This week is National Eye Health Week. As an Occupational Health specialist, I believe that people underestimate how much work their eyes do in the average day. With the world as digitally based as it is now, our eyes barely get any rest. Many of us are office based and use computers consistently to carry out our work. Even jobs like serving in restaurants or driving cars for a living now involve interacting with screens for taking orders or following routes using satnavs.
Humans are a predominately visually orientated animal. We used our eyes to hunt prey and to forage for food. Over the centuries, as writing developed, we learned to read, and the spread of literacy levels meant that we started using our eyes more on close work. Office work made this more prevalent. As the years passed, humans were not just reading and writing but started to use typewriters. With the dawn of the TV and computer age, affecting both work and leisure, the workload on our eyes has increased even further.
The most common problem affecting people who use their eyes for close work for long periods is eye strain. The good news about eye strain is that it isn’t a permanent or long-lasting condition and there are many simple things you can do to make things better for yourself. There is the simple 20:20:20 rule: every 20 minutes, focus on something 20 feet away, for 20 seconds. You can do regular eye exercises which help and increase your eye health at the same time. You can adjust lighting in rooms and alter conditions at your workstation to bring about beneficial changes. Have a look at some of the articles and videos below to learn more.
The University operates an eye test scheme for DSE Users; it provides vouchers so staff can have their eyes tested at regular intervals at Specsavers. The Awaken DSE Training and Assessment module gives advice on how to set up your workstation if you are experiencing problems with glare or lighting.
Visit the National Eye Health Week website on visionmatters.org.uk. It contains some interesting articles on eye health. It has an Eye Health Calculator and a Sight Loss Simulator. The latter is fascinating as it demonstrates the effects of common eye disorders such as glaucoma, cataracts, age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy in a way that you can actually experience what vision is like for people who have these complaints.
‘Look After Your Eyes’ on nhs.uk
‘Eye Health’ on rnib.org.uk
‘Eye Health, Explained’ on health.com
‘Keep Your Eyes Healthy’ on nei.neh.gov
‘Your guide to eye health, conditions and symptoms’ on specsavers.co.uk
‘What is Computer Vision Syndrome?’ on webmd.com
‘What are the symptoms of computer eye strain?’ on specsavers.co.uk – contains a very interesting video on computer related eye strain and how to prevent it
‘Take a screen break – eye relaxation techniques’ by Skill Boosters on YouTube
‘Simple Eye Exercise to Improve Your Eyesight’ by Boldsky on YouTube