So one of the most frequent questions I get, is how do I work at a computer all day and avoid eyestrain, which is something people with chronic fatigue can be especially susceptible to, especially given our sensitivity to bright lights. And the answer is: I don’t. Working at my desk all day every day absolutely hurts my eyes, and makes me more prone to migraines and profound exhaustion which if I’m not careful can put me out of action for several days.
I do manage to limit how often this happens though by making sure I take care of myself, and this includes things like taking regular breaks from the screen to rest my eyes, using a screen dimmer like “night mode” constantly (comes as standard with Windows 10, might also be in other versions but I don’t remember) or a program like Flux which
adapts to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day, so that looking at your screen isn’t like staring into the sun at 3 in the morning. I also make sure my prescription for my glasses is up to date, and also wear glasses that have a special UV filter that gives everything a bit of a yellow tint to soften the light. Some people say they work, some people don’t. I’m someone who is particularly sensitive to light, and I have found the slight yellow tint to be beneficial to my eye health.*
But even doing all these things, opening Word can absolutely feel like you’re searing your retinas off when you open up the document and the white expanse of doom takes over your entire screen, like this:
This right here? Makes my myopia extremely pronounced in my right eye, and makes the visual floaters that I get extremely hard to work with. There are days when it feels like all I can see are those little black squiggles over my vision, and the white screen is absolutely to blame, even with all those other measures in place. (I have absolutely worn sunglasses indoors to get around using software that only lets me use a white screen.)
And it’s been brought to my attention in answering lots of questions about eye health and managing my symptoms, that some of you are not aware that Word doesn’t have to be like this, when it can in fact be like this:
And it is so much better for you. I mean it doesn’t have to be this specific color setting, you can play around with it and find the color setting that doesn’t hurt your eyes or trigger migraines/makes it easier for you to read and follow text, but I have found dark grey and blues to be what works best for me, and the way you change these settings is to first of all go into File > Options > General and then changing the Word theme from “Colorful” to “Dark Grey”
Which will give you this look:
And for some people that will be enough of a reduction in white screen to help with eyestrain and other problems, but if you are like me and the bright white is just playing havoc with your vision/processing, you can go up to the Design tab (it’s between Insert and Layout usually) and change the color of the text file page:
Like so:
Like I said, dark greys and blues work best for me, and this is what manuscripts look like when I am reading them for work, but you can totally play around with it and find what works for you, and hopefully help yourself avoid some of that “oh god my eyes feeling” that happens from staring at the blank white page for hours on end before you alt out the tab and pull up tumblr instead.
Anyway, hope that helps some of you? Good luck? Don’t hurt yourselves unnecessarily? Go take a break from your screen right now and get something to drink? idk, just take care. You deserve to.
