Guide · body · 3 min read
Tired eyes after a long day of screens, in plain terms, when you have just finished work
Eye strain is mostly about distance and blinking, not about blue light glasses.
Start here
Every point here is written so that a bad week is still enough to manage it.
The gap right after work is the easiest one to use.
If you only do one thing from this page, do the first point below. It is first because it removes the most friction for the least effort.
What helps
If your eyes feel gritty every day, get them tested. An uncorrected small prescription causes more strain than any screen.
Move the screen slightly further away and lower than eye level. Both reduce the work your eyes are doing.
Use a bigger font instead of leaning closer. Most people scale the font down to fit more on screen, then pay for it.
What to do when it does not work
Your eyes focus at one distance all day. Look at something far away for twenty seconds every twenty minutes — out of a window, not across the room.
You blink about a third as often when reading on a screen. Deliberately blinking a few times re-wets the surface.
Warm, dim light in the evening is more comfortable than bright overhead light, regardless of what it does to your sleep.
Questions people ask
Are eye exercises useful?
The "look far away" break is. Most other eye exercises have very little evidence behind them.
Written for people who want the practical version. No accounts, no tracking, no newsletter wall.
If this is not the angle you need, try Using your body to come down after something stressful — a straightforward guide, if you are doing this instead of scrolling, A morning routine that survives a bad night — the version for a bad week, if you have five quiet minutes or Preparing for a conversation you are dreading — a practical guide, before you go back to something hard.