Many people spend all day working on the computer, and eye strain is a common complaint. Eye strain can result in headaches and trouble focusing when you step away from the computer. If you use the computer for multiple hours a day and you're farsighted, your current glasses may be contributing to the eye strain that you're experiencing. One way that you can help reduce your eye strain is by switching to trifocal glasses, which make it easier for people who are farsighted to clearly see objects at an intermediate distance, like the letters on your computer monitor. To learn more about trifocal glasses and how they can help reduce eye strain when you're using a computer, read on.

What Are Trifocal Glasses?

Trifocal glasses have a special type of lens in them that's separated into three different pieces. The top part of the lens is designed to correct your vision when you're looking at far distances, and the bottom is designed to correct your vision when you're looking at objects that are very close. This is similar to how bifocal glasses are designed. Trifocals go a step further and add another part of the lens in the center that corrects your vision at an intermediate distance.

How Can Trifocal Glasses Help Reduce Eye Strain When Using a Computer? 

Trifocals solve a problem with bifocal glasses and single vision glasses (which only have a lens with only one part) that are used for farsightedness. Correcting your vision when you're looking at objects that are close works well when you're reading a book or when you're using your smartphone, but tends to result in the letters on a computer screen appearing blurry — your computer monitor is slightly further away than the close vision correction is designed for. The center section of trifocal glasses that are meant for intermediate distances is a better fit when you're using a computer.

Using trifocal glasses can help reduce eye strain by making it easier for you to focus on the numbers and letters on your computer screen. If you find that they're blurry when you use your current glasses, switching to trifocal glasses can help. Squinting and moving your head in order to bring your computer screen into focus is not only tiresome while you work, but it can also contribute to eye strain as your eyes struggle to focus on your screen. You have muscles in your eyes that adjust the focus by changing the shape of the lens inside, and these muscles can tire out when they're always trying to adjust focus. Switching to trifocals allows your eye to switch focus easier, which helps avoid overworking the muscles that control the lens in your eye.

If you experience eye strain after using the computer all day, schedule an appointment with an eye care service in your area and ask about trifocal glasses. They're slightly more expensive than single vision glasses and bifocals due to the fact that the lenses need to be separated into three different parts, but the fact that they're capable of correcting your vision at an intermediate distance can help reduce the eye strain you experience when you're working at the computer.

Contact an optometrist to learn more about eye care.