Ask HN: How do you prevent headaches from screen use?

Are you sure it's not because of your head posture? Make sure you don't twist your head too much when looking at the screen, from my experience bad posture is the #1 reason for headaches, screen resolution less so.

I think emitted light from monitors and displays causes more eye strain than reflected light, as people tend to have their monitors set too bright and with a colour temperature that is contrasted to the ambience of the room. Whereas compared to reflected light, the reflected light is always as the same intensity and colour temperature as ambient light, thus reducing strain as the contrast is lower.

Thus, my recommendation is to set monitor brightness and colour temperature to match the ambient lighting conditions. I have no data to support this, other than my own personal comfort. I also suffer from eye floaters, so I use dark colour schemes to reduce contrast so I notice them less. A downside to this is that text can appear to be more fuzzy if you suffer from astigmatism.

I've started keeping a 32 oz water bottle next to me at my desk and that helps. I drink a lot of tea throughout the day, and having a huge bottle that I fill up in the morning helps me track my water intake.

I also use f.lux to change the color temperature of my screen.

The three things that helped me in order from most to least:

1) Getting 8h of sleep a night. Without 8h of sleep sitting in front of a computer for a few hours would give me a massive headache.

2) Moving my computer from in front of a window to a different location.

3) Using blue light filtering glasses.

Now I almost never get a headache, I think 1 and 2 were the biggest improvements. I've also started experimenting with having fake green plants around my monitors.