Scenario
You start your working day and open your laptop, but the screen feels uncomfortably bright. After a while, your eyes begin to ache. As the day goes on, you may develop a headache, feel dizzy, experience eye strain, or even start to feel nauseous.
The problem can become worse when moving between different applications, joining video calls, switching between light and dark interfaces, or working under bright office lighting.
You try turning the screen brightness down, the discomfort improves, but then the text becomes harder to read. Turning it back up makes the discomfort return. It can feel like there is no setting that is quite right.
What is getting in the way?
When looking at a screen becomes uncomfortable, it can be harder to concentrate, stay productive, and work comfortably throughout the day.
Bright screens, strong contrast, glare, or certain colour combinations can cause discomfort for some people. Common triggers include:
- high brightness levels or bright white backgrounds
- glare from overhead lights, windows or reflective surfaces
- moving quickly between dark and bright screens, apps or documents
- blue light, especially later in the day
- screen flicker, which can be linked to some brightness settings
- motion, animation or visual effects on screen
- using more than one monitor with different brightness levels
- long periods of screen use without regular breaks
These can lead to headaches, eye strain, dizziness or nausea, particularly during long sessions, video calls or work under strong lighting.
Tools that can help
Display accessibility settings can help make your screen more comfortable to use. Features such as dark mode, night light, colour filters, contrast settings and brightness controls can reduce eye strain and make content easier to view.
Windows includes several built-in options that can reduce visual strain:
- Night light
- Dark mode in Windows and supported apps
- Brightness and HDR controls
- Colour filters and contrast themes
- Display scale and text size
- Reduce motion or animation
- ColorVeil – if you need a view that is softer on your eyes
- Focus and break reminders
You do not need to try everything. Start with one small change and see what helps.
