Ophthalmologist with UVA Health offers ways to protect vision during COVID-19 pandemic

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) -With work and social life mostly virtual, a doctor at UVA Health is offering ways to protect your vision.

Staring at a screen for hours and hours can be detrimental to your eye sight, so Dr. Jayakrishna Ambati suggests getting up every 20 minutes. He also says controlling the light in your room is important.

“You want to minimize glare, but at the same time you want to have lighting appropriate that your eyes aren’t dilated, your pupils aren’t dilated. If you turn off all the lights then your pupils tend to dilate," Ambati said.

While hopping on that happy hour call with your friends is fun, you may want to consider limiting the amount of people you invite or using the speaker view feature: “Not because you’re antisocial, but because you want to reduce eye strain from the effort of focusing on so many faces," the doctor said.

Dr. Ambati suggests shutting down the screen and setting aside a few moments for deep breathing to avoid Zoom fatigue. When you do start work again, pay attention to the angle of the computer.

“You want to have your device, let’s say a laptop or computer, roughly 2 feet away from you and you want to have the center of the screen roughly 5 to 6 inches below so you want your neck tilted maximum roughly 15 degrees," Ambati said.

Ambati also says many people do not remember to blink when looking at a screen for long periods of time, which can cause dry eyes.