Screen comfort: desk setup, lighting and eye care

Set up your desk

• Screen distance: keep the screen about an arm's length away, roughly 50–75 cm (20–30 in). If you lean in to read, make the text bigger rather than moving closer.
• Screen height: put the top of the screen at or just below eye level, so you look slightly down at the middle of it. On a laptop, raise it on a stand and use a separate keyboard and mouse.
• Straight ahead: put the screen you use most directly in front of you, not off to one side. With two screens, put the main one in front and the other beside it at the same height.
• Chair and posture: sit back with your lower back supported, feet flat on the floor or a footrest, and elbows at roughly a right angle with your shoulders relaxed.
• Text size: use your browser's zoom (Ctrl or Cmd and +) until you can read comfortably without squinting.

Get the lighting right

• Avoid glare: place the screen at a right angle to windows, not facing them or with them behind it. Tilt the screen or close a blind if you can see reflections.
• Match the room: set the screen about as bright as the room around it. A bright screen in a dark room, or a dim one in a sunny room, makes your eyes work harder.
• Soft background light: in the evening, keep a lamp on instead of working with the screen as the only light. A light behind the screen reduces the contrast further.
• Warmer colours later in the day: most computers have a night-light or Night Shift setting that warms the screen in the evening. Many people find it more comfortable.

Look after your eyes

• The 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, look at something about 20 feet (6 metres) away for 20 seconds. It lets the focusing muscles in your eyes relax.
• Blink: we blink much less when we concentrate on a screen, which dries the eyes. Blink fully a few times when you take a break, and keep the air from a fan or vent off your face.
• Move: stand up and move around for a few minutes every 30 to 60 minutes. A gap between meetings is a good moment.
• Get your eyes tested: have regular eye tests and tell the optician how much you use a screen. Glasses made for screen distance can help.

This is general guidance, not medical advice. If you have headaches, blurred vision or eye pain that doesn't go away, see an optician or doctor.

Settings in our tools that help

• Next Up by URLflows: the sun/moon button switches between light and dark, the palette button has more than 30 themes, and its Customize tab lets you soften any theme's colours. Turn off Flash the page during alerts if flashing is uncomfortable. See Arrange the layout and choose a theme.
• Docs Dimmer & Dark Mode by URLflows: dims and warms the bright white pages of Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, or switches them to dark. See Docs Dimmer & Dark Mode.
• This site: use the theme button in the header to switch between light and dark.