I work from home everyday, I am susceptible to eye strain, eye pain, and dizziness. Having a working environment that’s as easy on my eyes as possible is of critical importance. I hope that by sharing what I’ve learned, it can be helpful to you if you work from home, and like many, have experienced WFH eye strain.
Disclaimer: I’m not an ergonomist or optometrist. These tips are intended to help improve your work from home comfort based on my own personal experience.
TLDR
- An even, diffused lighting environment is best for the eyes
- When it comes to light brightness, too much is just as problematic as too little
- Use natural light wherever possible
- Quality of artificial light matters
- The best lighting for camera, is not necessarily the best lighting for ergonomics
- Even the perfect lighting environment will fatigue you — take breaks, and take care of yourself
What is it about computer screens that makes them fatiguing?
Monitor flicker
Most monitors have some level of flicker. This flickering is generally not visually noticeable, but can still be fatiguing. Monitors at lower brightness levels exhibit more flicker – as they use PWM dimming (Pulse Width Modulation). In some monitors this is done by changing the ON/OFF intervals, increasing OFF timing, and lowering ON timing — while maintaining the same brightness! This creates an awful strobe-effect, and can be very exhausting — especially when working in an environment where the monitor is the sole light source.
High contrast lighting
High contrast lighting can exist in a few different formats. It can exist as glare — that is for example light coming in from a window, into a dark room, illuminating a part of your desk. This glare is fatiguing on your eyes because they are accommodating for two levels of brightness simultaneously, while also trying to conduct tasks on a computer monitor — such as reading. High contrast can also exist in a room with bright light on the left, and darkness on the right. This is fatiguing for your eyes to compensate for.
Fixed focal distance
When working at a computer, most of the time we, and the monitor don’t move significantly. We focus at the same distances for long periods of time. This causes our eye muscles to get tight and overworked. This can cause our eyes to get tired, spasm, or sometimes even make it very hard to relax our eyes. Although improved office lighting can help with this, the main way to solve for this problem is to take breaks practicing the 20/20/20 rule: Every 20 minutes, look up from your screen and focus on something approximately 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds.
My setup before
Daytime
Light in the office primarily comes in from the sun. The direct light causes glare, and because of the lack of diffusion, makes for dark corners in the room. Even with a light overhead, it’s not enough to equal the amount from outside. This results in high contrast, dark spots behind the monitor, and harsh shadows. Blackout curtains are of little help because they only serve to reduce the size of the light coming in, as opposed to aiding with diffusion. Anytime it’s dark outside, it’s like working at night. Not fun.
Nighttime
Light primarily comes from above. Because of this single light source, it makes for harsh shadows, dark spo
