Guide · body · 3 min read
Tired eyes after a long day of screens, in the order that helps, when you have been on screens all day
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.
After a day of screens, the eyes and the shoulders need this first.
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.
You blink about a third as often when reading on a screen. Deliberately blinking a few times re-wets the surface.
What to do when it does not work
Use a bigger font instead of leaning closer. Most people scale the font down to fit more on screen, then pay for it.
Warm, dim light in the evening is more comfortable than bright overhead light, regardless of what it does to your sleep.
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.
Questions people ask
Do blue light glasses work?
Evidence is weak. They are not harmful, but the bigger wins are distance, blinking and a decent font size.
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.