Dry eyes on the night shift

Night-shift work is hard on the eyes because it stacks several drying factors: bright lighting and screens that cut blinking, building air that’s heated or cooled with nobody adjusting it, and tired eyes at the end of a long shift. Quell’s directions don’t change at night, so the trick is spacing three drops a day around your own schedule rather than the clock on the wall.

Why your eyes feel dry after a night shift

Whether you work a hospital floor, a warehouse, a dispatch center, a factory line or a security desk, the conditions at 3 a.m. have a lot in common.

• Bright, even lighting. Workplaces stay lit so people can see, and staring into bright light and screens tends to come with fewer full blinks.
• Screens. Monitors, scanners, camera feeds and phones on break all ask your eyes to focus close for hours.
• Building air. Heating and cooling systems often run on schedules set for the day crew, and moving air across your face speeds evaporation from the eye.
• Fatigue. Tired eyes feel scratchy, and by the last hours of a shift many people blink less and rub their eyes more.

None of these is unique to nights. The difference is that nights stack them, and then you try to sleep in daylight. Dry eyes from lack of sleep looks at the sleep side of it.

When should I use eye drops if I work nights?

Quell’s directions read: Apply 1 drop 3 times per day in each eye. The label gives a count per day; it doesn’t give clock times, and it doesn’t say how to count a day when your day starts at 7 p.m. A simple approach many night workers use is to count the hours they’re awake as their day and spread the three drops across them:

• One when you wake up in the afternoon or evening, before you leave for work.
• One around the middle of the shift, on a break, with clean hands.
• One toward the end of the shift, or once you’re home and before you go to bed.

If your schedule rotates between days and nights, the count can get confusing on switch days. Ask your pharmacist how to count it so you stay within the directions. Questions to ask a pharmacist has a list worth bringing.

Sleeping during the day with dry eyes

Day sleep happens in a bedroom that’s often warmer, brighter and noisier than it would be at night. People reach for fans for white noise and cool air, and a fan blowing on your face for six or seven hours is moving air across your eyes the whole time.

• Point the fan at the wall or the foot of the bed instead of your face.
• Blackout curtains or a sleep mask help you sleep in daylight; a soft mask also keeps fan air off your eyelids.
• A humidifier can take the edge off dry air in the bedroom. Keep it clean.
• Keep the room cool with the thermostat rather than a vent aimed at the bed.

Screens and lighting at work

If your post includes monitors, small changes add up across a 10- or 12-hour shift. Lower the screen slightly below eye level so your eyelids cover more of the eye. Turn down a monitor that’s much brighter than the room around it. Every so often, look across the room or out a window and blink fully a few times. Screens and your tear film explains why blinking matters so much.

The drive home after a night shift

Morning sun low on the horizon and tired eyes make the drive home hard. Sunglasses help with the glare. Put drops in before you leave the parking lot, not while you’re driving, and give your eyes a moment to settle before you pull out. If you’re ever too tired to keep your eyes open on the road, that’s a reason to pull over, whatever drops you have with you.

Keeping a bottle at work

A locker, a desk drawer or a bag that stays with you all work. Quell’s label gives a storage range: Store between 15° to 30°C (59° to 86°F). A car parked through a winter night or a summer morning can go outside that range, so take the bottle in with you. On the floor, a scrub or uniform pocket keeps it handy for breaks. Do not touch tip of bottle to any surface to avoid contamination, so cap it as soon as you’re done. Wash your hands before each use, which matters more in workplaces where you handle shared equipment.

Where Quell fits

Quell is designed to reinforce the tear film’s oil layer to help reduce moisture loss. It doesn’t replace sleep, breaks or a well-placed fan. It also doesn’t replace an eye doctor: if your eyes stay uncomfortable after a few days off, or anything about your vision changes, see one, because working out the reason is their job. The label’s stop-use list: Stop use and ask a doctor if you feel eye pain or changes in your vision, if irritation or redness continues, or if the condition worsens or persists for 72 hours.