You don’t want to experience screen fatigue – tired or irritated eyes, blurred vision, headaches, and poor colour perception? We’ve got you covered!
In a world where many of our professional and personal lives revolve around screens, the necessity of eye care cannot be overstressed. Therefore not looking after your eyes can have many short-term and long-term effects on your vision and even accelerate vision loss as you age.
You can stop that from happening by adopting the following healthy habits, which will protect your vision as well as your view of things.
1. Wash your hands
Many common vision-related diseases can be spread by touching in or around the eye with an unwashed hand. For example, pink eye, staphylococcus, and even chlamydia and gonorrhea pass from hands to eyes. These bacterial and viral infections can cause long-term eyesight damage. To reduce your risk, develop a healthy handwashing routine.
2.Wear eye protection
Wear safety glasses to prevent injury when you’re doing work around the house. For example, when using lawn equipment, power tools, or doing sports, for example, car racing or bike racing, you need to wear safety glasses. Most people ignore this risk. You might think nothing happened so far, but it only takes one time not wearing protective glasses for something to become lodged in your eye.
3. Eat right for good sight
Eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables, fish, nuts, and oils can all help protect your sight. However, there are many important vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants found in foods that strengthen the eyesight, which includes beta carotene, lutein, vitamins A, C, and E, omega-3 fatty acids, and zinc.
Some of the vision-boosting foods include:
- Carrots are well known for improving eyesight. They’re packed with beta-carotene, lutein, and lycopene. Lutein and lycopene are phytonutrients that protect the eyes from sun damage and UVB radiation.
- Citrus fruits and juices such as oranges and lemons are rich in Vitamin C, which protects the eyes against infections and diseases.
- Green leafy vegetables like cabbage, spinach, and kale contain antioxidants, vitamin A, and other nutrients that protect the eyes from common vision problems like cataracts.
- Salmon, tuna, sardines, and mackerel contain omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 improves memory and brain function.
- Eggs, grapes, and dark berries are good sources of zinc and other minerals that help support healthy vision.
4. Wear sunglasses
Getting out in the sun is important for your general health, but you need to protect yourself. However, UV blocker sunglasses delay the development of cataracts since direct sunlight hastens their formation. Sunglasses prevent retinal damage and also protect the delicate eyelid skin to prevent both wrinkles and skin cancer around the eye including cancerous and non-cancerous growths on the eye. Check for 100 percent UV protection and make sure your sunglasses block 100 percent of UV-A rays and UV-B rays.
5. Quit smoking
Smokers are up to four times more likely to lose their sight than someone who has never smoked. However, smoking increases your risk of vision loss as you age. You may not even feel it anymore, but the smoke is constantly irritating and inflaming your eyes.
6. Make your working environment comfortable
Despite the amount of time we spend using them, people’s screens habits are generally incredibly poor. However, if you have eye strain from working at a computer or doing close work, you need to follow the 20-20-20 rule: Look up from your work every 20 minutes at an object 20 feet away for twenty seconds, observe proper posture when working and keep your computer monitor below eye level and at least 20 to 26 inches away from your eyes.
If you find out it’s a real problem, you can also wear properly graded eyeglasses to protect your eyes from the glare or use a glare filter for your screen.
7. Avoid risky cosmetic procedures
Your eyes are one of the single most important organs you have. In other words, don’t risk your eye health by getting dangerous procedures like iris tattooing or unnecessary lid lifts done. However, using cosmetic contacts that aren’t approved by your Optometrist can be risky and it could cause serious harm.
For instance,
- Sleeping with contact lenses that are not approved for overnight use can cause serious eye damage.
- Using saliva or water as a wetting solution to clean your eyeglasses lenses is dangerous.
- Using expired solutions, and using disposable contact lenses beyond their wear can result in corneal ulcers, severe pain, and even vision loss.
8. See an eye health professional
A regular visit to your optometrist will help keep your eyes in check. However, your Optometrist will help you identify issues early and advise you about lifestyle changes that will help keep your eyesight in check. You only get one set of eyes, keep them healthy with these healthy habits.
9.Exercise
Exercise helps to reduce stress, regulate your blood sugar, and increase blood flow. All of these are great for staying fit and maintaining healthy eyes. Get your heart-rate up several times a week and get some exercise every day to keep your eyes healthy. Make these steps a regular part of your routine to keep that healthy sight.
Sources:
1. https://www.londonvisionclinic.com/five-important-habits-to-keep-your-eyes-healthy/
2.https://versanthealth.com/blog/10-healthy-habits-that-protect-your-lifelong-eye-health/