How to Get Rid of the Puffy Eyes When Your Eyes are Very Tired

Eye fatigue or eye strain is a common and annoying condition. The symptoms include tired, itching, and burning eyes.

Eye fatigue is rarely a serious condition. Common sense precautions at home, work, and outdoors may help prevent or reduce eye fatigue

Eyestrain signs and symptoms include:

Sore, tired, burning or itching eyes
Watery or dry eyes
Blurred or double vision
Headache
Sore neck, shoulders or back
Increased sensitivity to light
Difficulty concentrating
Feeling that you cannot keep your eyes open

Common causes of eyestrain include:

Looking at digital device screens
Reading without pausing to rest your eyes
Driving long distances and doing other activities involving extended focus
Being exposed to bright light or glare
Straining to see in very dim light
Having an underlying eye problem, such as dry eyes or uncorrected vision (refractive error)
Being stressed or fatigued
Exposure to dry moving air from a fan, heating or air-conditioning system

Try lemon water first thing in the morning and throughout the day. It’s refreshing and will help hydate you. Dehydration is one of the main causes of puffy eyes, and is especially common first thing in the morning.

Blinking is very important when working at a computer; blinking moistens your eyes to prevent dryness and irritation.

When working at a computer, people blink less frequently — about one-third as often as they normally do — and many blinks performed during computer work are only partial lid closures, according to studies.

Sweeteners like aspartame and saccharin have been implicated in some studies as potentially causing fluid retention. If you regularly have puffy eyes, try cutting back on diet soda drinks and see if it helps.

Another cause of computer eye strain is focusing fatigue. To reduce your risk of tiring your eyes by constantly focusing on your screen, look away from your computer at least every 20 minutes and gaze at a distant object (at least 20 feet away) for at least 20 seconds. Some eye doctors call this the "20-20-20 rule." Looking far away relaxes the focusing muscle inside the eye to reduce fatigue.

Another exercise is to look far away at an object for 10-15 seconds, then gaze at something up close for 10-15 seconds. Then look back at the distant object. Do this 10 times.

This exercise reduces the risk of your eyes' focusing ability to "lock up" (a condition called accommodative spasm) after prolonged computer work.