Break reminders and eye exercises in work environment.

Eye exercises in work environment

In the previous article I suggested using a breaks and exercises to reduce and prevent the eye strain and dry eyes symptoms. A very handy tool in this case are the break reminder programs.
The break reminder programs like eye defender are good but sometimes in work environment it's not very appropriate to have different images or pop-screens on your computer. There is a list of such kind of software on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_repetitive_strain_injury_software (the table at the bottom of the page). Like you can see there are many choices.
While program such as Workrave is good since it's offers short micro breaks and program with exercises which are very helpful not only for dry eyes but for removing pain in the neck and the back. It's not always appropriate to have it on your work computer. I prefer to use eyedefender program by selecting "show a popup balloon in system tray"

A small popup balloon show up for few seconds and then fade out. It's enough to remind you to move you eyes away from the screen.










You can set the interval between the breaks at few minutes and just make some small simple exercises.
There are few exercises which are simple and can be used without problems on work:

1. Focus your eyes at distant object 

Blink few times and focus your eyes at the furthest object behind your monitor or somewhere else in the room, or in the window.
Now there are two option for this exercise. 

 - just look at the objects far away - the simplest exercise offers a good rest for your eye muscles and removing the eye strain. Keep blinking meanwhile to keep your eyes wet and to relieve the dry eyes.

 - look at object far away for few seconds, then look at object at close distance for few seconds, repeat few times. You can blink during the exercise.

2. Move your eyes at the monitor edge

Blink few times. Look at the monitor top right corner. Follow slowly with eyes the edge of the monitor until you reach the top left corner. Then again slowly follow the edge to the bottom left corner ... follow the edges until you make a full circle. Repeat it few times changing the direction from left to right.

3. Look in the darkness

This exercise actually is not always appropriate but its simple and offer good rest.

This is screenshot from Workrave program.
It explain very well what to do. Just cover your eyes with hands and look in the dark. This is simple exercise that offer just a rest for the eyes. Do it for 20 seconds.