
Megan Ellis / Android Authority
Around 2022 I was diagnosed with chronic migraine. Unlike normal headaches, migraines have a variety of neurological symptoms at the top of the pain, such as nausea, light and sound sensitivity and concentration difficulties.
When I took the time to find out what my migraines trigger were, some guilty, including time spent on my smartphone. The bright screen would often trigger migraines or worsen my existing symptoms – so I had to make a few changes to reduce the effect it had.
Most of these changes also help to reduce the load on the eyes, so you can try them even if you do not have migraine or headaches from screen use. Since I change these settings and features, I notice my eyes do not move after using my screen for long periods. But the biggest effect was on my migraine symptoms, with me experiencing fewer migraines triggered by screen use and ensuring that I could still use my phone under mild migraines.
What do you do to reduce migraine and eye car from looking at your smartphone?
21 votes
1. Activation of dark mode as standard

Megan Ellis / Android Authority
While it may be Reasons why you may want to avoid dark modeThe feature is important to me. I just used to use dark mode at night when I prepared for the bed, but I have now made sure that dark mode is standard mode on all my devices.
In many ways, Dark Mode has become an accessibility feature for me.
In many ways, Dark Mode has become an accessibility feature for me. Without it, I would not be able to use my device without risking triggering a migraine or making an existing migraines worse.
On my Oppo Reno 10 Pro+I also have the opportunity to put a dark mode style: improved, medium or gentle. Since improved includes the most dark, with a black background, I chose this style.
Switching to dark mode on my phone also means that most of my apps are also in this mode. For the few who did not automatically replace, I manually hit dark mode into the app settings.
2. Switch to eye comfort mode

Megan Ellis / Android Authority
Eye comfort, also known as eye protection or night light (depending on the exact OS you use), a blue light filter is available at Android -Smartphones. I used a blue light filter on my phone, but since Android introduced the ability to customize the filter setting, I can use the feature directly through my smartphone software.
I also made sure to switch the eye comfort to the standard setting, instead of limiting it to certain hours. Meanwhile, I always adjust the temperature to as warm as possible to improve my comfort when experiencing light sensitivity.
Since my eyes adapt to this filter, it is not as distracting as it may look.
Since my eyes adapt to this filter, it is not as distracting as it may look. However, the disadvantage is that it can affect the color power accuracy of images you are looking at. But I prefer this reservations rather than the alternative to having my phone cause headache and load on the eye.
3. To replace chrome with brave

Megan Ellis / Android Authority
I’ve been thinking to make the switch from Chrome for a while now since I want to be less dependent on Google Apps. But the lack of the opportunity to use my Dark Mode extension on the Chromes Android app was the last push I needed to stop using the app as my standard mobile browser.
Instead, I have switched to BraveThat allows me to force dark mode on web pages that use a light topic as standard. While many websites support dark mode, there are still a few who just have a light topic. I noticed this most when I read news or hit recipes.
The feature of forcing dark mode is available in Brave’s appearance settings, where you can choose to activate night mode. “So far, I have not experienced any trouble getting websites to deliver a black background and white text, which has made the change to another browser worth.
4. To manually put brightness

Rushil Agrawal / Android Authority
While Adaptive brightness on Android Is useful, I found that my sensitivity often meant that the brightness my phone was automatically set was simply too light. This is especially a problem at night, when I put the screen to 0% brightness when I’m in bed.
The main disadvantage of this is a small loss of convenience. When I go outside, my phone screen does not automatically adjust, and I need to use muscle memory to turn the brightness up again. But the main advantage is that my phone does not automatically turn the brightness up when I knock it down.
To adjust the brightness manually has been worth the convenience.
Sometimes I wanted to use my phone when I began to feel the familiar pain at the back of my eyes, and I would realize that my screen was too light – but at this time it was already too late, the migraine cascade had started. So manually adjusting the brightness has been worth the convenience.
5. Enter my phone to the maximum update frequency

Megan Ellis / Android Authority
While most of my changes are in favor of eye load in general, this is a little more specific to migraine. Movement sensitivity is a common symptom in migraine, and I find that certain movements on my smartphone can make my nausea worse.
That’s why I always make sure my screen Update is set to the maximum of the phone (120Hz). This higher update frequency reduces stuttering on my screen while I was rolling, which in turn helps me not feel so sick from the annoying movement.
Of course, increasing the screen update frequency does not matter when it comes to watching videos that trigger my movement sensitivity – as videos recorded with a shaky camera. But at least I can easily browse the phone’s settings and Reddit threads without causing problems (as long as I don’t scroll too fast).
Making these changes not only reduced the eye strain and light sensitivity, but also made my phone much less of a trigger for my migraines. When a migraine hits, these changes allow me to still use my device when I’m stuck in bed and need to capture messages.
If you think you have a similar experience or experience eye strain from screen use, I would also suggest trying out different ways to reduce the effect of screen use – both on your smartphone and your computer.