Ask HN: How do you deal with eye strain as a developer?

2 pointsposted 11 hours ago
by deterministic

Item id: 45872500

5 Comments

Insanity

11 hours ago

This is potentially not going to be the advise you want to hear. As I got older, I noticed eye strain more and more, up to the point that I also eliminated screen time after work for some time.

There are things that help - regular breaks, being in a well lit room, sitting at a healthy distance from the monitor, using redshift and lowering monitor brightness.

But ultimately, I came to the conclusion that for my eye health (and general physical health) I probably can’t be staring at screens for hours after work, when it’s already 8-9 hours of my workday.

Now after work I avoid screens entirely until about 9pm, then I have about an hour of gaming or watching TV, and then wind down with a book before bed.

I switched to this routine about 4-5 years ago, around when I turned 30. Seems to work well so far.

NoPicklez

11 hours ago

Man when you said "as I got older" I thought you meant like 50+

I do agree with your parts to help, being an well lit room is a big one. One aspect that helps me as well is making sure I get enough sleep. I find I squint more at the screen later in the day the worse my sleep has been.

necovek

11 hours ago

A move to more of a management/leadership role.

I've actually developed an eye condition — one of my doctors suspects it might be PDS (pigment dispersion syndrome) that affects my ability to focus on computer text for too long (I get headaches) which they found unusual, so after realizing I can't keep up, I turned to mentoring and leading instead.

beardyw

8 hours ago

Have you visited an optician? You don't say. Otherwise that must be step one.