Vision, the most important function of the eyes, is the key to observing the shapes, the colors, and the beauty of the world. We see the world through our eyes, and the vision makes the world open to us. However, the eyes are vulnerable as well. They can be affected by aging or diseases, which would lead to vision loss or even blindness. In this case, caring for the eyes and the vision every day could somehow guarantee we stay in touch with the beautiful world.
Save Your Vision Awareness Month
The American Optometric Association (AOA) organizes Save Your Vision Awareness Month in March, which aims to promote the awareness of caring for eye health and doing eye exams regularly for the individuals. Due to the rapid development of electronic products, the damage to vision and the eyes also increases a lot. For instance, American people averagely spend about 7 hours per day using digital devices according to pertinent statistics, which can result in potential eye conditions like dry eye syndrome and raise the risk of having eye disorders that directly harm the vision health.
The medicinal practices nowadays improve on those from the past. They allow people to detect eye conditions in advance and make sure the diseases be treated timely. Although most of the eye diseases cannot be completely cured, there are still more and more medical methods to improve or remit some corresponding symptoms. That is the reason why the AOA and many other vision-related organizations encourage people to attend regular eye exams. In other words, medicinal treatments are the latter options, and prevention can provide more possibilities to maintain healthy vision.
The mainstay of saving the vision is the prevention. The latest report of the World Health Organization (WHO) delivers that among the huge visually impaired population, as in 2.2 billion worldwide, not less than 1 billion vision impairment situation could have been avoided. In accordance with the analysis of WHO, untreated cataracts and uncorrected refractive error are the main global causes of visual impairment. All the evidence proves how essential is to protect the eyes and prevent eye diseases. Visual impairments or blindness always bring huge inconvenience to people’s life. To avoid eye disorders as much as possible, paying some attention to the lifestyle can become a low-cost and high-effective way.
Checklist for Eye Health
There is no doubt that caring for eye health can be integrated into daily routine of everyone. We talk about these methods repeatedly in our previous articles. People would benefit from establishing good habits since obviously, those electronic gadgets will exist for a long duration and the hazards of them won’t disappear in a short time as well. Comprehensively considering different kinds of factors, this chapter is going to summarize some measures for keeping the eyes healthy as a checklist to deliver tips for eye health.
1. Schedule an Appointment
March 23rd happens to be the World Optometry Day, it tells people the importance of optometry and encourages people to do relevant eye exams regularly. As a branch of healthcare, optometry plays a more crucial role in vision health than people think. Optometry makes sure those eye issues are detected and treated timely, in order to keep the bright vision and healthy eyes. The growth in screen time and the popularity of video games also impel the routine optometric care. A regular appointment with your optometrist is fair enough to avoid most eye conditions.
2. Eat and Drink Properly
If you are used to caring for your eye health, you must not be strange with foods for good vision. Fresh fruits, leafy vegetables, fish and nuts are always referred to cultivate healthy diets. The trace elements, vitamins, and omega-3 that are rich in these kinds of food construct a healthy and balanced structure of the diet, which contributes to the body health and particularly benefits the eyes. The intake of water should also be considered, as the proper quantity of drinking water for adult men is 3.7 liters and for adult women is 2.7 liters per day according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
3. Update your Eyewear
Update your eyewear can be explained in various ways as well. For instance, it’s necessary to change eye protection to adapt to different activities. People are supposed to wear sunglasses to avoid excessive exposure to the sunlight when walking outside. They shall be equipped with goggles when swimming and skiing, or wear corresponding eyewear to prevent hazards to the eyes in the workplace. On the other hand, people with nearsightedness shall wear myopic glasses or contact lenses to be able to see clearly. They are required to update their glasses in line with the regular optometric checks.
4. Practice the 20-20-20 rule
The 20-20-20 rule is useful for those who stare at the digital screens or focus on the texts for a long time. It’s a good way to rest the eyes and train the vision after long-term use of the eyes. The 20-20-20 rule asks people to turn their gaze to the object 20 feet away for 20 seconds after 20 minutes of using the eyes. Many researches show that the 20-20-20 rule makes a great measure of resting the eyes effectively and minimizing digital eye strain or dry eyes. Not only to ensure the eye health but also to practice the eyesight in this way.
5. Moderate Exercise
Moderate exercise promotes vision care from several aspects. For example, exercise can help people keep fit, which is a good way to monitor the weight and prevent diseases related to obesity. Keeping fit also conduces to blood pressure and as well as eye pressure to avoid the eye disorders like glaucoma due to ocular hypertension. In the meantime, exercise usually leads to good quality of sleep. It’s another perspective to enhance the body and improve good eyesight through high-quality of sleep. Check out more exercise recommendations: New Year, Let Us Keep Healthy - Exercises for the Low Vision.
6. Quit Smoking
Smoking is actually the leading reason in the world for a lot of health issues. WHO has given various explanations for the harms of tobacco to the human body. The lungs are the most direct injured organ, and the damage would spread to the whole body including the eyes through vessels. It might take more time for people to notice the changes inside the body, however, the vision loss would become the apparent evidence. In this case, quit smoking can help people with vision protection without any doubts.
7. Pay Attention to Eye Hygiene
Eye diseases caused by ignorance of eye hygiene occur all the time. Rubbing the eyes frequently with unwashed hands is the primary behavior that would lead to eye infections. Furthermore, long-term use of sheets, contact lenses, and towels without changing or updating them regularly would all lower the hygiene conditions around the eyes and harm the eye health generally. The eyes are so vulnerable that they can be infected easily in daily life. It’s not something difficult to pay attention to eye hygiene and developing good hygiene means a lot to all of us.
Why care for eye health? You might currently have the answer. As a container carrying vision functions, our eyes play significant roles in connecting us with the wonderful world. To some extent, losing eyesight is an inevitable trend as people get old, but the degree of vision loss would depend on various factors. Vision aids can be helpful for those who have visual impairments, but caring for eye health is the basis of vision protection. The checklist in this article intends to offer advice for people to save the vision as much as possible in the first place.
References:
https://www.allaboutvision.com/checklist/
https://nationaltoday.com/save-your-vision-awareness-month/
https://www.cdc.gov/visionhealth/risk/tips.htm
https://www.aoa.org/news/inside-optometry/aoa-news/save-your-vision-month-2022?sso=y
