Ask HN: Please share tips and strategies for dealing with eye strain

"Decrease blue light form monitor using tools like f-lux"

"I have had lots of success with starring at magic eye stereograms for a minute or two once in a while. Initially I had to learn how to do it but it did pay off. As soon as the 3d image pops out move the eyes around the image including corners as well (also move eyes in circles or similarly to the infinity symbol across the image) while holding the 3d image in view. It's a bit difficult at first but once you learn it becomes easy. And as the more you do it at the beginning and as you get better at it the less you have to do it later on to de-strain your eyes. There's a version of tetris in magic eye 3d. It's challenging and fun. "

"Get further from the monitor, get a larger monitor and increase font size to make it comfortable to your eyes."

"Take eye breaks, stare in the distance through a window if not possible outdoors."

I'm in my 40s and started to have eye strain in my 20s. These helped methods me not reduce eye problems while working in front of a screen. I still have very sensitive eyes so I wear sunglasses even when it's cloudy but I do not yet wear optical glasses yet and eye strain at work is minimal, I don't even need night mode in my apps. At some point the strain was so strong that I was tempted to get glasses but the optician advised me to wait, I remember her saying that once you go that route there's no going back and am glad I didn't pursue glasses. My prescription was a bit like .5 for one eye and .75 for the other one back in my 20s and last time I checked. I assume it worsened a bit but I'm still getting by without glasses without too many issues. I'm expecting my vision to deteriorate a bit more as I get into my mid 40s early 50s.

  Ambient lighting matched to screen brightness, whether light or dark
  Dark ambience = dilated pupil = 0.5 diopter decrease in lens focus
  Reduce monitor blue light with F.lux, Apple Night Shift, etc
  Best light: unfiltered daylight, e.g. window behind computer screen
  Artificial: high CRI LED, low flicker, low blue (e.g. 2700K Sylvane Truwave) 

  20-20-20: look out window, or 20+ foot distant object for 20s every 20m
  Tear film over eyes helps focus: blink, yawn, hydrate & track humidity
  Increase eye-monitor distance: reduce eye convergence stress
  Closeup/computer glasses: PD & CR-39 focal length for lens-monitor distance

  Daily exposure to natural light, with distance focusing for eye muscles
  20mg lutein daily from food sources or supplement
  For presbyopia, daily convergence exercises