Comfortable vision on your computer

Most people use a computer these days, some of us for long periods of time. If you wear reading glasses, you may have noticed that at the end of a busy day your eyes feel tired, or you may have even noticed that your reading glasses just aren’t as clear as they should be when looking at your screen.

Why is this?

Reading glasses are typically designed to focus at a ‘normal’ reading distance, generally considered to be 40cm or around 16 inches. That’s great if you are reading a newspaper or book but if you were to measure how far away your computer screen is, you would probably find it’s around double that distance.

This means that when you are wearing your reading glasses the focusing system in your eyes will work hard to make up the difference. Your eye’s focusing system is controlled by muscles and, like any muscle, if overworked they will fatigue. This is sometimes what we feel when we talk about eyestrain.

So what is the answer?

There is a new genre of lenses which are designed with computer users in mind. These lenses have a few names; occupational varifocals, office lenses and computer lenses to name a few. These lenses give you relaxed, comfortable vision at both distances whether you are looking at the computer screen or reading a book. The top half of the lens focuses where your computer screen is and the bottom half focuses where you would hold a book or newspaper. Pair this type of lens with an anti-reflective coating and you have a pair of glasses ideally suited to today’s high intensity desk based environment.