How do you guys take care of your eyes? I've been coding on this uni project since 2 weeks and my eyes have literally turned into fried nuggets. And my head hurts like shredded tacos.

My ophthalmologist prescribed me mild painkillers and anti inflammatory and lubricant eye drops.

This knowledge will be useful to all :)

Just take a 15 - 20 minutes break every two hours.
And stop coding one or two hours before going to sleep.

Use flux
Blink atleast thirty times a minute
Take five mins Break after every forty five or sixty minutes

@dmonkey Tried dark theme?

This is what light themes do to you.

@DannySu I always use dark themes, but it doesn't mean anything... You have to take care of your eyes the same way

@Daveloper obviously, as other people are saying, dark themes will help

@Daveloper

As everyone else has been saying... dark themes! I started using dark themes and have never looked back... and my eyes are thankful for it!

Add to that, the lighting around you is also just as important. Never sit in a completely dark room, with nothing but the blue glare of the screen directly in your face. Your eyes are going to take strain... that's a given!

Get some sort of ambient light that provides a soft, warm light without glare on the screen. A lamp pointed up at the ceiling even. Or you could even install a dimmer for your overhead light and turn it down low.

Another thing when sitting in a dark room is that your brain, or more directly your hypothalamus, is being given cues that it's time to sleep. At the same time, you are fighting to stay awake, straining your eyes and asking your brain to solve complex tasks, such as programming, all at the same time. No wonder it hurts! So don't neglect sleep... your brain needs its rest!

Also, as @dmonkey mentioned, take breaks at regular intervals. And that doesn't mean you should go and get a bowl of cereal, a cup of coffee, put on your favourite series and continue staring at the screen. Get up off your ass and go outside or even just sit at the window and stare far into the distance.

Your eyes muscles need to stretch! We are only looking at things that are near all the time, with micro movements, i.e. reading code, as our eyes dart across the screen, so those muscles are going to be working overtime.

Dark themes, buy a good quality ips screen as the primary, eyedrops

Blue blockers such as gunnar optiks. Changed my life!

Glasses?

@Linux

Indeed... could be the cause of the headaches?

The thing is that I used to have the same symptoms. When I turned 22 I finally decided to look it up and turns out that I needed reading glasses for a long time.

I wish I had looked it up much earlier because there are so many books that I haven't read as a child just because my eyes got tired and my head started hurting.

Now that I think about it: wth were my parents thinking? Why didn't they take me to an optician when they noticed that I never read any books?!

Well... I've never had any problems with my eyesight and I'm nerding since early 2000's. Still eagle eyes. So I probably won't add nothing new to the topic, but let's sum it up:
- Blue-blocking glasses. A must. They don't have to have any form eyes correction if you don't need them to.
- Dark themes. Dark themes everywhere. White is just too bright to stare at for too long.
- Breaks. If possible, watch something far away, from a window. A lot years back I read that watching green color is helping to mend eye-strain but it could be bollocks.
- Monitor and it's cables should be of good quality. If you see any kind of ghosting or text is not very sharp, try to either fix it in system settings or replace some hardware.
- Flux or Windows' night display. Basics are the same. Colours will get a lot warmer and it will help you by emitting less blue light. I'm using this for years now and it does work like a charm.
- Last but not least, don't code when in a dark room. Is it's dark, turn on the lights.
And remember, eyes are priceless. Take care of them.

@GinjaNinja thanks I'll keep this in my mind! :D and I use dark themes. Not that noob.

@Linux @GinjaNinja
I have glasses and I use them. :)

@Agred Agreed. Thanks I'll keep it in my mind!

@sharktits does tf display cause more strain? We should verify that fact

@PaulTheSaltyDev that's sad man! Thanks sharing your story. :)

Unfortunately ( or fortunately) I got diagnosed with need for* specs when I was in 5th grade!

@Daveloper not necessarily (i use tft), but the darks are darker on an ips so theres less light to irritate your eyes

Make sure you stay hydrated enough. I wear contacts and if I don't do this my eyes get murdered. Always have water on your desk and sip it through the day. Then you'll also have to take more pee breaks during which your eyes get some rest.

Blue light blocking computer glasses!