Dry eyes and short-sightedness have become indisputably common with today’s excessive digital usage encompassing laptops, tablets, mobiles and iPads. Conditions such as dry eyes are aggravated further by windy and turbulent weather conditions, while prolonged wear of cosmetics can cultivate problems for example, conjunctivitis or pink eye, a bacterial infection in the eye.
It is thus imperative to maintain strong eye health, which will prevent irreparable eye problems occuring in the future. Here are our top five tips to staying eye bright!
1. Find The Balance: Omega 3 and Omega 6
Striking that healthy omega-3 and omega-6 balance is crucial to regulating your eye health. Al Mahmood and Al-Swailem’s 2014 article, published in the US National Library of Medicine, illustrates how multiple studies record an improvement in dry eye symptoms with foods combining both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.
Examples of food rich in a healthy balance of omega-3 and omega-6 include: salmon, tuna, flaxseed, chia seeds, walnuts and pumpkin seeds.
2. Sunglasses to Fight UV Light
According to the World Health Organisation. 80 percent of an individual’s lifetime exposure to UV is generated before they reach 18. Children and teenagers are hence more at risk being the demographic, who spend more of their time outdoors.
Chronic exposure to UV rays especially UV-B rays has been associated with cataracts, macular degeneration and in some cases blindness.
3. Limit Your Digital Usage
In today’s digitalised era, limiting your usage of electronics may be a near impossibility; if you’re not watching a film, you’re texting and if you’re not texting, you’re either busy working away on your laptop or tablet.
Regardless, your eyes must eyes come first and as cliched as it sounds you can buy a new phone, but you can’t buy another pair of eyes!
Try performing eye exercises such as blinking, palming, which involves placing the palms of your hand under your eyes and covering them for five minutes repeatedly and shifting, where you move your eyes from left to right or up to down.
For more helpful eye exercises to relax your eyes and improve your vision, read more here!
4. Exercise
Medical conditions formed, due to a lack of exercise and poor diet can have a serious impact on your eyes. Diabetes UK records diabetes to be the leading cause of preventable eye vision loss in the UK.
Diabetic retinopathy, caused by damage to blood vessels in the eye as blood sugar levels elevate in people, creates symptoms of blurred vison, impaired colour vision and eventual blindness.
Regular exercise, a low added sugar and low carbohydrate diet, alongside visits to the GP every three months to check your blood pressure and sugar levels are preventative measures to staving off eye diseases triggered by medical conditions.
5. Pack on Vitamin A
The story of being able to see in the dark from eating carrots has plagued our childhoods and although, the number of carrots needed will forever be unknown, carrots and other Vitamin A rich foods are a must in your diet to regulate eye health.
In addition to carrots, sweet potatoes, red bell peppers, spinach, egg yolks and liver are all other ideal sources of extracting Vitamin A!
