It's easy to take your eyesight for granted. That attitude may change when something happens that hampers your vision. Of course, everyone's vision changes with age and not every eye problem can be avoided. But good eye care goes a long way toward protecting your sight, preventing injuries and reducing your risk of some eye diseases.
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| How To Naturally Improve Eyesight |
What is good eye care? It means wearing protective eyewear in situations that may endanger your eyes. It means developing good habits to avoid eyestrain. It means having your vision checked regularly and keeping chronic medical conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure under the best possible control. And it's also important to learn to recognize symptoms that may signal a serious eye problem because it may require immediate medical attention. As your mother always said, "Better safe than sorry." It's far better to prevent eye problems than to adapt to life with a vision impairment.
Symptoms that may signal a serious eye problem
- Sudden onset of hazy or blurred vision
- Flashes of light or black spots
- Halos or rainbows around lights
One of the most effective ways to protect your vision is to wear safety glasses or goggles in situations that could potentially injure your eyes. According to the National Society to Prevent Blindness, the use of proper eye protection could have prevented nearly 90 percent of all impact injuries to the eye. Many of these injuries happen on the job or during sports and recreational activities. Because sunlight can damage eyes, sunglasses also offer important protection.
At work
Power tools, heavy machinery, potent chemicals - these are among the workplace hazards that can put eyes at risk. Workplace injuries are a leading cause of eye trauma, loss of vision and blindness, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Many workers who have experienced eye injuries had been using inappropriate eyewear or not wearing eye protection at all.
If your job carries a risk of eye injury, your employer is required by law to provide you with safety glasses. Workers in industrial settings, including anyone who works with power tools, are required to wear them. A welder should wear a face shield to filter out the bright ultraviolet (UV) light of a welding arc. Eye protection is also essential on farms, in shops or in laboratories when you work with fertilizers, pesticides, caustic chemicals and solvents.
Around the house
Some of the most common eye injuries occur while people are doing everyday tasks. Spattered cooking grease, splashed detergent or drain cleaner, or sprayed garden chemicals can harm your eyes. So can disinfectants, solvents, oven cleaners, bleach and many other household products. Materials containing ammonia, chlorine, alkali or lye are especially dangerous. When doing hazardous tasks, protect yourself by wearing safety glasses or goggles, and if a child is helping you, make sure he or she wears protective eyewear as well.
If you're working on a car, wear safety goggles to keep rust and other particles from landing in your eyes. It's also a good idea to weal protective eyewear for many other home repair tasks and hobbies.
On the playing field
Participating in sports or recreational activities can leave you with more than strained muscles or an occasional bruise. A hard ball or puck hitting your eye at high speed can do serious damage. Finger pokes may scrape or tear your cornea. Physical impact can sometimes break bones near the eye. Water sports may lead to eye irritation or infections. Most of these injuries can be prevented by wearing protective eyewear. Regular eyeglasses and contact lenses aren't enough.
Hard workouts can cause eyewear to fog up. If this happens don't remove your eye protection until there is a break in the action or you have a chance to leave the game. Don't take off your eye protection for any reason during play.
In the sun
UV rays from the sun can hurt your eyes as well as your skin. Strong artificial light from sources like welding arcs or tanning lamps can burn the cornea and conjunctiva of your eye much like sunlight can. Long-term exposure to UV radiation can contribute to eye disease, particularly cataracts and age-related macular degeneration.
The best way to protect your eyes from the sun is to wear sunglasses designed to screen UV radiation. Sunglasses don't have to be expensive to be effective. Look for glasses that block 90 percent to 100 percent of both ultraviolet A (UVA) and ultraviolet B (UVB) light. To be even more effective, sunglasses should fit close to your face or have wraparound frames.
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| How To Naturally Improve Eyesight |
Wear sunglasses any time you're outdoors for more than a few minutes. Remember to wear them even on cloudy days because clouds don't block all UV radiation.
You can reduce glare - light that bounces off smooth surfaces such as pavement, water, sand and snow - by choosing darker lenses that block more visible light. Polarized lenses cut reflected glare. But polarization has nothing to do with UV light absorption, so if you're considering buying polarizing glasses, check the label to make sure that they also provide maximum UV protection. To find out more, you can check out How To Naturally Improve Eyesight.