How to Protect Your Eyes from Your Mobile Screen

Experts have said that you can’t actually damage your eyes permanently by looking at your mobile screen. However, prolonged exposure to your mobile or tablet screen can cause some bothersome side effects.

Do any of these symptoms describe you after a long day at work?

– Eyestrain

– Blurred vision

– Headaches

– Neck or Shoulder Pain

– Dry Eyes

– Increased sensitivity to light

If any of these things describe the way you feel on a daily basis, then you may be suffering from computer eye strain or digital eye strain. If you consider that some of these symptoms can actually affect your eyes, more studies should be done between cell phones and vision problems. They could actually affect you more often during the week, if you’re at work, looking on a computer screen, but could have a detrimental effect on your performance, mood and well-being. While not permanent, these types of problems could be with you until you’re able to take steps to reduce it.

The reason for this is that mobile phones, computer screens and other devices emit blue light when you look at them. This is what is causing you to get that headache or feeling the need to rub your eyes from a large amount of strain.

What is Blue Light?

Without getting too scientific about light, there are many different spectrums of colored light that can be seen. Blue light is the lowest the visible light scale, closest to ultraviolet light, and it has a low amount of electromagnetic radiation. Waves on the higher end of the spectrum, such as red, will have longer wavelengths and less energy, whereas the ultraviolet light has shorter wavelengths and more energy.

Since blue is on the lower end of the spectrum closest to UV, these rays have higher energy than others and scatters far easier because it’s not as easily focused. This creates visual “noise” which can reduce contrast and contribute to eye strain.

Don’t be fooled into thinking this is something new though, because blue light is everywhere! In fact, sunlight is the main source of blue light and most of us will get the most exposure to it outside. Due to the fact that we often work in buildings with fluorescent lighting, see LED lights on a daily basis and use mobile phones and tablets so often, we are over-exposed to blue light.

While we could directly blame everything in our immediate surroundings, it’s also important to understand that the eye isn’t actually that good at blocking blue light either. The eye blocks UV rays from reaching the retina at the back of the eyeball, but does almost nothing against blue light, and that’s a problem. Having said that, blue light is not all bad. We need it too. It’s essential for good health, helps memory, cognitive function and also helps to elevate your mood.

You may also notice that you perhaps don’t get a great night’s sleep when you’ve been up watching TV or browsing on your phone. Blue light is important for regulating the circadian rhythm too. This is your body’s natural wake and sleep cycle. Exposure during the day will help keep the rhythm healthy, but too much light at night can disrupt your cycle causing fatigue.

With all of that information in mind, it’s rather important to be able to learn how to protect eyes from mobile screen blue light, reducing the brightness and stopping those pesky headaches or dry eyes.

Dealing with Blue Light

The simplest and perhaps most effective way on how to protect eyes from mobile screen usage, is to simply use a blue light filter. Many of the newest phones on the market, especially those from trusted providers such as Samsung, LG, Apple, HTC and OnePlus will have a blue light phone filter included in the software of the phone.

The blue light phone filter will decrease the amount of blue light displayed on the screen, giving it a warmer feel to it. This filtering will stop the suppression of melatonin production (the hormone that helps you to sleep).

While using a phone in the dark is bad for eyes, there are ways in which you can circumvent that. Should your phone not have the blue light functionality, you’re able to buy phone covers that have a darker tinge to them, which will reduce the blue light in its own way, which is a nice alternative to buying a new phone with a blue light filter.

Blue light glasses are another great alternative to adjusting phone settings. These glasses, typically luminescent yellow, have been designed for you to work countless hours on your computer or look at your screen for a long while before suffering any of the same side effects. The glasses are relatively cheap, and they save you having to go to each and every device to ensure the blue light filter has been switched on.

Interestingly, there are a lot of apps that you can access that have the option to add a blue light filter to your phone. These are relatively inexpensive and will work on just about any phone if you get the right software from the Google or iOS store.

Should none of these blue light solutions be the right one for you and you feel like you’ll be willing to pay any kind of money to stop the blue light from your TV in bed at night, you can always consider a blue light blocker. There are screens available that you can place over your TV in order to block the blue light, but you can also get your hands on something like driftTV, a top sex box that you plug your TV into. With this, it will filter the blue light from your TV and reproduce the picture without it while you’re watching. It generally costs a lot more than any other solutions, but it makes a difference as a last resort, especially if you don’t seem to interested in going for the cheapest option.

How to Protect Eyes from Mobile Screen

Strangely, blue light isn’t the only thing that can harm your eyes on a short-term basis. We’ve compiled a list of things that you can do in order to protect your eyes outside of getting a blue light phone filter or getting blue light glasses.

1. Use Proper Lighting

Using your phone in the dark is bad for your eyes. If you can, try to browse your phone when it’s light. A lot of new phones have an automatically adjusted light setting, but these are also too slow sometime. What you want to do is be prepared for it and use your phone on a low brightness setting at night, or just switch on your bedside light. It will make such a big difference to your experience. Thankfully, this doesn’t happen too often at work as most office spaces will be sufficiently lit up.

2. Minimize Glare

Reflections on your computer and walls could also cause eye strain. Consider getting an anti-glare screen for your computer monitor or perhaps put up a poster or organizer on your wall that is a dark color. This will reduce the glare on your screen and help to protect your eyes.

3. Upgrade Your Computer Monitor

Most office spaces and homes should have traditional LCD screens now, which are far easier on the eyes than the old screens. You should look for a screen that has a higher frequency than other monitors as this will reduce flickering and do more for your eyes in the long-run.

4. Blink Often

It goes without saying but blinking often is something that will help you out when you first start feeling a little pain behind the eyes. Keeping your eyes moist can protect them from irritation and is something of an essential when working on a computer.

5. Take Breaks Frequently

There is something creeping up in office environments called the 20/20/20 rule. It’s something that office workers can do to alleviate strain on the eyes. Every 20 minutes take 20 seconds to look at something about 20 meters away. This helps to exercise the eyes, relaxing the eye muscles and reducing fatigue.

6. Clean Your Screen

It may not sound like an important one, but having a dirty screen, no matter what is on it, adds to strain on your eyes because you’ll often do a double-take when looking at your screen, sometimes even squinting to try and get a good look, only to discover it’s something you can wipe away.

7. Keep Your Distance

Keep your screens away from your face. An arms-length should be fine for a computer screen but do something similar with your mobile. You don’t want to have it right up against your face, no matter how dark it is at night. A reasonable distance won’t strain your eyes and tire you out. Optimal distance from your phone is between 16 and 18 inches.

Conclusion

With these helpful hints and tips in the office workspace and at home, you should be able to lead your way to a happier life when dealing with screens. If you’re able to take these tips and invest in a blue light phone filter or even blue light glasses, you’ll be good to go in no time and those previous eye strain issues that you’ve suffered in the past will be all gone.