Ro's Recz

Unfortunately, my eyes have been getting worse during the COVID time period. While I used to have very good vision, there are a lot of times now where I have trouble seeing things I used to be able to easily see. A lot of this is probably from overuse (and looking at a ton of screens during quarantine), even though I try to do things to keep my eyes healthy like using blue-light glasses and taking breaks often.

While my vision has been deteriorating, I think it could be even worse if I did not take breaks when I work. According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the best way to prevent eye strain is to do something called the 20/20/20 rule.

As you can see in the picture above, the 20/20/20 rule means that every 20 minutes, you should look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. This helps to prevent eye fatigue that you might get from constantly looking at screens (even if it doesn’t completely fix it). According to the Academy also, one of the main reasons that we get eye fatigue so much is that we blink 1/3 to 1/2 as much as we normally do when looking at screens; this means that we often get dry, itchy eyes. So, in addition to applying the 20/20/20 rule when working, you should also try to blink as much as you can (more than you feel like you may need to).

Overall, this current time is tough because you just constantly find yourself looking at screens. Screen fatigue is real, and it will be nice when everything does not have to be over Zoom. At least in the mean time though, it is important to do everything you can to try and keep your eyes in as good of shape as possible!