Days 0–2: the excused-from-everything phase
Cold compresses, head elevated, lubricating drops — and yes, glancing at your phone is permitted: screens can't harm the incisions. The issue is physiological: concentrating at a screen cuts your blink rate roughly in half, exactly when your tear film is at its most fragile. Short sessions, generous artificial tears, brightness down. Reading and TV follow the same rule. No makeup near the eyes, no rubbing (the reflex to fear), sunglasses for any daylight outing.
Days 3–5: screens for work, and (usually) car keys
Sustained desk work returns for most patients here — with the 20-20-20 rule as the actual medical instruction: every 20 minutes, 20 seconds looking 20 feet away, plus a deliberate full blink. Video calls: your bruising is your business and concealer isn't cleared yet, so camera-off is a medical accommodation. Driving resumes when three boxes tick: no sedating medication, comfortable full blinking, and consistently clear vision (night-time ointment blurs mornings — time your first drives for later in the day). Most tick them day 3–5; nobody should drive to their own day-2 check.
The two-week gates
Contact lenses: ~14 days, non-negotiable early — insertion tugs on healing lids, and lenses are dehydration devices sitting on an already dry-leaning eye. Glasses fortnight; daily disposables and a fresh solution when you return; lens wearers with a dry-eye history extend on the surgeon's word, not the calendar's. Eye makeup: ~14 days too — mascara and liner are bacterial reservoirs aimed at fresh incisions; face makeup away from the eyes returns much sooner, and the makeup page has the full choreography. Exercise: walking immediately; sweat-level cardio ~2 weeks; heavy lifting and head-below-heart positions (yoga inversions, heavy squats) ~3–4 weeks — pressure spikes in the head find healing vessels.
Flying, swimming, sun — the outer ring
Flying home: typically cleared at the day 5–7 review; cabin air is a desert, so drops hourly and the aisle-seat hydration ritual apply. Swimming: pools ~3–4 weeks (chlorine + bacteria vs incisions), sea similar. Sun: the year-long relationship — fresh scars tan permanently, so SPF and sunglasses are the souvenir habit. Every date above is the standard curve; your review can move any of them, and the master timeline plus a photo message settles any “am I ready?” in hours.
Your eyes, honestly assessed
Send relaxed, straight-ahead photos (and one of your biggest smile) via the free assessment — the reply sorts skin from ptosis from brow, names what surgery would and wouldn't change for you, and respects "not yet" as an answer.