Take Care Of Your Eyes
According to the study conducted by the members of the American Federation for Aging Research, 75% of the North Americans believe that their eyesight is the most important sense they have. And this is by no accident, because almost 80% of the information we receive through our sense organs comes from our eyes. The same study showed that only 40% of respondents visit doctors for checkups on a regular basis, while 80% of the Americans regret not caring about the eyesight properly.
One can endlessly enumerate all the problems and diseases related to our eyes, such as glaucoma, blindness, or macular degeneration (retina deterioration that causes loss of detail vision), etc. Unfortunately, many of us start paying attention to the symptoms too late, when the disease has already developed.
At work we often spend ages in front of the computer, and by the end of the day we start feeling that our eyes are tired and the head is aching. It is surely possible to find a better job, but you will never manage to get new eyes. That's the reason why you should be especially careful with the eyesight and protect the eyes as they still should serve you for many years.
Tea bags for your eyes relaxation
Undoubtedly we all bear in mind the abundant information concerning the eyes protection you hear at every corner – I mean all those words about good nutrition, regular eye examination at the doctor's, no smoking, hourly breaks from working in front of the computer, regular eye exercises, and so on. However, it is also necessary to give proper attention to another problem – idleness that is no natural for humans, and which is most difficult to overcome. Even those of us who are aware of the problem are often just too lazy to do an eight-minute break and do some eye exercises. This is where special eyes protection software is to step in.
One of the easiest solutions to our problem is to find some helpful software on the Web. We need a utility that will keep track of the time you spend in front of the computer. The first to come into my mind is Activity Timer. This is a convenient freeware timer that has a very interesting feature for us consider in this article: an eye protection reminder. Only a few clicks will let you change all the settings you need. You can set an icon or the entire screen to flash, or play a short audio recording several times to remind you that it's time to take a break. So, whenever the music plays, or the screen starts flashing, you stop working, and look away into the distance for some time (for example, while the music's on). Unfortunately, however, the program doesn't suggest any exercises or activities to make our eyes healthier; and that forces us to consider some other applications.
Eyes relaxing and focusing is a free program that differs from the majority of the similar ones, mainly due to its remarkable feature: apart from reminding about the break, the program also provides the user with special set of exercises to relax the eyes. Most of them imply watch images created specially for this purpose. What is more, you can test your eyesight by taking a simple test in which you should select one image that is different from the others. The program will calculate the total number of all correct and wrong answers and display the result as a proportion of correct answers. In addition to this, you can increase the difficulty level of the test ranging from 5 to 100%.
A test sample
The main idea of such kind of exercises is to increase blood circulation, which can lower pressure in the eyeballs. This can be helpful for those who suffer from eye strain, and is absolutely necessary for those who have glaucoma.
Moreover, the program suggests that you relax your eyes and blink as much as possible to moisten them. That is done because focusing on the work in front of the computer for long hours may cause dry eye symptoms. The main reason for this is the insufficient amount of tears, which consist of water, mucus, and oil. The oily part of our tears comes from the little glands at the margins of the eyelid, so, as we blink, oil coats the eyes. But if this coat is insufficient, the water from the tear evaporates, and the eyes become dry. This causes a reflex of tearing, and which is why our eyes usually water when they get irritated and dry. Regular exercises will be helpful to avoid such unpleasant symptoms.
However that's only a small portion of the ways to protect our eyes we can make use of. So, we have found out that good eye protection software should feature not only a timer, but also useful advice that may make your eye protection activities more effective, as well as give you some new ideas about your health in general.
We've tested some applications which seem to have similar functionality (Eyes Relax, Eye Strain, etc.), but the most attractive and complete one, according to our study, is surely Eyes Protector Pro.
First of all, this application is very handy. Its user-friendly interface allows you to navigate though the main program's features quickly and easily.
Eyes Protector Pro main window
All information about the period of time between breaks, as well as the number of pauses left is clearly visible in the program's main window. The custom mode can be switched here as well, and there are convenient buttons to directly proceed to various wizards and other settings.
The main function of the application is to remind you to take breaks when it is necessary, and to suggest you do some useful exercises for your body and eyes.
What makes “Eyes Protector Pro” distinct from majority of similar programs, is that you can configure the program in the to be unable to skip the black screen you see during the pauses.
The exercises the program offers will help you not only train your eyes, but also limber up your back, neck, legs and the whole body; the pop-up windows will remind you to check your posture and correct it;to drip your eyes, and to drink some water.
Posture Reminder
If this program allowed creating your own reminders, along with adding images, it would undoubtedly be the best eye relaxing software nowadays. However, the only things you can do to it is to set alarms with text messages, add your own audio files, and set your daily working time limit.
All in all, Eyes Protector Pro is certainly worth trying and buying, and it can serve your needs for a long time.
While the programs mentioned aboveonly repeat the already well-known ideas about eye protection, the developers of F.lux have suggested a fresh solution to reduce eye strain: this application automatically changes colors on your screen in accordance to the day or night time. At night, it makes your computer screen look like it's lighted by your indoor lights. In the morning, it makes the imaginary sun shine again. There are some controversial opinions concerning this program: some users are extremely satisfied with F.lux's for years, others find some bugs in its functionality. Maybe that is why the program is still freeware, and it is up to you whether to try it, or not.
In conclusion I must mention that however useful such eye protecting software could seem, still the best solution for your eyes will be shutting down your PC and changing your activity as well. Try going for a walk, or to the gym, or to the swimming pool and enjoy your healthy and happy life for years to come :)
