What is Eye Strain & How to Reduce It

Your eyes go through a lot every day, even if you don’t realise it. Focusing on so many different things, your eyes can become tired, particularly if you have been doing an activity for a prolonged amount of time. Your eyes also have to work hard moving from indoors to outdoors, and vice versa, due to the change in light. Occurrences such as these can result in something known as eye strain, or eye fatigue.

Eye strain can occur due to a number of different reasons, and it can be very common. Here we take a look at what eye strain is and what steps you can take to prevent or reduce it.

What is eye strain?

While it sounds like a condition, eye strain is more of a symptom and it can be experienced differently. The term eye strain can mean anything from tired eyes, blurry vision, headaches or eye ache.

Eye strain does not cause injury, and it won’t leave any permanent damage to your vision. More than anything, it is just uncomfortable and annoying. Eye strain will usually go away after you have rested your eyes, or if you wear lens solutions such as photochromic lenses to help protect your eyes.

Photochromic lenses can help to provide comfortable vision for going indoors to outside and vice versa, preventing our eyes from working harder in order to adjust. This is because the lenses will adapt automatically, darkening when exposed to bright light.

What causes it?

Eye strain is often caused by doing any sort of intense activity for too long, or an activity where your eyes needs to focus. This can include reading or driving for a long time without taking a break, as well as prolonged use of digital screens.

However, other causes can include exposing your eyes to bright light or glare. This can be caused by either artificial or natural light. If your eyes are often exposed to heating or air-conditioning systems, the dry moving air can increase your chance of experiencing eye strain.

Finally, if you often strain to see in low light conditions, it may result in your eyes feeling more fatigued than normal.

How can you prevent it from happening?

Eye strain is a natural reaction to our eyes working too hard. There are many different ways you can prevent it or reduce its effects. It’s important to take regular breaks if you are doing an activity for a long time, such as looking at a computer screen or focusing on the road ahead.

If you think your work or home environment might be affecting your eyes, try to adjust it so that you aren’t exposed to bright light. This could include anything to turning down the brightness on your monitor or moving away from a bright overhead light.

Wearing glasses can help to reduce eye strain, because they provide a helpful aid to stop your eyes from working too hard through the day. Glasses will ensure your eye can focus easier, offering sharper vision. In particular, photochromic lenses can automatically adjust to changing light conditions, so your eyes can relax.