue. The types of headache that can be found in this malady are usually tension headaches along side the eye aches type headache. Sometimes there are vision issues such as seeing images even after looking away from them. Sounds very pleasant doesn’t it? No, of course it doesn’t! Lets learn some more so that we can help avoid this problem.

What causes eye strain? – Any type of extended reading, driving, computer usage, or anything that requires your eyes to focus on a certain thing for long periods of time. Proper lighting is an essential while doing work such as reading or other eye concentrative work, too much can cause glare that will put a definite strain on the eyes, but too little can cause strain as dim light is very hard to see in. Computer monitors can be a bad cause of eye strain.

How can you help alleviate it? - There are a few things that may help to alleviate the pain and other symptoms. One popular way is of course pain killers. A dose of excedrine or advil usually does the trick, but if you don’t want to resort to drugs try a cold compress. The cold will help shrink the swollen vessels in your eyes and let them relax. Some people on the other hand will find a subtly heated washcloth more soothing and relaxing to the eyes. Herbal eye soaks can also serve to bring relief.

How can you prevent eye strain? – There are many things that cause eye strain, but not much you can actually do to prevent it as it may be part of your job or your studies to use your eyes constantly. For computer related strain, try adjusting the resolution and the lighting on your monitor. Also, there are features on many computers to allow for handicapped viewing meaning that you can make the letters much larger so that you can get further away from the monitor thus helping some. Proper sleep and eye rest is important as is taking frequent breaks from the activity, looking away from your monitor frequently is always a good idea when doing computer work. Making sure that there is not a decrease in the moisture also helps to keep your eyes from battling dry air that would only worsen the risk.