My phone was giving me migraines, so I made these 5 changes

Round 2022, I used to be recognized with continual migraines. In contrast to regular complications, migraines include a wide range of neurological signs on prime of the ache, akin to nausea, gentle and sound sensitivity, and problem concentrating.

As I took the time to determine what my migraine triggers have been, a couple of culprits stood out, together with the time spent on my smartphone. The brilliant display would typically set off migraines or worsen my current signs — so I needed to make a couple of modifications to scale back the impression it had.

Most of those modifications additionally assist scale back eye pressure, so you’ll be able to attempt them out even if you happen to don’t have migraines or complications from display use. Since altering these settings and options, I discover my eyes don’t twitch after utilizing my display for lengthy durations of time. However the largest impact was on my migraine signs, with me experiencing fewer migraines triggered by display use and making certain I may nonetheless use my cellphone throughout delicate migraines.

Whereas there could also be the explanation why you may wish to keep away from darkish mode, the function is important for me. I used to solely use darkish mode at night time time once I was making ready for mattress, however I’ve now made positive that darkish mode is the default mode on all of my gadgets.

In some ways, darkish mode has change into an accessibility function for me. With out it, I wouldn’t have the ability to use my system with out risking triggering a migraine or making an current migraine worse.

On my Oppo Reno 10 Professional+, I even have the choice to set a darkish mode model: Enhanced, Medium, or Mild. Since Enhanced consists of essentially the most darkness, with a black background, I opted for this model.

Switching over to darkish mode on my cellphone additionally implies that most of my apps are additionally on this mode. For the few that didn’t change over mechanically, I manually toggled darkish mode inside the app settings.

Eye Consolation, often known as Eye Safety or Evening Mild (relying on the precise OS you’re utilizing), is a blue gentle filter out there on Android smartphones. I used to make use of a blue gentle filter app on my cellphone, however since Android launched the power to customise the filter setting, I can use the function instantly by my smartphone software program.

I additionally made positive to toggle Eye Consolation to the default setting, somewhat than limiting it to sure hours. In the meantime, I at all times regulate the temperature to as heat as doable to enhance my consolation when experiencing gentle sensitivity.

Since my eyes regulate to this filter, it isn’t as distracting because it might sound. Nonetheless, the downside is that it may possibly have an effect on the colour accuracy of photos you’re viewing. However I favor this caveat over the choice of getting my cellphone trigger complications and eye pressure.

I’ve been which means to make the change away from Chrome for some time now since I wish to be much less reliant on Google apps. However the lack of the power to make use of my darkish mode extension on Chrome’s Android app was the ultimate push I wanted to cease utilizing the app as my default cellular browser.

As an alternative, I’ve switched to Courageous, which permits me to pressure darkish mode on net pages that use a lightweight theme by default. Whereas many web sites help darkish mode, there are nonetheless a couple of that solely have a lightweight theme. I seen this essentially the most when studying information or wanting up recipes.

The function to pressure darkish mode is obtainable in Courageous’s Look settings, the place you’ll be able to select to allow night time mode.” Up to now, I haven’t encountered any points with getting websites to ship a black background and white textual content, which has made the change to a distinct browser worthwhile.

Whereas Adaptive Brightness on Android is beneficial, I discovered that my gentle sensitivity typically meant that the brightness my cellphone mechanically set was just too brilliant. That is particularly an issue at night time, once I set my display to 0% brightness once I’m in mattress.

The principle disadvantage of this can be a slight lack of comfort. After I go outdoors, my cellphone display doesn’t mechanically regulate, and I’ve to make use of muscle reminiscence to show the brightness again up. However the principle profit is that my cellphone doesn’t mechanically flip the brightness again up as soon as I’ve turned it down.

Generally I’d be utilizing my cellphone once I began to really feel the acquainted ache in the back of my eyes, and I’d understand my display was too brilliant — however by this time it was already too late, the migraine cascade had began. So, manually adjusting the brightness has been definitely worth the comfort trade-off.

Whereas most of my modifications profit eye pressure generally, this one is a little more particular to migraines. Movement sensitivity is a typical symptom in migraines, and I discover that sure motions on my smartphone could make my nausea worse.

That’s why I at all times make sure that my show refresh charge is about to my cellphone’s most (120Hz). This larger refresh charge reduces stuttering on my display whereas scrolling, which in flip helps me not really feel as sick from the jittery movement.

After all, rising my display’s refresh charge doesn’t do something on the subject of watching movies that set off my movement sensitivity — like movies recorded with a shaky digital camera. However at the very least I can simply scroll by my cellphone’s settings and Reddit threads with out inflicting points (so long as I don’t scroll too quick).

Making these modifications not solely lowered my eye pressure and lightweight sensitivity but in addition made my cellphone a lot much less of a set off for my migraines. When a migraine does hit, these modifications enable me to nonetheless use my system once I’m caught in mattress and must atone for messages.

If you end up having the same expertise or experiencing eye pressure from display use, I’d additionally counsel attempting out other ways to scale back the impression of display use — each in your smartphone and your pc.