I do a lot of Photoshop and video editing work. I use a high quality monitor that has been calibrated as to color balance, and most importantly to a contrast and brightness that makes the image on the screen fit well within the lighting of the room it occupies. The image on the screen appears almost as if printed on paper illuminated by the ambient room light. The screen image fits harmoniously within the physical environment of the room and doesn't make the eyes shift gears between viewing the screen and the things around it.
Some may feel that calibration is overkill for DAW work, but I disagree. I occasionally work on a DAW system with a too-bright, too-contrasty screen and I find it fatiguing after just a few minutes. Out of deference to the normal user I don't change anything. It's always a relief to come back to my personal system.
Even a cheap monitor can be roughly calibrated using software-only tools in Windows and Mac OS, and there are some online services that can help. I use a hardware sensor, there are several well regarded models that can be purchased for around $100. You really only need a hardware calibrator if you wan't to nail the color down, contrast and brightness can be done visually with only software assist. But the main thing is, don't let your monitor appear significantly brighter or darker, or more or less contrasty than its surroundings. You don't need perfectly accurate shades of color, but your eyes will thank you if the contrast and brightness are right. FWIW almost everybody runs their monitor too bright, too color saturated, and too contrasty.
Some additional thoughts:
1. Set the background color to a neutral, featureless grey field. Helps a lot. Background textures are high CPU for the visual cortex.
2. If your screen has a blue tint (like most cheap office monitors) either adjust the color temperature to something warmer in the screen setup menus, or ditch it. It's much better to err on the side of a warm feeling screen than a cold (bluish) one.
3. If you are getting screen glare from a window or light behind you, close the curtains, shut the blinds, or put up a 40x60 inch piece of foamcore sheet to block it out. Glare is high fatigue.
4. Make sure the monitor height gives you a looking-straight-ahead neck angle.
5. If I hold up both hands with a ninth chord stretch, thumb tips together, out at arms maximum reach, that should just barely contain the width of the screen. That's a personal thing, but it works for me and I've experimented with that quite a bit. There's give and take between how much you flick your eyes back and forth and how much you move your head.
6. I personally like Cubase with a much lighter color motif than the default Cubase realm-of-evil scheme. After some testing I settled on something only a little darker than Ableton.