Eye Strain and Light Sensitivity at Work

Shannon McLain

Eye Strain Light Sensitivity at Work

I have had a recent uptick in my eye strain and light sensitivity at work. Here are some tips that I would like to share:

• Ask if you can turn the lights off that are bothering you. It is simple, but I would often suffer, thinking it would be annoying to my bosses and coworkers if I turned the lights off in the same room. Over time and with various people, I have found that most of the time, they do not care. In fact, some also dislike overhead lighting.
• Wear things that protect your eyes. I wear blue light glasses to protect my eyes from the screen, but my recent combo of adding in a baseball cap to protect my eyes from bright lights around me has really been a game changer.
• I know that we have all heard it but, every 20 minutes, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds. It does make a difference. give your eyes a break. Go take a short little walk, a change of scenery, or even just splash some water on your face in the bathroom.
• Not all eye drops are created equally. Some eye drops make my eyes worse. I have found that gel eye drops help me the best. Other people have sensitivity to the preservatives in eye drops.
• If you can, rest your eyes on your commute. I get a ride home and often put a travel eye heat mask, like Calma, on my eyes. This makes getting home more enjoyable.
• Know when you need a break. I used to pressure myself to keep working even though I was severely straining my eyes, I would feel so nauseous and delirious. I felt like I had to do this to be a productive employee and not a burden. That is not true. Not only should being a good employee be my first priority but even so a good one takes care of themself.
• In tune with my first point, do not be afraid to advocate for yourself. When I was getting hired for my new job, I said that natural light reduces my headaches and artificial light makes them worse. At the time, their office inside a coworking space had no direct daylight. By the time I started working three weeks later, they had not only switched offices to a room with windows, but also toured other coworking spaces, and invited me on these tours, to see if they had better natural light. Now I know I found some amazing humans here and not everyone is like that, but people will often surprise you!

Tom Richer

Thank you so much for sharing, Shannon! I like the look 20 feet away. Looking at a screen can feel small when our environment is much bigger than just the screen

Samantha Fletcher

Very helpful Shannon thank you for sharing. I often in the afternoon turn the contrast down on my computer as my eyes get tired.