Exercises to protect your eyes from blue light.

1. Harmful effects of eye exposure to blue light

When we look at a computer screen with constant blue light, our eyes have to make continuous adjustment movements to focus. Unlike reading paper books, the characters on electronic screens are made up of pixels with lower contrast, requiring the eyes to work harder to process the image.

Prolonged exposure to blue light can cause:

Dry eyes and irritation: Normally, people blink about 15-20 times per minute to spread the tear film evenly. However, when focusing too much on a screen, the blinking frequency decreases to only 5-7 times. This causes tears to evaporate quickly, leading to dryness, burning, redness, and a feeling of having a foreign object like sand in the eyes.

Vision loss and progressive myopia: High-energy blue light emitted from screens can penetrate deep into the retina, damaging retinal cells. Excessive focusing at close distances for extended periods causes the lens to bulge, gradually increasing myopia or causing pseudomyopia (inability to see distant objects clearly immediately after working).

Headaches and nervous fatigue: Tension in the eye muscles sends signals to the brain, causing headaches in the frontal or temporal regions. This not only reduces work performance but also leads to insomnia and prolonged stress.

2. Effective eye relaxation exercises

To protect your eyesight, establishing short breaks and performing supplementary exercises is absolutely essential:

Apply the 20-20-20 rule: This is the golden rule recommended by ophthalmologists worldwide.

How to do it: Every 20 minutes of work, look at an object about 6 meters (20 feet) away for at least 20 seconds. Changing your focus from near to far helps relax the eye's accommodation muscles, reducing the strain of continuous contraction.

Active eye movement and blinking exercises: Spend 1-2 minutes performing gentle eye movements.

- Blinking: Blink quickly and continuously for about 30 seconds to stimulate the tear glands, providing natural moisture to the cornea.

- Eye movements: Look at a space in front of you, slowly move your eyeballs in a horizontal figure-eight pattern (infinity); perform this 5 times in each direction to increase the flexibility of the extraocular muscles.

Palm-pressing technique: This is a relaxation technique that helps the eyes rest completely from blue light.

- How to do it: Rub your palms together until they are very warm. Close your eyes and gently place your palms over your eye sockets (do not press directly on the eyeballs). Feel the warmth spreading and enjoy the complete darkness for about 1-2 minutes. The warmth helps improve blood circulation around the eyes and soothes the optic nerve.

Use artificial tears: If your job requires you to sit in an air-conditioned room and use a computer constantly, you should use preservative-free artificial tears. Regularly using eye drops helps maintain moisture, wash away dust and dirt, and reduce discomfort immediately. However, you shouldn't overuse eye drops; only use them twice a day.

Change your habits for lasting eye protection.

In addition to relaxation exercises, adjusting the work environment also plays an important role:

- Adjust lighting: Ensure your workspace is well-lit but not so bright that the screen is too reflective. Use blue light filters or enable "night shift" on your device to reduce the harmful effects of blue light in the evening.

- Screen position: Position the screen about 10-15 degrees lower than eye level. This posture helps the upper eyelids partially cover the eyeball, reducing the surface area of ​​the eye exposed to air, thereby reducing dry eyes.

- Nutritional supplementation: Increase your intake of foods rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, lutein, and omega-3s found in salmon, carrots, dark green leafy vegetables, and nuts to nourish the retina from within.