so the back to school season is going to be very different this year with
distance learning being an integral part of all forms of education
whether you are a student yourself maybe you're a teacher or a parent who's
looking over students this is going to be a big deal
we're all going to be spending more time in front of computer screens
looking at lectures or looking at a tablet or doing some sort of homework
or studying on a digital device and that can lead to a lot of eye problems so
in this video i want to share just a few tips here are my three eye health
distance learning tips for students parents and teachers, let's take a look
hello and welcome this is Dr. Allen here from the dr eye health show helping
learn all about the eyes vision and finding the best vision
products if you're new here to the channel definitely consider hitting that
subscribe button down below so that you don't miss
any of my future education or tips with that being said
let's dive right into it my first tip is because all of us are gonna be spending
so much more time in front of a digital screen whether
it's a laptop a computer a desktop screen maybe you're
on a tablet or some sort of a kindle or something
like that still our eyes going to be focused on a device
just in front of our faces and with that comes eye strain and with
this increased eye strain you can feel a pressure between the eyes
it comes hard to focus your vision can kind of fade in and out and it can even
lead to tension headaches so best thing everybody should
be doing is to try to take frequent breaks most eye doctors
will in fact quote what is called the 20 20 20 rule
which stands for that every 20 minutes of some sort of
near activity you should take a 20 second break looking
20 feet away now i think that this is a fantastic rule of thumb
however i personally find it a little difficult to follow all of the time i
mean especially if you're listening to a lecture or something like that that you
don't have control over to be like i'm going to stop and take a break it's
a little tough to follow i expose you could set a timer on your phone
and if you already do that that's amazing for you you're awesome but i
think it's a little bit more realistic that everybody could at least
spend five minutes an hour if you're listening to a lecture
once it's done get up leave your seat give yourself a break
and i don't mean to just leave the computer screen and then flip open your
phone and look at instagram for 10 minutes
unless of course you're checking out my instagram then go ahead and click that
follow button you know shameless plug but no in all seriousness you need to
give your eyes and your mind a break so leave the computer screen go over to an
open window look outside stretch a little bit get a drink of
water use the restroom something that'll give your eyes a break
and that'll even give you a mental break because
it's just better to reset your mind and kind of regain
focus on the next task at hand trust me this will help you a lot tip number two
is to be aware of how much blue light you are being exposed to
all of our digital devices these days have a lot of blue light being emitted
from them so much that different developers like
mac and pc developers microsoft windows they
recognize that blue light is a problem and they've developed
free apps in their software that'll shift the blue light
emittance to a lot lower it kind of makes the screen look kind of a dim
yellow and potentially even orange look to it it's not everybody's favorite but
it is at least probably the easiest way to
start dimming your blue light exposure otherwise exposure to blue light has
been found to affect our sleep cycles it suppresses melatonin your sleep
hormone and if you're getting a lot of blue
light exposure throughout the day particularly in the later evenings
then your melatonin may be suppressed and you're probably not going to get as
good as sleep that night and sleep is super important for
developing memories which is essential for learning. outside
of the blue light and night modes for tablets
your phone or computer again not everybody's a huge fan of them because
they don't like how their screen looks a little bit yellow
and i totally get that especially if you're an artist like myself or if
you're editing a video you want the colors to look just right
as an alternative there are many styles of blue light protecting glasses out
there there are ones that are super dark
yellow if you want those and you want the most blue light protection you can
get they have ones kind of in the medium
range that are just a hint of yellow and then there's ones that are even
virtually completely clear like the ones i'm wearing on right now
and because all of us are spending so much time in front of computer screens
these days the company jins from jin's eyewear
who's sponsoring this video is giving out free upgrades from regular
just clear lenses to their blue light protecting
gin's screen lenses and if you're interested in even more blue light
protection gins also offers a gins screen plus and
a gin screen night which have increased amount of
blue light protection if you do want to check out jin's
eyewear yourself use the promo code ihealth15 to receive an extra 15 at
checkout now my third tip for you has to do with
the eyes getting red and irritated a big thing that people don't
think about is that when we're staring at a computer screen
our blink rate drops dramatically just in normal conversation
you blink around 20 times a minute but when you're staring at a computer screen
or digital device we stare so intensely so intensely
focused that our blink rate drops to only about
four to five times a minute that's pretty significant in fact
because you're not blinking as much your tears evaporate and that leads to
dry irritated eyes and because they're dry
and irritated that causes an inflammatory cycle and
that causes your blood vessels on the eye to dilate making your eyes
look more red so a few things that you can do to help relieve this dryness and
irritated feeling is to of course one try to remember to
blink more often and if you do need to take a break make
sure to blink your eyes a hundred percent
some people like myself we're incomplete blinkers that means my eyelids don't
completely close 100 of the way when i'm blinking
so i have to remember to pretty much completely blink a few times
in addition if you need to keep a bottle of artificial tears handy just next to
your desk that way if your eyes are feeling really
dry and you need to use that extra little bit of help you can just put a
single drop of lubrication into both eyes
but these dry eye feelings on the computer is pretty common so if you're
even noticing these yourself let me know in the comment section if you're using
eye drops or doing anything else to help relieve
or soothe your dry irritated eyes but i can tell you that this whole blink
rate issue has a much larger implication for the
development of dry eye disease and that's because we're not
blinking as much that means the oil glands on the eyelid
which secrete and release an oil to prevent your tears from evaporating
those oil glands work every time you blink and if you're not blinking
those oils become compacted and they don't release
and that can further lead to a form of evaporative
dry eye disease and all eye doctors and dry eye specialists are recognizing
more and more people developing dry eye disease not just in their older years
but also younger students people in college and even into high school
are developing this type of dry eye so for that reason i do encourage you if
your eyes are red irritated and becoming a problem make sure to talk
to your local eye care professional right away to be seen for some form of
dry eye assessment i do hope you found this video helpful
if you yourself are having dry eyes and want to know more about what type of eye
drops that i would recommend that you could try out
i do have a video going over some of my favorite ones up over here and you can
click or tap the screen to check those out
or if you just want to learn a little bit more about eye strain and ways to
set up your computer screen to be more ergonomic
then you can check out this video i have over here thanks again for watching hope
you found this helpful keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you
soon