Ocular health

[lilies]

How to sharpen your vision and dramatically increase color depth perception in the Summer


Our young apricot tree is weighed down by ripening fruit so much, that it began cracking in two in the middle. We had to prop the branches up in order to prevent the tree completely being torn in two.

I looked up the nutrient content of apricots and its pretty heavy in eye-strengthening substances: surprisingly familiar ones that eyesight-improving supplements are advertised with.

Maybe why some original "fruitarians" started their movement:
I would like to emphasize here that I think some of us can feel the literal life-force present in freshly picked fruit. It might be emphasized if you dip the freshly picked fruit/grape immediately in a bucket of cold water and eat the fruit from there. It feels mightily nourishing.

My favorite childhood fruits were cherry, apricot and large grapes. This is easily the third day that I'm stuffing myself with apricots - ~30 fruits / day and today I noticed when I came in from outside and sat down before the computer my marked sharpness of vision and also the noticeable increase of color depth perception. Colors suddenly jumped out of the screen!!

 

[Oxajil]

How to sharpen your vision and dramatically increase color depth perception in the Summer

Our young apricot tree is weighed down by ripening fruit so much, that it began cracking in two in the middle. We had to prop the branches up in order to prevent the tree completely being torn in two.

I looked up the nutrient content of apricots and its pretty heavy in eye-strengthening substances: surprisingly familiar ones that eyesight-improving supplements are advertised with.

But are the nutrients worth the sugar that comes with it or is your fruit less sugary? I'd personally go for supplements if there's an eye issue. Or even better, IV vitamin C.

Maybe why some original "fruitarians" started their movement:
I would like to emphasize here that I think some of us can feel the literal life-force present in freshly picked fruit. It might be emphasized if you dip the freshly picked fruit/grape immediately in a bucket of cold water and eat the fruit from there. It feels mightily nourishing.

Yeah, I can imagine, especially on a hot day.

My favorite childhood fruits were cherry, apricot and large grapes. This is easily the third day that I'm stuffing myself with apricots - ~30 fruits / day and today I noticed when I came in from outside and sat down before the computer my marked sharpness of vision and also the noticeable increase of color depth perception. Colors suddenly jumped out of the screen!!

Interesting results! But 30 fruits a day sounds a LOT to me! In my own experience, eating a lot of (organic) fruits will make my throat achy, causes a headache, or causes my skin to break out. I think it is likely because of the high sugar (fructose) content. FWIW.

 

[Chad]

Interesting results! But 30 fruits a day sounds a LOT to me! In my own experience, eating a lot of (organic) fruits will make my throat achy, causes a headache, or causes my skin to break out. I think it is likely because of the high sugar (fructose) content. FWIW.

Same here. If i eat too much white granulated sugar, i get a surge in energy, although it feels erratic, unstable and not desireable, whereas if i eat more than one apple i feel weak and lethargic, as though my blood sugar drops (i suspect it actually does). Apparently some people are more susceptible to fructose than others, and i've heard there may be some genetic component.

Regardless, eating that much fruit long term just to see a bit sharper and slightly more vivid colours when there are healthier, and probably more effective, alternatives, considering what we know about fructose, just doesn't seem worthwhile.

 

[Persej]

Here is a guide on how to disable display flickering on Huawei phones with OLED screens.

Aside from the entry-level phones, most of the smartphone company uses OLED panels to provide a high and more durable viewing experience that worth their money. However, even a high-priced, OLED screen-equipped phone could bring you headaches or eye strain.

How?

There could be a number of reasons for these head and eye-related issues found in a smartphone’s display including high brightness, blue light, and incorrect colors. There’s one more thing you need to about the display issue called Screen Flickering.

What is Screen Flickering:​

It’s a bit of a technical description, so bear with me here.

Flicker is a quick oscillation of light output between on and off; it is measured in hertz (Hz) to quantify the frequency at which the oscillation occurs. While we may not be consciously aware of the flicker phenomenon, it’s important to understand that our eyes still physically respond to it — that is, our irises expand and contract in response to these changes in brightness.

This involuntary physiological response can certainly explain why we may have a headache and particularly why our eyes can feel tired after looking at a display for an extended period of time — they have been working hard! (This is especially true when looking at a display in dark ambient conditions, such as reading in bed with the lights turned off, for reasons we’ll check on this more below.)

What Cause Flicker:​

It is unfortunate that flicker on their displays (especially OLED displays) is still an issue for many people. That’s not the issue, but why do they flicker?

Let’s take a dig at Flicker:

Smartphones either come with LCD (liquid crystal display) or OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology. LCDs don’t emit their own light, rather, they are back-illuminated by a strip of LEDs whose light intensity is quite powerful so as to compensate for the brightness drop due to the low transmission rate of the LCD panel (caused mainly by the RGB color filter). By contrast, in an OLED display, every pixel is itself an OLED that produces its own light.

Both LCDs and OLED displays are composed of light-emitting diodes, therefore, a diode’s intrinsic physical properties, cannot be dimmed by changing the intensity of the current (mA) without changing the color of the light.

How manufacturers dim Displays?​

According to DXOMARK, Using a technique called pulse-width modulation (PWM), which is responsible for turning the diodes off and on at varying rates. Because, we normally should not be able to see this switching between off and on (in other words, flickering!), it’s a trick for our brains that precise that the screen as simply dimmer overalls (a phenomenon is known as the “brain averaging effect”).

The dimming depends on how long the diodes are off versus how long they are on, the longer they’re off, the dimmer the screen will appear.

So both LCDs and OLED displays power their light sources differently, but both technologies are subject to flicker effect; however, it is usually more noticeable on OLED displays than on LCDs.

For one thing, OLED displays and LCDs show PWM at different frequency ranges — the PWM of OLED displays range from 50 to 500 Hz, whereas the PWM of LCDs starts at around 1000 Hz or higher. Second, as the human eye may experience flicker sensitivity up to about 250 Hz (at least for most people), it should come as no surprise that OLED displays are more likely to cause eyestrain than LCDs.

Huawei EMUI 11:​

These same issues are also presented in high-end Huawei devices and with recent versions of EMUI, Huawei has sent a new feature called flicker reduction to reduce the screen flickering.

This feature will reduce the number of your screen flickers and may also affect its color and brightness but one thing know that it also consumes power.

1. Open Settings
2. Display & brightness
3. Eye comfort, then enable or disable Flicker reduction

Screen Flicker: What is it and how to disable display flickering on Huawei EMUI software system - Huawei Central

Aside from the entry-level phones, most of the smartphone company uses OLED panels to provide a high and more durable viewing experience that worth their money. However, even a high-priced, OLED screen-equipped phone could bring you headaches or eye strain. How? There could be a number of...

www.huaweicentral.com

 

[dennis]

I'm not so sure LED lights would be the best to use.

Just three minutes of exposure to deep red light once a week, when delivered in the morning, can significantly improve declining eyesight, finds a pioneering new study by UCL researchers.
.....
In summary, researchers found there was, on average, a 17% improvement in participants' color contrast vision when exposed to three minutes of 670 nanometre (long wavelength) deep red light in the morning and the effects of this single exposure lasted for at least a week. However, when the same test was conducted in the afternoon, no improvement was seen.
....
Study limitations

Despite the clarity of the results, researchers say some of the data are "noisy". While positive effects are clear for individuals following 670nm exposure, the magnitude of improvements can vary markedly between those of similar ages. Therefore, some caution is needed in interpretating the data. It is possible that there are other variables between individuals that influence the degree of improvement that the researchers have not identified so far and would require a larger sample size.

Morning exposure to deep red light improves declining eyesight

Just three minutes of exposure to deep red light once a week, when delivered in the morning, can significantly improve declining eyesight, finds a pioneering new study by UCL researchers.

medicalxpress.com

 

[3DStudent]

I remember OLED mentioned here and I've been looking into it. My current and last cell phone are Samsung AMOLED and I haven't noticed eyestrain, but at most I might use them for an hour a day.

The PWM effect is called shimmer and some phones use it below 50% brightness, but Samsung is said to do it at 97% and below. If you record in slow motion from another phone, you can see the flicker bands. Below 250 Hz is where you are sensitive, and above 500Hz is okay, but at 10k Hz some people have an issue.

Two videos regarding this (read the comments):

This is old but shows the PWM rate of come devices:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/PWM-Ranking-Notebooks-Smartphones-and-Tablets-with-PWM.163979.0.html

Looks like there is an Android app to reduce or overlay on the flickering:

OLED Saver - Apps on Google Play

This app solves the problem of flickering of AMOLED screen on low brightness

play.google.com

Here's a video on the flickering of a Nintendo Switch OLED model (I think it uses a Samsung screen):

 

[lilies]

My current and last cell phone are Samsung AMOLED and I haven't noticed eyestrain, but at most I might use them for an hour a day.

We have only bought an AMOLED 120Hz Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 for its camera and large photo storage to scan docs and put up sell ads with photos (no calls). My eyes are super sensitive. I watch my old Viewsonic 950b LCD at 30% brightness and 42% contrast.

I could immediately tell the Redmi Note 12 phone screen is a blight. Although its OLED, it should be "quality" and "all advanced" - say the specs -, yes? Yet my eyes feel strain whenever I look at it! Its because it emits that sick too-white light - also coming from those new blighted LED bulbs now in fashion as well. Those gave me serious headache and nausea. Had to replace all new white-LED bulbs in the house to the very old-type yellow-orange tungsten incandescent light bulbs. Also noticed some well-to-do music producers use sodium lamps, which look also super-promising on camera, bathing everything in warm, faint orange-incandescent. Couldn't find the music producer, but he is using WW2-style antique looking large bulbs, where you can see the orange-incandescent, super soft threads glowing, bathing his studio in very low-light orange!! So I'm not the only one with super delicate eyes, eh?!

This blighted white light - bulbs especially, but devices too - feels like a satanic, Anti-Life invention. Created just to make us suffer.

 

[hlat]

The PWM effect is called shimmer and some phones use it below 50% brightness, but Samsung is said to do it at 97% and below.

Turning brightness to 100% should prevent PWM from activating.

 

[3DStudent]

Turning brightness to 100% should prevent PWM from activating.

Yeah but I tend to try to battery save as much as possible. I want to try the app or seeing if I can film the screen in slow motion to see the bands flicker. I wonder if there are screen protectors that you can put on to dim the screen if always at 100% brightness.

 

[Mrs. Peel]

Yeah but I tend to try to battery save as much as possible. I want to try the app or seeing if I can film the screen in slow motion to see the bands flicker. I wonder if there are screen protectors that you can put on to dim the screen if always at 100% brightness.

I have my screen at the bare minimum of brightness because bright light hurts my eyes. My phone has an option that's called eye Comfort Shield, I think it's some sort of blue light blocker.

 

[hlat]

Yeah but I tend to try to battery save as much as possible. I want to try the app or seeing if I can film the screen in slow motion to see the bands flicker. I wonder if there are screen protectors that you can put on to dim the screen if always at 100% brightness.

I do whatever it takes for me to get rid of PWM flicker, so I'm not saving the battery.

I have my screen at the bare minimum of brightness because bright light hurts my eyes. My phone has an option that's called eye Comfort Shield, I think it's some sort of blue light blocker.

Blue shield is good, though it is completely different and separate from the flicker caused by PWM. You would need to research or test your particular screen to see if it uses PWM flicker dimming to achieve brightness below 100%.

 

[hiker]

I could immediately tell the Redmi Note 12 phone screen is a blight. Although its OLED, it should be "quality" and "all advanced" - say the specs -, yes? Yet my eyes feel strain whenever I look at it! Its because it emits that sick too-white light - also coming from those new blighted LED bulbs now in fashion as well. Those gave me serious headache and nausea. Had to replace all new white-LED bulbs in the house to the very old-type yellow-orange tungsten incandescent light bulbs. Also noticed some well-to-do music producers use sodium lamps, which look also super-promising on camera, bathing everything in warm, faint orange-incandescent. Couldn't find the music producer, but he is using WW2-style antique looking large bulbs, where you can see the orange-incandescent, super soft threads glowing, bathing his studio in very low-light orange!! So I'm not the only one with super delicate eyes, eh?!

It's pretty interesting, how the good old incandescent light bulbs work in a similar manner to the sun (the same goes for the flame in a candle and campfire). From wikipedia:

Incandescence is the emission of electromagnetic radiation (including visible light) from a hot body as a result of its high temperature.

That's why the incandescent bulb's light has a more "natural" feel to it (the filament inside the bulb is heated until it glows), when compared to the typical led lights, which emit blue light without the other wavelengths "balancing" it, and which can "make you sick".

This blighted white light - bulbs especially, but devices too - feels like a satanic, Anti-Life invention. Created just to make us suffer.

Indeed, it can increase suffering, but thankfully there are things that can be done to counter the ill effects.

One could change the led bulbs into incandescent ones (like you did lilies). They seem to be outlawed for home use, but you can still buy them (at least in the EU) due to a "loophole"; the bulbs have been re-labeled "for industrial use only", but I suspect that quite a lot of the stock is being bought by home dwellers. The usual hardware stores/ shops don't sell them, but there are several that do (a google search will do the trick).

Another option would be to use led lights that have been specifically designed with the blue light problem in mind. One purveyor was interviewed in this podcast (they get to the bulbs at 37:53).

(Btw: the interviewee mentions, how there was a study done in 2005, where they measured which wavelength is the most harmful for the natural melatonin secretion [they went through all the colours]. The result was 460nm, near the middle of the blue light frequency [400nm - 500nm]. Guess where the typical led bulb's/ phone's/ etc. [blue light] frequency is the strongest? At 455nm - 465nm. It's almost as if it was planned to be there...)

I have my screen at the bare minimum of brightness because bright light hurts my eyes. My phone has an option that's called eye Comfort Shield, I think it's some sort of blue light blocker.

Most phones have some sort of blue light filter, but often it's not "enough", as they can still let through too much blue light.

I have found the Twilight app to be quite good, if you want to tone down the blue light even further. It's especially handy during the late evenings/nights (excess blue light should be avoided at those times to get better sleep), as the blue light can be fully minimized (the filtering controls are adjustable).

Twilight – for healthy sleep

twilight.urbandroid.org

 

[lilies]

Android 13 (MIUI in Chinese Xiaomi phones) has 120Hz, reading mode = warm colors, which arbitrarily also can be set separately on a large color wheel. Night mode to replace bright white with black background. I set all above just now and the entire phone turned dark red-orange. We'll see. At least they offer lots of options.

Here is the Russian Yotaphone, - available here - dual screen, color display in front, B&W on back, offering a black & white E Ink screen with super-low electricity usage - employed in Amazon Kindle and Kobo for reading. Tablet versions for readers.

 

[Emerald Rob]

This blighted white light - bulbs especially, but devices too - feels like a satanic, Anti-Life invention. Created just to make us suffer.

really agree on that ! white led lights produce terrible rays-- fees v intrusive - the streetlight is awful in this area where i live -white light.

I ve got some old light gels( remember the coloured plastic they used for theater lights to create diffent colours on spotlights?) that ive put over my white led lamps -the difference is quite remarkable to my mind and eyes - even when covering only half of the white.I ve been using red colored ones as a filter light from a lamp. As for modern cars the led lights on them are really dangerous ! I donr like driving long distances at night and will avoid doing so for that reason !.

I really like using red light in my space as a balancer to white LED rays !

 

[hlat]

Black market for incandescent light bulbs. Somewhere a cosmic trickster is laughing about this.