How much screen time do you clock each day? According to a 2018 Neilsen survey, Americans spend 11 hours a day interacting with media, and most of those hours are spent looking at a screen. Many people start their days and end their days by looking at their phones, and their eyes are suffering. Exposing your eyes to too much blue light can lead to dry eyes, eye strain, headaches, and even blurred vision (source). However, avoiding these problems doesn’t have to mean quitting your desk job or switching from a smartphone to a flip phone. We’ve come up with some helpful tips on how to protect your eyes from blue light.
How to Protect Your Eyes From Blue Light
Buy a Pair of Blue-Light Blocking Glasses
If you look at a color wheel, you’ll notice that blue and orange are complementary colors, meaning they land right across from each other on the color wheel. While we don’t need to go into an art lesson to explain why, complementary colors have a way of canceling one another out. This means when you mix the two, you get a gray hue. Blue-light blocking glasses have lenses with an orange hue, which help cancel out the harmful blue light. If you wear contacts or you don’t need prescription glasses, you can purchase a pair of blue-light blocking glasses online. However, your optometrist should be able to help you order a pair with your prescription.
Switch to Night Mode
Did you know that iPhones, other smartphones, and some laptops have built-in night modes? By turning night mode on, your phone can automatically switch to an orange glow rather than a blue glow when the sun sets. Or, you can opt to use this feature all day if you’re having extra trouble with blue light. This feature aims to ease your eyes before bedtime since blue light has been shown to affect sleep quality (source). However, it is also very beneficial for relieving symptoms of digital eye strain. If your phone or computer doesn’t have this feature, you can also try turning down the brightness, but just make sure you can still see the computer screen clearly so that you aren’t squinting and straining your eyes.
Find New Ways to Relax
While checking the news in the morning and reading articles on your phone at night are both great ways to start and end your days, it might be time to switch back to print. Whether or not you use blue-light blocking filters or night mode, the truth is you’ll still be exposing yourself to some blue light. So stock up on magazines, start buying books, and subscribe to your local newspaper to give your eyes a much-needed break. You can also try unwinding with other forms of entertainment, like audiobooks and podcasts.
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The next time you’re mindlessly scrolling through Instagram or enjoying a Netflix marathon, consider your eyes. And for further guidance regarding how to protect your eyes from blue light, talk to a trusted optometrist. If you live in southwest Missouri, contact Heffington’s. Since 1975, the Heffington family has been assisting the Springfield community with top-quality eye care and affordable eyeglasses and contacts. One of the unique features of our family-owned business is that we manufacture lenses at our own laboratory, giving us total control over the service and pricing, and we’re happy to pass our savings on to you. To learn more about our products and services, please get in touch with us online, send an email to [email protected], or give us a call at 417-869-3937 (Optiland location) or 417-882-3937 (House of Vision location). We look forward to hearing from you!