Blue light at work: How to protect yourself?
If you’ve ever had to deal with eye fatigue and headaches after a long day at work staring at a digital screen, it’s quite normal. Our digital devices emit high-energy unfocused blue light which reduces contrast and leads to digital eye strain. This is why many people wear single vision blue light glasses for screen protection.
Working for prolonged hours on a computer or laptop at your office negatively affects your peepers. It can deteriorate your eye health and ruin your sleep schedule.
If you are someone above 40, your eye fatigue or the symptoms of digital eye strain may be due to the natural decline in your near vision which is normal for people of your age. In this case, you need reading glasses with a blue light coating to protect your presbyopic eyes from screen time.
Don’t let your eyes suffer in silence. There are ways you can reduce the effect of blue light even when you are at work. The best one is to get online glasses with blue light blocking capability. Read below to know what is blue light and how you can escape it.
What is blue light?
Sunlight is made up of various types of coloured lights which give it the white colour. Blue light in one of the visible lights in the coloured light spectrum. Having short wavelength, its rays are intense and get scattered easily.
Just like you need your shades to block the UV light, you also need blue light glasses to keep digital eye strain at bay.
While the sun remains the biggest source of natural blue light, the digital devices in our workplace also contain this bad light. Although the blue light from our screens is 100,000 times less than what we get from the sun, the extensive screen time has made people vulnerable to it. This light also holds the power to hamper your vision over time and you will need to wear prescription glasses.
How does blue light affect our health?
It’s not only your eyes that have to deal with blue light. It has an equal impact on your sleep and mood patterns as well. This has made blue light glasses for digital protection even more important.
Eye health
The chemical action of blue light induces eye stress and destructs the retinal cells in your eyes. The retina is protected by a layer of cells known as the retinal pigment epithelium or RPE.
The RPE acts as a biological barrier that absorbs the bad light and shields your eyes. But, when our eyes are exposed to long hours of blue light, these cells become incompetent and leave the retina vulnerable.
Blue light triggers unpleasant symptoms such as headaches, blurred vision, dry eyes, and eye pain. However, you can escape digital eye strain with glasses that contain a blue light coating.
Sleep disruption
When we get blue light in the daytime from the sun, it helps our body to stay alert by blocking the release of the sleep-inducing hormone – melatonin. The internal clock in our body takes cues from the external environment. The bright light of blue rays signals our brain that it is time to stay alert.
If you work on a night shift, your brain will interpret the screen light as day light boosting alertness in your body. While this may be helpful in your work, you may develop sleep disorders or insomnia if you continue to do this for a long time.
If you don’t want your work to suffer due to your lack of sleep, use blue light glasses. This way, you can do your night shift without disrupting your sleep.
How to protect your eyes at work
You cannot escape digital devices at work especially when most of your work is done digitally. But, you can always use some helpful tips to reduce the possibility of digital eye strain. Here they are:
- The need for blue light glasses cannot be stressed enough. They will filter out this bad light and bring relief to your eyes.
- Take small breaks from your computer to give your eyes some rest.
- Apply the 20/20/20 rule and take a 20 seconds screen break in every 20 minutes by looking 20 feet away.
- Practice eye exercises that you can do at the comfort of your office desk.
- Make sure that your laptop is placed at least 20 or 30 inches away from you.
- Make sure your laptop screen is not facing the source of light as it will cause glare and make it more difficult to look at the screen. There are prescription glasses with anti-glare coating to eliminate glare.
- Adjust the brightness of your laptop according to the light level around you. This will reduce the contrast and your eyes won’t have to work harder to focus.
- Eat a healthy diet to nourish your peepers from within. Fishes and citrus fruits will work wonders for your eye health.
If you want to fight digital eye strain with glasses, blue light blocking glasses will help. They will make your screen viewing experience comfortable so you can excel at your job.
You can buy good-quality cheap glasses online with blue light filters to eliminate blue light and save your money on glasses.
