7 Eye exercises to overcome tired eyes

Have you ever found yourself squinting and rubbing your eyes after hours of staring at your computer screen? If so, you are not alone. The eyes feel hot burning, dry or watery, blurred vision, itching, and tiredness. Not to mention the added pain in the neck, shoulders and back. This is a common, but rarely serious, symptom of tired eyes. In this article, we will discuss six basic eye exercises to help you deal with tired eye complaints.

How do eye exercises to deal with tired eyes?

When doing these eye exercises, keep your head in place, relax your shoulders, breathe steadily, and only move your eyes. Don't forget: always wash your hands before touching your eyes.

1. Palm sauna

The first eye exercise, rub your palms together until they feel warm. Place your hands gently over your eyes. Place your fingertips on your forehead, palms just above your eyes, and heels resting on your cheeks.

Do not directly touch the eyeballs, but give a little space between the hands and the eyeballs. Even so, don't be too loose either. Keep your hands together as a curtain to create darkness in front of your eyes. Close your eyes, breathe deeply, and relax.

Relax your eyes and enjoy a break from this visual stimulation. Continue until you feel better. When ready to open your eyes, slowly remove the "curtain" of your palms and open your eyes. This is done so that the eyes are not surprised by the changing lighting conditions.

2. Rolled your eyes

Source: AC Lens

You can roll your eyes to get rid of tired eyes. The trick, sit up straight, with your spine lengthened and breathe relaxed. Soften your gaze by relaxing the eye and facial muscles. Look up at the ceiling. Slowly, move your eye in a clockwise direction, as if drawing a circle as big as possible.

Slowly, focus your gaze on the objects around the line of sight as you make this round. Do this exercise continuously until the eye movements feel smooth and smooth. Repeat three times, close your eyes, and relax. When you are ready, repeat the eye movements from the beginning three times in opposite directions.

3. Change focus

Relax and breathe lightly. Extend one arm with your loose fist parallel in front of your eyes. Open your thumb pointing up. Focus on your thumb.

Keeping your gaze on your thumb as you slowly pull your thumb closer to your nose until you can no longer focus clearly on it. Inhale and exhale deeply, then return to an outstretched arm, keeping the focus on the thumb. Repeat ten times.

4. See remotely

You can also do eye exercises to deal with tired eyes by changing the focus of your vision. After hours of facing the screen, take a break from your gaze at a distant object. If you're indoors, look out the window, if possible.

Focus on the object as clearly as possible while keeping your eyes and face relaxed. Take a deep breath, then slowly shift your gaze to an object close to you.

Imagine that your eyes are swallowing the image you see. After that, move the view again to a more varied distance while temporarily pausing.

As an added bonus, if you see something really nice, smile, take in the beautiful sight, and be grateful for your pair of strong healthy eyes.

5. Massage the face

Not only eye exercises, certain massage techniques can also help you deal with tired eyes.

Gently massage your forehead and along both eyebrows as well as under the eye area with the tips of your fingers. This relaxing facial massage can help relieve pressure on the facial muscles and eyes.

6. Glancing

Sometimes, you can also watch left and right glances as a sport for tired eyes. While sitting relaxed, close your eyes and move them up as far as you can. Hold for a few moments, then lower your gaze downwards.

Repeat this eye exercise several times, then open your eyes and look around. Close your eyes again. Now, keeping your eyes closed, look to the right then move to the left. Repeat several times, changing direction.

How to deal with tired eyes due to computer screens?

Prolonged tired eyes can damage vision and interfere with daily activities. Apart from eye exercises, here are some easy tips you can do to deal with pink eye and various other physical complaints due to a day at the computer.

1. Routine eye checks

Routine eye check at an ophthalmologist is the first step to prevent and treat red eye caused by a day hanging out in front of a computer screen. According to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), people should first undergo eye examinations before starting to work with computers, and then routinely once a year thereafter.

2. Set the appropriate lighting

Eye fatigue is often caused by too bright light, either from the sunlight outside the room entering through the window or excessive lighting in the office space. As a result, you always have to squint while working. If possible, paint the walls of your room a darker color with the final result matte .

3. Adjust the light and dark contrast of the laptop light

Reflections on your walls and computer screen can also cause eye fatigue. Quoted from the Mayo Clinic, it is recommended that you adjust the screen brightness so that it is roughly the same as the brightness around your workplace. Consider installing a screen anti-glare on your monitor.

If you are still using a tubular computer monitor (also called cathode ray tube or CRT), you need to replace it with liquid crystal display (LCD), as on a laptop screen. LCD screens are safer on the eyes and usually have an anti-reflective surface, whereas CRT screens are easier to cause eye fatigue.

Also adjust the text size and color contrast for your eye comfort, especially when reading or composing long documents. Usually, black text on a white background is the best combination.

4. Blink more frequently

Apart from doing eye exercises, blinking is very important when you are working at a computer. Blinking helps moisten the eyes so they don't dry out and cause irritation. According to research, people who work at computers blink less frequently (about a third of the time), which puts you at risk for dry eyes.

To reduce this risk, try to practice the following eye exercises: every 20 minutes, blink 10 times while closing your eyes very slowly.

5. Close your eyes for a moment

According to a study published by NIOS, one effective way to treat tired eyes is to close your eyes for a while. You can also continue with 4 simple stretches for 5 minutes throughout the work day.

Stand and take a walk for a moment, relax and rotate your legs and arms while standing, rotating your shoulders and back to reduce tension and muscle fatigue. If the length of your lunch break allows, then try to take a quick nap.

6. Modify your workplace

If you need to look back and forth between the paper and your computer screen, place the written page next to the monitor. If you want to use a table lamp, make sure the light is not looking at your eyes or at your computer screen.

In addition, you need to arrange your workstation and chair to an appropriate height to maintain your posture while you work at the computer. Choose ergonomic furniture so that you can position your computer screen 50-60 cm from your eyes, the center of your screen should be about 10-15 degrees below your eyes for a comfortable position of your head and neck.

7. Consider wearing computer glasses

If you wear glasses, choose eyeglass lenses that can protect your eyes. Consider upholstered glasses anti-reflective (AR).

AR coating reduces glare by minimizing the amount of light reflecting off the front and back surfaces of your eyeglass lenses. This can be a step to overcome tired eyes that is no less important.