I’m Staring at My Computer Screen More Than Ever. Will This Hurt My Eyes?

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I'm staring at my computer screen more than ever.

Will this hurt my eyes?

This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert, and fitness hall of famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions, and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert.

Josh Z.

From Instagram asks. I'm staring at my computer screen now more than ever.

Will this hurt my eyes?

What should I do? Hey, it's J.J. here. And I've got Dr. Ronnie Vanik. She's a board certified neuro ophthalmologist and an associate professor at Mount Sinai in New York York City. And when she's not out helping improve our vision, you can find her on the dance floor doing everything from salsa to classical Indian dance. Or off the beaten path exploring far off places like Rwanda or Namibia. But today, she's here with us. We'll be right back with the answer.

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Well, I'd like to first start off by saying that most of us spend hours and hours a day in front of a screen. It is our new norm. You know, this increased screen time, our dependence on digital devices, whether it be a phone, a tablet, a computer monitor or a laptop, even a television screen or even other entertainment devices, for example game consoles. Many of us spend hours in front of a screen every day. The average amount of screen time for US adults was estimated to be 11 hours a day, which is really mind boggling for children. It's been estimated that children spend about six hours a day in front of a screen. Now these numbers were before the pandemic and now that many of us have shifted to working from home or to our children are homeschooling and we're even connecting with friends and family via devices now and probably streaming more and watching television more and gaming more during the pandemic, these numbers are going to skyrocket through the roof even more. So what can all this screen time do in terms of our vision? Well, fortunately, I do want to just make this very clear in the beginning that there is no evidence to show that all this extra screen time or hours of screen time may do direct damage to our eyes. There were some alarmist headlines published in 2018 that suggested that screens and the blue light that comes from screens may potentially cause permanent damage to our vision, may even cause blindness. But so far that has not been true. So there again, there is no evidence to show that it causes screen time and blue light exposure causes permanent damage, but it can certainly cause short term side effects. And what is the main short term side effect of all this screen time and blue light exposure? Well, it's called digital eye strain. And what digital eye strain is, it's actually a constellation of symptoms that include blurry vision, trouble focusing, dry eye, which I talked about before, sometimes light sensitivity, even headaches, sometimes even neck and shoulder pain. So all of these symptoms can be associated with digital eye strain. And again, it happens to most of us at some point or other. It can even happen to children if they're on screens for too Long. And the best thing you can do to combat digital eye strain is, is to simply take frequent breaks. And I like to use a cute little rule that I call the 2020 rule. And 2020 in ophthalmology terms stands for perfect vision. But the 2020 rule is basically, every 20 minutes, take a break. So set your timer, set your watch, set your phone for every 20 minutes, make it a break where you close your eyes and you simply allow your eyes to get lubricated. So you're closing your eyes and take some deep breaths. You're not looking at a screen, you're not looking at anything, for that matter. And you're allowing your eyes to re lubricate. And also it gives your eyes a break from that blue light as well. So follow that 2020 rule in terms of some other things you can do. So a lot of my patients ask me, Dr. Banik, should I be wearing blue blocking glasses? Should I get a blue screen filter for my computer? What can I do to protect against digital eye strain and blue light? And what I tell them is, yes, you can do that. You can get blue blocking glasses, though they're expensive. And there's no guarantee that the blue blockers will necessarily block out all of the blue rays. What I tell my patients is that we actually have internal blue blockers inside our eyes. So nature has given us pigments inside of our eyes which automatically block out a lot of those potentially harmful blue rays and UV rays that can harm our eyes. And so what are these internal blue blockers? Well, they are pigments that are deposited in the retina. They are carotenoid pigments. So they're a nutrient that, that gets deposited in the retina. And they have fancy names. So these three pigments are lutein, zeaxanthin and meso zeaxanthin. So I know that these are a mouthful to say and even harder to remember, but I like to call them vitamins L, Z and M for short. Now, they're not officially vitamins. They're more nutrients. But it's really, really important to get these nutrients in your diet. The best way to do that is through plenty of fruits and vegetables. So, for example, green leafy vegetables like spinach, kale, collard greens, Swiss chard, romaine lettuce, these are all very rich in lutein and zeaxanthin, the vitamin L and vitamin Z that I was mentioning before. Also orange fruits and vegetables and yellow fruits and vegetables like orange peppers, corn, even egg yolk. Even though it's not a vegetable, it's an animal product. These are all very rich in lutein and zeaxanthin, so you can have plenty of these in your diet. Try to have at least a couple of servings every day of some of these really colorful fruits and vegetables to get the lutein and zeaxanthin in your diet. The third pigment that's in our eyes, which is the meso zeaxanthin or vitamin M that I mentioned, unfortunately doesn't come readily from foods. It's really hard to get that from foods in our diet. So this is where supplementation may come into the picture. So again, try to get as much as you can from foods, but supplementation of the three eye health pigments, the internal blue blockers that we have inside our eyes, lutein, zeaxanthin and meso zeaxanthin are really, really important.

This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com.

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