Dealing with Stress at the Computer I |
Dealing with Stress at the Computer I
Asthenopia, better known as eyestrain, is a huge problem for the computer user. There is a cause-and-effect relation between eyestrain and undesirable symptoms including fatigue, headache, and neck pain -- all stress-inducing conditions.
You are not Bruce Wayne. You should not be conducting your day-to-day operations in a room that resembles a bat cave. Having the right amount and the right kind of lighting is of paramount importance. Eliminating glare and other sources of eyestrain will pay dividends in terms of work productivity. The eyes play an important role in matters of stress. When you are tired or feeling irritable, it is usually your eyes that give this away.
Your bedroom or home office should contain enough light to enable you to work effectively. Too much light is as bad as too little light. Whether your primary source of light is natural light or artificial light is immaterial -- after all, you may prefer working the owl shift. However, for artificial light, you may find that fluorescent lights are better on your eyes than are incandescent bulbs and last longer to boot.
Glare is the big gorilla in the room when it comes to causes of eyestrain. Be sure to eliminate sources of direct glare, which is light shining directly into your eyes, along with sources of indirect glare, which is light reflecting off a computer screen. Some monitors have anti-glare coating as a design feature, whereas for other monitors, an anti-glare screen may come in handy, provided that screen readability is not sacrificed in the process. Configuring your computer to use a light-colored desktop wallpaper can often quickly remedy the amount of glare.
A close relative of glare is any form of high contrast. This includes everything from the foreground and background colors of the digital documents you read to the color combinations of your furniture. Yet lack of color variety can be a source of eyestrain too. Often there is very little you can do to remedy high contrast or low color variation, though if you do find yourself pulling out the paint kit, consider using light pastel colors for your walls, since occupational psychologists believe these colors have a calming effect.
Few things in the office are more irritating than flickering light bulbs or computer monitors. Replace all such light bulbs immediately, and have your flickering or dim monitor serviced or replaced -- though with flickering monitors, sometimes simply increasing the refresh rate is enough to stop the flickering. Have a tech-head friend or relative adjust your brightness and contrast settings appropriately, since there are not any good rules of thumb that cover all monitors out there. While you are at it, consider setting your monitor resolution to 800x600, which is believed to be the best setting for the eyes.
What you are reading should be legible without undue exertion. Small fonts, exotic typefaces, and poorly scanned documents are some of the many hassles that plague the computer user. It is often possible to use an OCR program on poorly scanned documents to extract text and transform it into something more readable.
It is common sense that facing a monitor directly is the way to go. Rather than pull out a ruler to measure twenty inches between your screen and your eyes, just sit as far away from the monitor as possible, with an arm length or so being the minimum. Opinions vary on whether your eyes should be in line with the top of the screen, slightly below the top, or slightly above the top. Do what feels right for you, though most experts (but not all) seem to agree that looking above the horizontal is more tiring to the eyes than looking below the horizontal.
Do not tire out your eyes by focusing on any one thing too long. Take an eye break approximately every twenty minutes for a couple of minutes, and include some looking into the distance. You may find that cupping your palms over your closed eyes for a few moments is very soothing. On the other hand, while you are working, do not arrange your material such that you are continually switching focus between a near and a far object, since this too can tire out your eyes. Get a document holder that can be positioned next to your monitor.
Finally, low humidity leads to dry eyes and, in turn, eyestrain. So do air currents.
Look out for your eyes and they will keep looking out for you -- literally.
PPPPP
Word Count 749
|
An Anti-Stress Grab Bag Although there are countless activities known to relieve stress, we will select a handful that require ... read more
Are Eustressed Out Lately? What would you pay to receive that one piece of information that promises to transform your ... read more
Be Your Own Stress Therapist Psychotherapists have many tools at their disposal for helping clients overcome stress and related issues. ... read more
Creating a Stress-Free Workplace Stress in the workplace is one of the top reasons for employee dissatisfaction and subsequent drop ... read more
Dealing with Stress at the Computer I Asthenopia, better known as eyestrain, is a huge problem for the computer user. ... read more
Dealing with Stress at the Computer II An increasing number of people are quitting the office job and discovering the ... read more
Dealing with Stress at the Computer III Sitting in front of the computer for extended hours can easily lead to ... read more
Dealing with Stress at the Computer IV Organizing your computer system for the work you do can help you reach ... read more
Dealing with Stress at the Computer V One prominent item on the A-list of computer-related stressors is finding yourself in ... read more
Express Your Stress Sometimes when the pressure becomes too much, it helps to transfer your internal stress to an external ... read more
Improving Your Sleep to Fight Stress Getting enough quality sleep is one of the best weapons in the stress-relief arsenal. ... read more
Kick Stress in the Butt There is an inextricable link between feelings of stress and feelings of being unable to ... read more
Managing Your Stress Psychotherapists have many tools at their disposal for helping clients overcome stress and related issues. One of ... read more
Meditation Is Not Just for Hippies When most people hear talk of meditation, they envision pot-smoking hippies with long dreadlocks, ... read more
Overcoming Procrastination and Its Stress Quite a number of books have been written about overcoming the habit of procrastination and ... read more
Preparing for Stressors Miguel De Cervantes said that to be prepared is half the victory. No matter what the twists ... read more
Simplify Your Life If your life is the perfect example of a Rube Goldberg machine, then maybe it is time ... read more
Speed Reading to Combat Stress For many people, dealing with a stack of unread books, newspapers, magazines, journals, and correspondence ... read more
The Basics of a Stress-Free Diet The first connection between natural remedies and mental health was established when it was ... read more
The Biology of the Stress Response It is often the case that you have to understand something before you can ... read more
The Easy Way to Ace Exams When it comes to exams, are you in the habit of leaving everything until ... read more
The Stress Triangle As an individual functioning in the world, you can have only three kinds of problems: problems with ... read more
Treat Yourself to a Massage There are few things in life that are almost guaranteed to relieve a person of ... read more
What Philosophers Tell Us About Stress Epictetus, the Greek Stoic philosopher, is reported to have said, "Men are disturbed not ... read more
What the Net Offers for Stress Relief "Hi, my name is Bob, and I am an alcoholic." "Hi, my name ... read more
|
|
|
Disclaimer:
The Publisher has strived to be as accurate and complete as possible in
the creation of this website, notwithstanding the fact that he does not
warrant or represent at any time that the contents within are accurate
due to the rapidly changing nature of the Internet.
This site
is a common sense guide to Dealing with Stress at the Computer I. In practical advice websites,
like anything else in life, there are no guarantees of income made.
Readers are cautioned to reply on their own judgment about their
individual circumstances to act accordingly.
This site
is not intended for use as a source of legal, business, accounting or
financial advice. All readers are advised to seek services of competent
professionals in legal, business, accounting, and finance field.
Any
perceived slights of specific people or organizations are unintentional.
|