How do you protect your eyes during work.
I ask as a programmer but I think it would be beneficial for every kind of experience (color, docs, ect.).

I'm in my early-to-mid 20s, A few years ago I had a perfect eyesight, but in the last two years I've literally fu*ked it up. And now my eyes often feel tiered, I'm almost sure that I need glasses (I should go to a doctor).

So in order to raise awareness of that problem I'm starting this topic(and of course to understand what others do). I work for 8 hours a day,after work I usually code for 2-3 hours (this obviously extremely stupid and I partialy(or more) regret it).

I used to take a walk 3-4 times for about 5 minutes while at work, in order to give my eyes a little rest. but in the last ~1 year I didn't do this every day(especially in the summer) and if I do it is just once for ~10-15mins.

So again, what do you do to protect you eyesight?
Any exercises?

Do you take any breaks, and if so how often?

Do you have a diet?

What color themes do you use?
Anything else?

Look at something at least 50m away for 30 seconds every 10 minutes.

Get your eyes tested, it is cheap and at least you will know.

I am 48 now and have lived on computer screens since 1980s, many of those years with very long exposure to screens.

I take breaks but not always have done many long long stints days on end at the screen, depends on the task I am doing and how into it I am. I also game so many days it is a LOT of time at screen

I use dark themes (black backgrounds) where possible as I find they cause less eye strain but might just be a hangup from green screen days.

I have f.lux on most machines I use, this sets warmer colour temp at night, less harsh than the pure white/colder colour temps most people all the time.

I wear glasses and eyesight has got worse over the years but have worn glasses since childhood and most of the degradation is age related lol

That said, I know when I have stressed my eyes as I get a thumping headache, then I know its time to step away lol

Look at something at least 50m away for 30 seconds every 10 minutes.

I've heard of something like this before, the 20-20-20 rule.
Every 20 minutes look at something 20 feet away from you, for at least 20 seconds (so, 20s or more).

This is supposed to help with eye strain.

What I usually do, since I'm on a computer all day for work too and am light sensitive, is I turn the brightness down on the screen and when I have to I remove my glasses. I'll even write out the code or general structure of the program I am writing on on paper first and look at the paper as I type to reduce the amount of time I Am looking at the screen. On top of that I increase the font some so my eyes aren't straining as hard to look at the words on the screen.

f.lux is definitely worth downloading; I've found it more useful for being able to get to sleep than for the sake of my eyes, but I tend to keep the brightness low anyway.

I try to get up and move around every half hour or so. Having my dog in my office at work helps, since I usually need to take a break to walk her or entertain her every hour or so anyway.

Make sure your screen isn't (too much) brighter than the surrounding environment.

Make sure your screen isn't (too much) brighter than the surrounding environment.

Any environment where my screen can be brighter that the environment is not an environment I want to work in. I always max out my brightness and mostly work near a window/fully lit environment. Also, I like light themes. I know dark themes are way cooler, but I find light themes to be much less straining.

Would love to see some science backed stuff on this, but I'm too busy staring at my screen 12 hours a day :ph34r:.

Your eyes evolved for seeing. They're incredibly intelligently designed for that purpose. No choice of colour, no lighting, no shapes or content will have a deleterious affect on your eyesight. You mom was wrong.

Focusing at desktop screen distance for hours at a time has never been shown to affect long-term ability to focus, despite the truthiness of what you may have read in opinion pieces on the internet. It doesn't hurt to take a break for all kinds of reasons, but avoiding eye damage is not really one of them.

Some people get eyestrain when trying to focus under certain circumstances. Eyestrain is in fact the muscles around your eyes, not your eyes themselves, and often is a result of squinting in order to (a) adjust the shape of the eye or (2) reduce the aperture into effectively alter internal focal length. Both of those should be alleviated by corrective lenses. What that generally means is you have a preexisting condition that you're trying to compensate for, not a condition caused by staring at your screen. Get your eyes tested.

It's a fact that most people's eyesight deteriorates over the years. I keep getting my bifocals strengthened, and I find I now need them to use a lot of computer screens for work (damn high-res displays, get off my lawn). Your eyesight is not the only thing that deteriorates when you hit your 50s though, and it's all been happening since long before computers screens were invented. There is no correlation between computer use and deteriorating eyesight.

TL;DR don't worry about it, you can do it as much as your want and it's not going to make you go blind.

Make sure your screen isn't (too much) brighter than the surrounding environment.

Any environment where my screen can be brighter that the environment is not an environment I want to work in. I always max out my brightness and mostly work near a window/fully lit environment. Also, I like light themes. I know dark themes are way cooler, but I find light themes to be much less straining.

Would love to see some science backed stuff on this, but I'm too busy staring at my screen 12 hours a day :ph34r:.

I've heard that if you have astigmatism light themes are beter or vica-versa. But there was a study on that topic, as far as I remember.