The ScreenFit program lasts for 30 days, with one 10- to 15-minute exercise each day (it’s super low-lift and easy to add to your routine). For the purposes of this article, I completed all 30 exercises in 10 days—so three per day—a “bootcamp version,” if you will.
Some of the exercises require you to close one eye and exercise them one-by-one. After completing the very first exercise, I immediately thought, OK, wow, my right eye is seriously out of shape. It was much harder to complete the exercises on the right; I even had to take quick breaks in between. When I told Appelbaum about this imbalance, though, he wasn’t at all surprised.
“So many eye coordination problems manifest, because in life we have trouble using our eyes together with all the near-visual stress from screens,” he tells me. “Very often we develop this rivalry over which eye to use, so you end up using different aspects of eyes more than others. Had you not covered your eyes and gone through those exercises, you probably wouldn’t have known that there was any difference between each eye.”
The practices themselves are pretty straightforward and easy to follow. For example, one day I was tasked with visual “push-ups,” where I had to focus on one point in the distance and one point up close. With one eye covered at a time, I focused on each point for 10 seconds until they became clear.
You don’t need any special equipment, either; some exercises do require tools like a pencil, eye patch, or dry erase marker, but you can easily make do with what you already have at home. (Instead of a patch, I used a headband.)
As for the best time of day to complete each exercise, it depends on your own motivation. It’s just like going to the gym: Some folks prefer an early morning workout, while others love an after work sweat. According to Appelbaum, “Going through these activities after an eight to 10 hour workday staring at a screen can make it more challenging,” but there is some benefit to giving your eyes a good stretch when they need it most.
“For most people doing ScreenFit, we’d recommend doing it in the morning before they start their day,” Appelbaum adds. I switched off between morning and evening “workouts,” and I could definitely see the benefits to both: Morning exercises helped me approach the day with more clarity, while a post-work practice helped me eliminate the blur from staring at my laptop.
