Contact lenses at the computer: why they dry out and what helps

Contact lenses often feel dry at a computer because you blink less while you concentrate on a screen, and a lens already makes the tear film on your eye thinner and less stable. Fuller blinks, regular breaks, air that isn't blowing at your face and switching to glasses for the end of a long day help most people. If your lenses are uncomfortable most days anyway, your optometrist can look at the fit, the lens material and how you care for them.

Many lens wearers know the pattern. The lenses feel fine at nine, you notice them by lunch, and by late afternoon you are aware of every blink. This post covers why that happens, what you can change at your desk, and what to ask your eye doctor. It doesn't name lenses or drops, because which ones suit you is a question for the person who fits your lenses.

Why do contacts feel dry at the computer?

A thin film of tears coats the front of each eye, and every blink renews it. A contact lens sits inside that film and divides it in two: a layer in front of the lens and a layer behind it. The layer in front is thinner than it would be on a bare eye, so it breaks up sooner between blinks, and a lens surface that has started to dry feels rough as the lid slides over it.

Screen work makes this worse in several ways at once.

• You blink less. Concentration slows blinking, and many screen blinks are partial, with the upper lid stopping short. A partial blink doesn't wet the lower part of the lens.
• Your eyes are open wider. A screen at or above eye level lifts your upper lids, so more of the lens is out in the air.
• The day adds up. On many lenses, deposits from the tear film build up on the surface over the day, and a coated lens wets less easily. It is one reason lenses tend to feel worse in the afternoon than in the morning.

None of this means contacts and computers don't mix. It means the desk habits that help everyone's eyes matter a bit more for you. Dry eyes at the computer covers the other causes of screen-day dryness, with or without lenses.

Blink fully, and look away often

For most people, these two habits do more than anything you can buy.

Full blinks, on purpose

Aim for complete blinks, with the upper lid meeting the lower one. Close your eyes slowly, as if you were nodding off, pause for a second, and open them. Do it three or four times in a row, a few times an hour. A full blink spreads fresh tears over the whole lens and squeezes a little oil from the glands along your lid edges, which slows evaporation.

The easiest way to remember is to hang the blinks on things you already do: each time you send a message, each time a page loads, each time you reach for a drink. Why you blink less at the computer has more on the habit and on checking your own blinking.

Breaks that use your distance vision

Breaks help lens wearers twice. Looking at something far away relaxes the focusing effort, and once you stop reading, your blink rate tends to go back to normal. The 20-20-20 rule is the easy version: about three times an hour, rest your eyes on something about 20 feet off for 20 seconds or so, and close them for a moment while you are at it. A longer break away from the desk every hour or two helps more again, because you stop reading entirely.

Fix the air around your desk

Moving, dry air is hard on a lens. Spend a minute finding where the air at your desk comes from.

1. Look up. If a ceiling vent points at your chair, turn its slats or shift your desk out of its path.
2. Point a desk fan at your body, not your face.
3. Turn a heater at your feet so it blows across the floor, not up toward you.
4. If the room is dry in winter, a humidifier may help. Clean it as the maker says, because a neglected one can grow mold.

The car counts too. A dashboard vent on your face after a long screen day is one more dry stretch for the lens.

Should you switch to glasses later in the day?

For many people it is the simplest fix of all. If your lenses feel fine for the first half of the day and gritty by evening, take them out at a set point and wear glasses for the rest of the evening's screen time. Your eyes get the evening without a lens, and the couch and the laptop stop being the worst part of the day for them.

Two things make this work.

• Keep your glasses up to date. If your glasses are only a backup, they may be years behind your lens prescription, which makes them feel worse and keeps them in the drawer. Ask for both prescriptions to be checked at the same visit.
• Pick a cue. "When the lenses start to bother me" comes too late. A fixed time, getting home, or the moment you close the laptop for the day works better.

Habits that matter more on long screen days

None of these are special to screens, but long screen days show up every gap.

• Stick to the wear time and replacement schedule your optometrist gave you. A lens worn past its replacement date tends to feel drier.
• Don't sleep in lenses unless they were prescribed for overnight wear.
• Wash and dry your hands before you touch your lenses, keep water away from them (tap water, showers, swimming), and replace the lens case regularly.
• Try not to rub your eyes with lenses in.
• If you use drops, ask a pharmacist or your eye doctor for ones made for use with contact lenses. Not all eye drops are.

What to ask your eye doctor

If your lenses are uncomfortable on most screen days despite all this, tell your optometrist, and give them specifics: roughly how long your screen days are, what time of day the discomfort starts, and whether weekends are better. There is often plenty they can try. They can check the fit, suggest a different lens material or replacement schedule, change your care solution, and look at the oil glands along your lids, which play a large part in how fast tears evaporate. They can also tell you whether glasses set for screen distance would suit your longest days.

If an eye becomes red and painful, or your vision blurs, take the lenses out and see an eye doctor promptly, the same day if you can. Don't put the lenses back in until you have been checked.

A blink reminder from the notch

The trouble with dry lenses is that you notice them late. Nobody feels their blink rate drop. You feel the lens an hour afterwards.

Notchpals can get in before then. It puts a character in your Mac's notch whose job is your eyes, and if that is Blush, a shy chameleon, you get the occasional blink break, a few slow, full blinks and nothing more, alongside eye breaks that ask you to look at something far off.

BlushI blink with my whole turret. You can just use eyelids. Slowly, please.

Notchpals can't see your eyes or your lenses, so it goes by your Done. Press Later and Blush tries once more a little later. One idea for lens wearers: the same character makes a single visit late in the evening to ask you to dim the screen. If you still have lenses in by then, treat it as your cue to swap them for glasses as well.