Your eyes are such a small part of your body. Each eyeball is about an inch in diameter, just a little smaller than the ball used for table tennis. Yet your eyes play such a big role in your life. With them you experience the shape, the color and the motion of your surroundings. They alert you to danger or the unexpected.
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| How To Improve Your Eyesight Naturally |
You rely on them to explore or learn. Of your five senses - sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste - sight is the sense you've likely come to trust most in your everyday activities. With the help of your eyes, you read books, write notes, balance your checkbook, drive your car, do your work, fix your meals and care for your loved ones. On an emotional level, your vision helps to define your self-image and your personal interactions with others.
Author Henry David Thoreau expressed it succinctly, "We are as much as we see." Given how much you depend on your eyes, it's no wonder you want to keep them as healthy as you possibly can.
Your eyes at work
People often compare eyes to a camera, and there are similarities. Like a camera each eye lets light enter into the interior through a small opening. An adjustable lens focuses the light onto a layer of light-sensitive cells at the back of the eyeball, comparable to the light-sensitive film in the camera.
This comparison, however, doesn't do your eyes justice. They are far more complex and sophisticated than a camera or any other technology. For one thing it's a pair of eyeballs we're talking about, which move and function together in perfect synchronization. The eyeball covering is super flexible, resilient and lightweight.
Each eyeball autoregulates many rapid adjustments for brightness, focus and internal pressure. Light striking the back of each eyeball induces chemical reactions that generate electric impulses. These impulses trigger two-way communication between the eyes and a command center in the brain.
By way of this communication, your eyeballs provide binocular vision and follow rapid movement. All of these features give you vivid, colorful, three-dimensional motion pictures faster than you can blink an eye, literally.
Here's a description of the various, intricate parts of the eye and how they work together. Each part plays an essential role in the healthy functioning of the eye, And each part can be responsible for particular eye problems.
Orbit
Your eyes are cradled in the orbits, which are sockets formed by a protective structure of heavy bone. This structure includes the cheekbone, forehead bone, temple bone and bridge of your nose.
Unlike other bones in your body, these eye protectors usually don't weaken and thin with age. Small pillows of fat cushion the eyeball within the orbit.
Upper and lower eyelids protect the front of your eyeball by blocking dirt and bright light that can damage your eyes. The eyelids also lubricate your eyeball with each blink, which happens every few seconds. Blinking washes away dust, pollen and other foreign bodies. The lubricant, familiar to us as tears, comes from glands above each eye.
When something irritates your eye, such as chemical vapor from the onion you're peeling, the tear glands open their faucets. If tearing is slight, the fluid will drain through tiny ducts within each eyelid and into your nose, taking the irritants with it. But the drainage system can't handle fully opened faucets. That's when tears overflow and run down your cheeks, such as when you're crying.
Sclera
When you look in the mirror and see the white of your eye, you're looking at the sclera - the tough, white, leathery coating that forms the circular eyeball shape and protects the delicate internal structures of the eye. The sclera has an opening at the front that allows light inside the eyeball.
A thin, moist, clear membrane called the conjunctiva covers the exposed front portion of the sclera. This tissue layer folds forward to also line the inside of your eyelids. The conjunctiva helps lubricate your eye.
Cornea
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| How To Improve Your Eyesight Naturally |
At the front of your eye, covering the opening in the sclera like a protective window, is a domed layer of clear tissue called the cornea. It juts out from the eyeball as a tiny bulge. The convex surface of the cornea bends the light entering your eye. This action is the initial, large-scale focusing of the object you're looking at, leaving the lens to fine-tune and sharpen the focus of the image.
The cornea, which is made up of several layers of tissue, also protects your eye. It's packed with sensitive nerve endings. When even a tiny speck of dust hits the cornea, you get the message instantly. If tears can't wash away the foreign material the continuing pain prods you to locate and remove it. To find out more, you can check out How To Improve Your Eyesight Naturally.