Taking care of your eyes doesn’t have to be complicated. Often all it takes to keep them healthy is a little bit of everyday care and prevention. By putting in a little bit of work each day, you can delay or prevent eye disease, and keep your eyes from becoming injured. Here are thirteen quick tips for taking care of your eyes.
Practice Proper Nutrition
Proper nutrition helps every part of your body, but since the eyes are a particularly sensitive organ, they can reap a lot of benefits from what you eat. Notably:
- The Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish, seeds, and walnuts can help prevent dry eye
- Decreased salt and sugar intake can reduce inflammation in your eyes
- Regularly eating fruits and green vegetables introduces a wide variety of eye-healthy nutrients to your body.
Get Active
Getting your blood pumping on a regular basis has health benefits for every part of your body, including your eyes. Even a simple 30-minute walk five days a week can do wonders for your eye health.
Quit Smoking
Tobacco products can be addictive, and the process of eliminating them from your life can be incredibly difficult, requiring much dedication and accountability. But the health benefits of abstaining from tobacco products are numerous. Tobacco products contain dangerous chemicals that, when ingested, can do a great deal of damage to the cells of the eyes, and the smoke from cigarettes can irritate them.
Get Quality Sleep
Everyone’s sleep needs are different. Some people can function well on only seven hours, while others need up to nine or ten to feel fully rested. Eye health relies a great deal on the regenerative benefits of sleep. So if you don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis, or if a medical condition keeps you awake, your eye health may suffer. Make time to get quality shut-eye every night, and you’ll likely find that your eye health improves.
Wear Your Prescription Lenses
Some people who have mild corrective prescriptions don’t wear their prescription eyewear on a regular basis. This can be because it’s easier not to wear them, because they don’t like maintaining their eyewear, or because they don’t like the way they look with glasses on. However, if you need glasses but don’t regularly wear them, you may be doing your eyes a disservice. In your attempts to go about daily life without them, you may start to cause eye strain as your brain tries to compensate for blurry or imperfect vision, which can lead to a whole host of other problems. If you need to regularly wear corrective lenses, please do so, and if physical glasses aren’t a great option, consider contact lenses or LASIK.
Wear Sunglasses
The sun can do a great deal of damage to your eyes if you don’t protect them. Its radiation can harm the cells of your eyes if you expose them too much to bright conditions. That’s why it’s important to wear polarized sunglasses while driving or enjoying outdoor activities. It’s also a good idea to wear sunglasses on cloudy days, because the sun’s radiation can easily pierce cloud cover.
Drink Lots of Water
Your entire body needs water to survive. Water helps with an innumerable amount of health functions in your body, and it helps keep your eyes well lubricated and the cells within them healthy and strong. Most doctors recommend drinking at least eight 8-oz. glasses of water per day.
Take Screen Breaks
Most of us spend a majority of our days looking at digital devices. While these devices may be important for our daily lives, it’s important to take regular breaks from them. The artificial stimulation that comes from the light of digital screens can dry out your eyes and cause them to hurt or ache. So not only is it good to take a several-minute break from screens every hour, but it’s also a good idea to wear blue light-blocking glasses while using them to reduce the effects these devices can have on your eyes.
Know Your Family History
Eye problems can be genetic, so it’s a good idea to educate yourself on which eye conditions are most prevalent within your family. From there, you can figure out how best to watch for the signs of a developing condition in your own eyes, whether it be early-onset blindness, cataracts, retinal detachment, or any other eye disease.
Manage Medical Conditions
Many medical conditions, like high blood pressure and diabetes, can have a major long-term impact on the health of your eyes. Conditions like these can cause inflammation, a lack of proper nutrients and blood flow to the eyes, and eventually eye disease. If you have a chronic or long-term medical condition, your eyes and the rest of your body will thank you for doing whatever you can to manage it well.
Be Safe
It’s all too easy to injure the eyes. Whether that means getting a tiny speck of something in them or getting hit in the face with an object, your eyes can easily suffer long-term harm if you get regularly injured in this way. That’s why wearing protective eye and face gear is so important if you play sports, work in a workshop, or regularly find yourself in other dangerous or daring scenarios.
Avoid Dry Air
Dry air can easily cause dry eyes, which is why it’s a good idea to ensure that you keep a proper balance of humidity in your home or place of work. In colder climates especially, it’s important to make sure your eyes stay moist, and use eye protection and eye drops if necessary to keep them that way. If you are regularly exposed to dry air, consider receiving a dry eye treatment.
Schedule An Eye Exam
A regular eye exam is essential for maintaining eye health. An eye doctor can take a look inside your eyes and determine if you’re at risk for disease, and can update your vision correction prescription if need be. Schedule your next appointment with us today!