It can be easy to overlook taking care of your eyes if you don’t need to wear glasses or contacts to see. But your eyes work extra hard from the minute you wake up to the time you go to bed.
For this reason, it’s vital to keep your eyes healthy to ensure you see at your very best and preserve your vision. Keep reading to learn 6 of the best eye care tips to follow this season to help you take better care of your eyes for a brighter future:
1. Maintain a Healthy Diet
Eating a healthy diet nourishes your eyes, which can pay off. Foods rich in nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin C and E, lutein, and zinc strengthen your eyes against or slow down age-related eye conditions like macular degeneration and cataracts.
2. Use Protective Eyewear at Work and Home
It’s estimated that about 2,000 Americans suffer work-related eye injuries each day. Yet, the easiest way to avoid most eye injuries is by simply wearing protective eyewear.
To ensure your eyes are safe no matter what you’re doing, put on protective glasses when you’re at work or home tackling a DIY project. Also, invest in safety goggles or glasses when playing any sport that makes your eyes susceptible to injuries, such as softball, racket sports, ice hockey, baseball, and basketball.
3. Stop Smoking
Being a smoker makes you more prone to developing debilitating eye diseases like uveitis, dry eyes, diabetic retinopathy, cataracts, and macular degeneration. Worse still, smoking is linked to blood vessel damage that can cause weak arteries.
As a result, you’re more likely to experience damage to your retina, leading to potential vision loss. If you haven’t quit smoking, talk to your eye doctor or primary care physician to help you stop.
4. Protect Your Eyes from Excessive Screen Time
Staring at your computer, smartphone, tablet, laptop, or television can result in eyestrain and eye fatigue. Other problems caused by spending a lot of time looking at your digital devices are:
- Neck, shoulder, and back pain
- Blurry vision
- Having trouble focusing on distant objects
One of the best ways to protect your eyes from eyestrain is following the 20-20-20 rule when using your devices. The 20-20-20 rule involves looking away from your screen at something that’s 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds for every 20 minutes spent in front of a digital screen.
If you know you’ll be spending a lot of time looking at a screen, remember to blink. Not blinking enough can make your eyes feel dry and irritated. Also, get screen filters to reduce glare and make sure you have enough lighting when using your laptop or computer.
5. Shield Your Eyes from the Sun
Excessive exposure to the sun’s UV rays can result in a corneal flash burn, a sunburn of the eye’s surface. It can also increase your risk of macular degeneration, cataracts, and even eyelid cancer.
That’s why it’s so important to wear quality sunglasses that offer 99 to 100 percent protection against harmful UVA and UVB rays whenever you’re outside, including on cloudy days.
6. Avoid Rubbing Your Eyes
It may be tempting, but rubbing your eyes if they are itchy is a bad idea. Often, your hands are covered in germs that might cause infections and diseases.
It’s best to avoid rubbing your eyes. If your eyes are itchy or are making you uncomfortable, use eye drops or artificial tears instead.
Schedule Your Routine Eye Exam
Even if you can see clearly, the expert eye doctors at Morganton Eye recommend scheduling regular eye exams. Seeing your eye doctor for eye exams helps detect symptomless, sight-threatening eye conditions early and ensures your eyes stay healthy.
Do you need to see your eye doctor? Schedule an appointment at Morganton Eye now!
