The eyes are the window of the soul.

This is a very popular idiom in my country when people talk about the beauty of the eyes.

And a person with beautiful eyes always is more attractive to others compared to others.

This person is also free to do more things compared to people who need to wear glasses all the time (such as drive a motorbike on rainy days or reading information from a far distance,…)

But we also can’t ignore the reality that there are more and more people who need to wear glasses and have weaker vision nowadays as a result of spending too much time in front of the screens.

From using the laptop for working to the phone for entertainment or communication,…

All these activities require us to spend hours per day interacting with screens and ask the eyes to work hardly and continuously.

In recent research, it shows that on average, a kid nowadays uses at least 4 hours and 44 minutes a day on the screen to check social media alone.

It is a massive number of hours per day when we think seriously about it. And it also leads to a lot of negative impacts on the health of kids’ eyes when we see the number of young people who need to wear glasses is growing every year.

So what we can do to protect our eyes’ health easily but effectively?

                                                     …

Method No.1 to reduce screen time: Take care of your surrounding environment

You can’t ask for losing weight when you surrounded by all sugar foods.

It is the same for wanting to reduce screen time but always locates your smartphone nearby you, open your computer or TV all the time.

If you really want to reduce the time to consume your electronic screens, you first really need to reduce their appearance time around you.

So how to do it effectively

• In your company

You can reduce the time to use screens by trying to take the rule 50/10 (means 50 minutes to work on the computer, then 10 minutes to relax without using any electronic devices).

Or you can try to limit your using time by printing out the information you need to check on paper instead of reading Word or Excel files from your computer.

As in my company, the training materials, and business news all print to hard copies. Therefore, we can choose between using the hard copy or the online version.

And for me, the best option always is hard copy, except for the documents that still haven’t been printed out yet.

It helps me to save a lot of hours per week to use screens to read reports and papers.

And actually, printing it out make my work to be more effective when I can easily take note, scanning, and skim easier than when I use the computer.

• In your home

Don’t let your phone nearby your bed (and turn off the wifi when you go to sleep if you don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night because of notifications).

Replace your living room’s TV with a corner of books.

As I see many families have a BIG TV located at the central position in their living room and normally spend many hours in the evening watching TV programs.

If you don’t want to waste your time useless with just entertainment content and save your eyes (after a hard-working day that spent many hours on computers), replacing the TV with a bookshelf will encourage you to read more as well as relax your eyes with books(instead of watching TV).

Developing these kinds of daily good habits will help you to improve your quality of life a lot as well as protect your vision from the screen.

Method No.2 to reduce screen time: Set your own time to use screens at home

When you are in the workspace, it is hard for you to decide if you use or not use the computer or phone. Because nowadays, most of the business activities and tasks in companies require to use screens.

But at home, the choice is your own.

If you want it, you can do it. But if you don’t want, nobody can ask you to work on screens in your re-energy time in the evenings or weekends.

However, to make the best control of using screens at home, it requires you to have high discipline and a good plan to use it.

Because if you don’t, you will very easy to fall into a trap of consuming screens more than you expect, from answers to your comments on social media, watching your favorite movies, reading online news, to have video calls with your family members, or friends,…

These things will cost you a lot of hours every day if you don’t clear about the time you work on it.

For me, a limitation of 2 hours per night is what I set for myself to use electronic screen devices, from the computer, phone, to TV programs.

Normally, it will start from 6 p.m to 8 p.m when I can spend 30 minutes updating online news, an hour watching my favorite YouTubers on Youtube, and a half-hour chatting with friends on the messengers.

After that, I will use books and notepaper only or talk with my family members face-to-face and quit all the pieces of screen equipment until the next morning.

So how you can do it effectively

• Set yourself a clear plan for what you need to do with screens

When you know what you need to use the phone, TV or computer for in the evening, it will help you to estimate better how many hours on average you really need to use it.

For me, if I need to complete my report in 2 hours, I will plan for myself to add 2 more hours in the evening for using screens for this report.

And don’t use screens for any further purpose.

This is how I maximize my 2 precious hours with screens in the evening. Choosing to focus on MITs (Most Important Tasks) firstly with it before doing anything else.

• Never forget your rule

If you set 2 hours (after working time for screens/day) as I do. Let make yourself never quit this rule, and always make sure to use it for under 2 hours.

The big problem is we choose to do it all by ourselves, and if we don’t have a high discipline, we will lose it.

For instance, a movie like Avengers (for more than two and a half hours) can make you break your 2 hours rule. But if you give you the rule of 2 hours (you should choose not to watch it, until your weekend (when you can give you an hour more for relaxing purposes)).

This is how I did with my favorite movies.

But always keep in mind during the week that

If I can break the rule for the first time, it can happen for the second time.

Method No.3 to reduce screen time: Change the ways you entertain

You don’t need to have a good computer, high-tech phones to play games, or having a lot of online friends to chat with for entertainment purposes.

We all can do entertainment without using any electronic devices.

What really makes sense is just your choices. If you believe you must have electronic devices to entertain, you MUST HAVE.

But if you believe that entertainment can do in any way that makes you feel happy and relaxed, you are TOTALLY RIGHT.

Actually, it is all depend on yourself.

As I believe in “Entertainment doesn’t need to have electronic devices”.

I choose to make myself relax and enjoy life by hanging out with friends, taking care of my small garden, or reading my favorite books in my free time instead of spending hours chatting online or watching TV shows.

It is not always the main option for me. But it is ALMOST.

And this way of approach helps me to reduce the massive amount of hours spent on computers, TV, and phones every day.

If we just count in a simple way, every day I choose to do entertainment activities without using a screen for 1 hour only. So, after a year, I already can save my eyes from watching on screens for 365 hours.

In 10 years, it will be 3650 hours.

This will create a massive impact on your eyes’ health in the long term impacts when you review it back for years.

For instance, on the weekend, I normally quite my electric device for the whole day to enjoy the real-life experience instead, such as discovering this interesting Loki Lodge farm. 

To conclusion

Wearing the glasses is not too bad, but if you can free your eyes without using it is so far better.

Especially if you are a sportsman who loves to play competitive sports like basketball, football as I do.

And the list of 3 simple things actually what I did for years, from when I was a kid and my parents taught me with these rules until now.

These are so far simple and easy to apply, but the most important thing is your patient with what you do.

1. Take care of your surrounding environment

2. Set your own time to use screens at home

3. Change the ways you entertain

These are all not hard to achieve. But the result in your eyes health will be massive.

P/s:

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