Tips of protecting from Computer Vision Syndrome

Whenever you sit long hours before the computer to watch your favourite contents or playing games or studying, you may have experienced the problems of muscle strain, eye pain, headache, eyestrain, tiredness, burning of eyes, dryness, redness, eye twitching and problem in focusing on computer monitor.

If your answer is in 'Yes', you are facing the problems of Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS). CVS occurs when anyone concentrates on the computer monitor with diminished blinking of eyes to reads the content or to plays the game. The constant focus on computer without frequent blinking eyes can cause above mentioned problem to the computer users.

In long terms, CVS affects the vision too.

So, the doctors advised us to away from the computer as much as possible, but it is practically impossible for us at present computer era.

But, we can protect us by applying few tips that are given below:

1. Keep your monitor below to your eye level.

2. Keep a proper distance between your eyes and your monitor. Usually make a difference of 6 times of the width of the monitor.

3. Zoom the texts and readable material at the time of studying.

4. Use Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) monitor instead of Cathod Ray Tube (CRT) monitor. CRTs monitor has low refresh rate. Try to use new LCD monitor.

5. The normal blink rate in human eyes is 16?20 per minute while during working on computer, our eye blinking rate reduces to as low as 6?8 blinks/minute which cause dryness and redness of eyes. Focusing with efforts also puts strain on eyes' ciliary muscles that cause eyestrain and tiredness of eyes. We can reduce it by taking a break of two minutes at every 20 minutes intervals and enhancing the frequency of blinking the eyes during the work and keeping closed eyes during the relaxation period.

6. Practice the 20-20-20 exercise during working on computer. In 20-20-20, you will have to focus the eyes on an object 20 feet (6 meters) away for 20 seconds in every 20 minutes or close your eyes (which has a similar effect) for 20 seconds, at least 20 minutes. Both have similar effects. The first one gives a convenient distance and timeframe for a person to follow the advice from the optometrist and ophthalmologist.

7. Use a renowned eye-tearing drops (kindly take the advice of your ophthalmologist) to keep your eyes wet.

8. The person with decreased focusing capability should wear a small plus-powered (+1.00 to +1.50) pair of eyeglasses. It will help those in regaining their ability to focus on near objects.

(This article is contributed by Noor En Ahmed based on the interview of Dr. Alok Mahindra, Ophthalamologist.)