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Tag: tired eyes

9 FAQ’s re the effects screens have on your eyes.

Double vision after time on screen?  

To understand why this happens, we need to look at Binocular vision.

Binocular vision occurs when using two eyes with overlapping fields of view, allowing for good depth perception.

It allows us to see in 3D which is vital for coordination and hand-eye skills.

Depth perception is incredibly important (you wouldn’t be able to catch a ball without it), plus the fusing of two images gives us a wider view.  One eye can give us roughly a 130-degree field of vision. With two eyes, we can see 180 degrees.

However, digital display screens make the eyes work hard.

It’s like a gym session that lasts the entire time you are on screen.  This tires out the eye muscles that are involved with binocular vision, to the degree that the binocular vision stops working as well, hence the tired eyes and double vision.

 

Tired eyes after scrolling?

Let’s look a little more at those poor muscles we mentioned when describing binocular vision.  

 The eye muscles involved in reading and writing are called the extra-ocular muscles.

There are six extraocular muscles.

 

” The contributions of the six extraocular muscles are to vertical and horizontal eye movements. Horizontal movements are mediated by the medial and lateral rectus muscles, while vertical movements are mediated by the superior and inferior rectus and the superior and inferior oblique muscle groups”.

 

Every movement that your eye makes, be that looking up from keyboard to screen, looking from one side of the screen to the other, these muscles are responsible.

And, as we’ve already mentioned, looking at a screen for longer than you should, tires out these muscles, leading to screen fatigue – dry eyes, blurred vision, double vision ( as mentioned above), and headaches.

image of the extra ocular eye muscles
Eye muscles

 

Asthenopia. What does this word mean?

It means eye strain. It’s the medical name used in Ophthalmology to describe the fatigue or tiring of the eyes, usually characterized by discomfort, dimness of vision, and headache, caused by overuse of the visual organs, dysfunction of the ocular muscles, and incorrect refraction.

You will see it referred to a lot in articles about computer eye strain, and it involves those muscles we’ve just mentioned.

 

Is my bright screen damaging my eyes?

In a nutshell, yes.

From one of our blog posts:

“ (eyesight) is effectively disabled by “Glare”. Think of how you screw up your eyes and want to look away at bright headlights in the dark.

If there is also a flickering light which can trigger photophobic reactions, or very high contrast and/or very low contrast that causes discomfort,  this prompts visual stress with avoidance strategies such as looking away,  and natural “adaptations” due to eyestrain will appear.

They must, as your body is trying to defend itself. The warning signals of this will be loud and clear – pain, headaches, blurry or worse double vision, dizziness, migraine, even nausea and vomiting”.

We know more now since the pandemic started, but this quote is from TIME magazine in 2014.

Dunaief says. “There’s evidence that bright light can damage your retinas irreversibly. That might mean staring at a computer screen that is very bright could damage your eyes.” He says there’s also some experimental evidence indicating regular exposure to computer-strength light could be damaging in similar ways.

We firmly believe your digital display screen should come with a warning. 

 

Why do some colours hurt my eyes?

The human eye evolved in nature and is perfectly suited to looking at it and its natural colours. That we can apparently see over 4 million colours  ( some sites say over 7 million), is another interesting fact. But there are colours that  will make some of us look away in discomfort,

This post from social media is a case in point:

“I don’t like bright or flashy colours. I just despise these colours with a strange passion. These colours hurt my eyes every time I look at them”.

Pure lemon yellow is said to be the most fatiguing colour.

Why?

It’s all down to physics and the wavelengths of different colours and how your visual system interprets them.

Again, this is well known, as these two websites show.

 Worst colour combination for designers and this one,

 Eye pain pallet Please do NOT look at it if you know that bright, neon colours cause you visual pain/stress.

 

Can colours cause visual stress?

Yes, as we have seen in the snippet above. And we have an entire post about it and why it’s important to calibrate your screen, not only for brightness, glare and font size, ( all things that can cause visual fatigue/stress if not optimised for you), but glaring colours tire you out.

 

Best background colour to reduce eye strain?

For this, we need to look at colour contrast.

Colour contrast refers to the tone, brightness and amount of text, images and background on a webpage or website.

The simplest explanation of colour contrast is black text on a white background. If you have black text on a pale purple background, you still have colour contrast, but it is to a different ratio than black on white, and your visual system will react differently to it. Some will find it easier to read, others won’t.

And when it comes to colour contrast, you need to let your visual system decide this.

As we are all unique, your visual system is unique, and what works for you will not work for anyone else. Plus, a colour you may love, your visual system may not love it as much if it’s a background colour – for hours.

So, we suggest you find out using our Display Screen Optimiser and find the optimal coloured background for your Microsoft/Windows applications.

It takes just over 15 minutes, has a downloadable theme for Windows, and within the hour you can start to prevent your eyesight from being badly affected by your screen.

 

Exercises/hacks to prevent screen fatigue?

Most of us work with PCs, laptops etc, and despite the advice to not spend more than an hour or two per day looking at one, that’s not feasible in 2022.

 But there are things you can do to mitigate the harm.

The most well know is the 20-20-20 – and we advise this strongly.

The 20-20-20 involves looking away from your screen, at something 20 feet away, for 20 seconds.

There are also apps to remind you to take a break from your screen and we have a list of things you can do now, to help your eyes and prevent screen fatigue/computer vision syndrome/computer eye strain.

 

How far away should my screen be?

 This is interesting, as we have regulations about setting up your office space, the ergonomics of it and how to do it – refer to DSE Regulations 1992. But what about your eyesight? Well according to one post we found, it doesn’t matter how close you are to your screen visually, it matters more about how you feel, and how easily you can read/see the screen. And when you think about how close we are to our phone screens, they can sometimes almost be in our faces.

This means it’s going back to the symptoms we have described so far and taking a break from your screen to let your eyesight recover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Screen Fatigue, Computer Vision Syndrome or Computer Eye Strain. Do we have an invisible pandemic?

 

You can call it what you like; you can diagnose it as whatever you want – but it’s a vast, unacknowledged problem that’s only getting worse. 

Call it blurred or double vision – or call it by its medical name, AMBLYOPIA in children, and PRESBYOPIA in adults.

 

But it refers to the gradual loss of eye-muscle stamina to sustain “convergence and accommodation”, when focusing on the near indoors or close up on the screen. This could be in any indoor space, less than 20ft in size, with little natural daylight.

It could be at the office, or at home.

Reading and working in these conditions leave you with tired eyes, and generally fatigued as your eyes do their best to adapt.

The eye muscles become tired and then stop working as efficiently.

Some of us will experience stress-related vision suppression over time.  Others will wake up one morning effectively monocular, living in a 2D world without depth. This is because the image from one eye has been ‘re-directed’ somewhere else, leaving the other eye dominant.

The visual system and brain process that dominant “single image”, ignoring the other fainter double image.

 

 

Then there’s Astigmatism, the suppression of the vision from one eye, with or without visible lazy eye.

Strabismus; misalignment of the eyes or unstable alignment of one eye

Asthenopia; weakness, or debility, of the eyes or vision

The list goes on and on, and you can find out more @ WHO ICD-10

Call them by their generic or medical names, but all are mirrored in Computer Vision Syndrome, more commonly known as Screen Fatigue, tired eyes and/or eyestrain.

Screen Fatigue/Computer Vision Syndrome is the name given to a cluster of symptoms that arise from looking at a digital screen for prolonged periods.

The symptoms can include eye strain, dry eyes, headaches, overall tiredness with reduced productivity, blurred vision, and often includes other musculoskeletal disorders, e.g. a sore, stiff neck, from being unable to sustain an ergonomically comfortable posture while struggling to see clearly

 

Screen fatigue is also cognitive fatigue.

The visual system has to work harder processing uncomfortable, distorted, blurred or double images, demanding more blood-oxygen as fuel to the brain to support the additional processing demand.

The more ‘close up’ work you perform, the more oxygen is required, the more fatigued you become, and round and round it goes.

It’s a thoroughly unpleasant merry go round.

28% of the population are immune from eyestrain or vision stress. Still, the rest of us, the 72% are not, and so easily succumb to visual repetitive stress fatigue and/or stress-related adaptations.

We are at a four to seven-fold increased risk of earlier onset of associated adaptations when over-exposed in early life or later to the near indoors and/or close-up at our school desks and on-screen.

China and now Instagram are seeking to introduce Exposure Control Measures, either by cutting off access to the internet after a period or having pop-ups advising “Take a Break”.

Instagram is bringing this in due to political pressure. China, for the simple fact that they are noticing 80% of students are graduating with severe myopia.

Linked to the ‘take a break’ concept is the well-known occupational health advice of the 20-20-20 rule for DSE operators (look away from your screen every 20 minutes, at something 20 feet away and for 20 seconds) when working with standard, unmitigated, inaccessible display screens that have not had their contrast optimised for the user in education or the workplace.

 

Computer Vision Syndrome is serious.

For example, in 2007, 58% of Display Screen Equipment users suffered from vision issues related to their screens.

What’s the number now, as 2021 draws to a close?

But more importantly, what can be done about it?

Sure, we put the smartphone down, look away, and take a coffee break. We all know about not being ‘online an hour before bed’, and many of us know about getting out and moving about in natural daylight – but how many of us actually do this?

But unless we adjust the screens we are looking at, we go straight back to the problem. 

It then becomes a repetitive stress injury.

 

We need to adjust our screens because colour and light play a massive role in screen fatigue and cannot be left out of the conversation.

Researchers became aware of colours and sensitivity to light in the 1960s. As more and more has come become evident, we realise that every one of us experiences colour and light differently.

 

We use light; we don’t necessarily ‘see’ it. Instead, we interpret the waves of colours that surround us individually, as we interpret the speed at which they uniquely arrive in our visual system.

One person will see glare; another will not.

One person will find dark purple hurtful for their eyes; another will not.

 

Photosensitivity is an immune system reaction triggered by sunlight, which unsurprisingly

manifests in a high degree of visual discomfort and, for some, may trigger migraine, fits or convulsions, especially when presented with flickering lights/screens or strobe lights, or even sunlight flickering through trees beside the road, depending on the speed of travel.

 

Irlen Syndrome,  first described by Helen Irlen, is a sensory disorder of how the brain interprets bright white light, whether reflected off white paper or from an illuminated background to text on-screen.

 

Visual Illusions are often created by playing with light and dark or shadows to challenge our visual perceptions and constructs of the brain’s typical or expected responses. Experience of typical images can also leave impressions on the retina interpreted as changing colours.

 

We all experience these differently, to one degree or another.

But Helen Irlen spotted a connection between visual stress and visual stress relief.

 Through trial and error, she found that existing or early-onset eyestrain when reading could be relieved by selecting the best effective contrast other than a “high contrast white” background to text. The ‘normal’ white background with black text is painful for many.

Clashing contrasts of often unnatural (as in not found in nature) colours are uncomfortable and painful for many.

Hence her coloured overlays and coloured glasses for reading, aimed at reducing glare, and thereby reducing the discomfort experienced by the brain and visual system.

Other pioneers in colour therapy, including Arnold Wilkins, have sought similar methodologies for subjectively selecting the best contrast, thereby improving reading skills and abilities.

No one should experience vision stress, discomfort or painful headaches when reading.

 

 

But this is where ScreenRisk has joined the dots but flipped the script.

We don’t do the things we are supposed to do for our health, and in 2021 our lives are run through our screens, and those screens are damaging our eyes and causing us stress.

Understanding that many visual issues are replicated in screen fatigue and understanding that we are all unique in interpreting light and colour means we need an individualised response.

Knowing that stress affects the eyesight and all parts of our body and that digital screens that we are now addicted to cause cognitive fatigue – we created the DSO.

A tool that considers all of the above and chooses the best-coloured background objectively for your eyesight and visual system, providing you with that coloured theme for your screen.

Objectively choosing means your body, not your personal colour preference, selects the optimal colour that soothes your visual system. Reducing all of the above stresses also means that you are not repeatedly self-harming when working/studying online.

 

 

The induced near or close-up indoor eyestrain and 3D vision stress, created and exacerbated by hours on-screen, where no reasonable adjustments have been made, can be mitigated.

 It’s simply a question of joining the dots as to what’s going on and then creating an app to make the eyes and visual system as comfortable as possible.

 

 

 

Do you have screen envy?

(And no, we are not talking artfully crafted zoom backgrounds or the latest, coolest green screen design, we are talking about something else, entirely.)

Years ago, I spent many hours training our outreach “Colour Therapy Practitioners” to administrate Digital Literacy Sessions.

 

This consisted of first popping the trainees on the binocular eye-trace kit, and using them(selves) as guinea pigs, they pretty quickly realised how much effort is required from their eyes / visual system to sustain, complete, or repeat the sequential, serial, fixations and saccades – essentially focussing and refocusing  –  necessary to read fluently.

 

It was experiential learning at its best.

 

Then, not only did I have converts in terms of the learned experience of what it feels like to have easier relatively stress-free access to text but, engaged learners for the remainder of the course who were far from indifferent to the outcomes and impact they potentially had on their clients.

 

That was in the early days, long before developing the technology and knowing how and/or who was competent and experienced enough to create an AI driven, online version, mirroring our practitioner lead administered Dupree ‘Display Screen Optimiser’ (DSO).

 

When I was contracted to work with a company, I was always surprised by the number of individuals participating who were convinced that they didn’t suffer vision stress or eye strain. They were adamant they were fine and were only taking part because well – take your pick, the boss said they had to, they wanted a cream bun and time away from the desk, safe from discovering anything new, or, they were open-minded, while still firmly believing they didn’t have a problem, and this really didn’t apply to them.

 

And it never failed to astonish me how many physically and emotionally reacted to finding their ‘optimal colour values’ as a more accessible and less stressful contrast to the text.

These were people that believed they had no issues working on a display screen, they believed any discomfort they were experiencing was part and parcel of work, and so had never taken steps to rectify them.  As far as they were concerned, any discomfort was normal for display screen equipment operators. They were unaware that they were self-harming.

 

This fact didn’t amaze me, it saddened me then, and still does to this day. This discomfort is often being dismissed as a temporary visual anomaly, and all will be well after a good night’s sleep.

 

So, you can imagine their surprise, as they took the test and went from not knowing how much stress they were actually under, to feeling their shoulders dropping and relaxing, their respiration and heart rates slowing, all coinciding with improved, measurable gains in accessibility or reading rate of the subject text on-screen, as we came closer and closer to their optimal colour.

 

This occurred so often, it soon became normal that post-session, over a cup of tea or as they were walking out the door, those involved would admit to not knowing how stressed they must have been and had experienced feeling butterflies in their stomach when we reached the optimal most visually comfortable colour value for them.

 

Their body knew before they did.

 

Even more surprising for them was that their optimal colour was often nowhere near their favourite colour. (Another reason why our DSO is objective.)

 

Then, of course, there were some adults who, at first presented as poor readers. Having discovered they could read fluently with the right colour contrast, they would then understandably become very angry and want to know why no one found this out when they were at school, convinced their life chances would have been significantly different had that been the case.

 

In this digital age,  which is now considered the ‘new normal’, we are so used to the conventions of dark text on a bright white background, flashing images and stark colour contrasts on websites that we naturally assume there must be something wrong with us.  If we find it visually uncomfortable, sustaining convergence and accommodation (focusing) while reading text on screen, why are we not asking – is there something wrong with the screen?

This should be one of our first thoughts.

 

2021 is going to see an increase in digital use, in education and the workplace ( interesting that this Forbes article cites a safe workplace as the number 1 priority, and perhaps working from home should be included there?) But whatever the latest trends, online is very much here to stay, and this means you need to take care of your eyes.

 

Would you consider driving a new car or operating unfamiliar equipment without adapting it to your needs? Be those comfort, safety, or both. Yet nobody does this with out of the box display screen equipment, so they carry on regardless of any discomfort and then wonder why they are fatigued, depressed and have sore eyes at the end of the day.

 

Our eyes have not evolved to stare at unnatural screens all day.  They evolved for our survival in nature. For muted colours, soft lines, not harsh vertical or horizontal stripes but distant horizons and watching our hands work.

 

Out of the box digital devices need reasonable adjustments from the generic settings, and they need to be adjusted to you – you that is the unique individual reading this post.

 

You will have an optimally synchronous colour contrast that minimises vision stress for your eyes, that also reduces the associated risk of physical stress, related to the ergonomics of your working environment.

 

If you are curious about your optimal colour contrast, you can find it using the DSO – (we only charge £1 to help cover admin costs – and one doubts you could find a decent cuppa or java for that price.)

 

Due to the emotional and physical reactions I’ve observed, for our next stage of research and development, as a therapeutic tool, we are working toward including remote Biometrics Screening in combination with Binocular Eye-Tracking. At present, we are having to depend on body-worn sensors for biometrics but, we hope to achieve remote status in due course.

But here’s the ask from us and why we are only charging the price of a cheap coffee for a product that will change your life.

Your assistance with the collection of interactive anonymised data, will be highly appreciated as this data will not only be used in Proof of Concept, but will go toward getting a head start with “machine-learning”.

We won’t be selling your data to the highest bidder; we will be using it to help people read better on screen.

Would you agree to be the subject of screen envy?

 Would like to boast that your colour contrast background is unique to you, that it’s helping you mitigate the risks of screen fatigue/ computer eye strain/ computer vision syndrome (one wonders what they will call it next), and it’s helping your reading rate and giving you a wee boost in productivity – (around the 20% mark, which is not to be scoffed at).

 

Will you help us to help you, to help others?

 If it’s a yes –   Please try the DSO, then rate and share your personal experience of the DSO, that also cunningly complies with ISO 30071.1, DSE Colour Contrast Calibration –  optimising your screen ergonomics for accessibility and, mitigating the degree of risk linked to vision stress, eye-strain and visual repetitive stress injuries presenting in vision suppression, myopic or asthenopic adaptations.

We look forward to reading your reviews!