Many of us will find that our eyesight deteriorates with age, but there are certain bad habits we might develop which can contribute to things going downhill that little bit faster. Whether conscious or unconscious, certain patterns of behaviour can damage your eyesight and lead to a faster blurring and deterioration of vision. If you want to learn how to improve eye health for yourself this year, here are just six things you should avoid doing if you want to protect your sight and avoid long-term problems with your eyes.
Be mindful of devices: too much daily screen time
It may feel like screens are hard to avoid now in day-to-day life, but you should try to reduce your screen time as much as is humanly possible. From swiping away on our phones to staring at the office computer, we spend more and more of our time glued to the glare of our screens and it’s damaging our eyesight. If you can, you should take regular breaks away from devices and turn off all your devices at least half an hour before you go to bed – not only does it give your eyes a break, but it also helps your body wind down for sleep, which is vital to good eye health. Reducing your blue light exposure can help to improve your health and wellbeing in the long run.
How to improve eye health: not resting your eyes often enough
Following on from reducing your screen time, always make sure you give your eyes frequent breaks from any task which might put a strain on them. That could be sitting at your computer, reading or working on a fiddly little task. To discover how to improve eye health each day, why not try the 20-20-20 rule? Add this tactic into your routine by looking twenty feet away from you for twenty seconds, once every twenty minutes. This change of focus gives your eyes a chance to recover and is a useful habit to add to your work routine, especially if you work with computers a lot everyday. If you’re not one to sit down and do nothing on your work breaks, there are many productive ways to take breaks instead such as doing some exercise.
Listen to your optician: wear your glasses when you need to
Sometimes you might simply forget to put them on, sometimes it might be because you’re self-conscious. Whatever the reasons for not putting your glasses on when you need them – stop! You’ve been prescribed a certain strength of glasses from your optician for a reason, and straining to read things will only cause your levels of vision to deteriorate. Wearing your glasses all the time, or when your optician says you need to, can help your eyes get used to them properly and help you focus better, also preventing unwanted eye strain and headaches. If you find you’re having a hard time reading something then it’s a sure sign that you need to pop your glasses on.
Maintain your eye health: don’t skip your eye tests
Learning how to improve eye health doesn’t take a lot of effort. There are many things to do to keep your eyes healthy such as simply making sure that you have regular eye tests. They might feel like yet another chore in an already busy schedule but never underestimate just how important your eye exams really are. A regular check-up can detect any further loss of vision, meaning you can be prescribed a stronger pair of glasses before things get any worse. Always make time to book your check-ups before you notice a change in your vision, especially as you get older.
How to improve eye health: stop using those out-of-date products
From eye creams to mascara, make-up removers to solutions, we put a lot of products on our eyes and those which are past their best can carry all manner of harmful bacteria. If you’ve been using the same bottle of drops, the same eye cream for a while, or the same mascara, check that it’s still within date and immediately get rid of anything which has expired. Know how to improve eye health a bit more this year by knowing there’s a reason for those use-by dates on eye products.
Protecting your eyes: rubbing your eyes too much
Most of us don’t even realise we’re doing it, but rubbing and touching your eyes too much could be doing harm. Just think about all the things you handle in-between hand washes. Your fingers are probably carrying a lot of bacteria, and rubbing tired or itchy eyes simply transfers those germs onto one of the most vulnerable parts of your face. If your eyes are uncomfortable, try to squeeze them shut rather than rubbing them.
