Just as maintaining your hearing health, as well as the health of all of your other senses, is crucial, so too is maintaining your eye health. Nobody can control the rate at which their eyes grow old, but through some preventive measures and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, you can delay the onset of age-related eye problems. As we grow older, our eyes tend to get weaker in various ways. The natural aging process puts our eyes at risk of developing various eye diseases such as cataracts, glaucoma, and macular degeneration. Even if you’re still young, taking precautionary measures now will go a long way in warding off eye problems when you grow old. Here are five eye care tips that will help maintain your eye health—
Put a lid on your screen time
When you’re growing older, your eyesight starts weakening. This normal process affects almost everyone, even with excellent eye health. However, you can slow down the rate at which your eye health deteriorates by putting a lid on your screen time. By screen time, we mean the amount of time you spend in front of a computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Studies show that excessive exposure to blue light emitted from electronic devices such as computers and smartphones can cause macular degeneration. To protect your eyes from blue light emitted from electronic devices, you can wear computer glasses or blue light filtering glasses. Computer glasses look like regular glasses, but they’re tinted orange or amber to block blue light from electronic devices. Blue light filtering glasses are designed to block electronic devices’ blue light.
Get regular eye check-ups
Regular eye check-ups will help identify any diseases early, enabling treatment to begin as soon as possible. In addition, during an eye exam, your eye doctor can detect any abnormalities in the health of your eyes, some of which are common risk factors for dry eye syndrome. If you’re over the age of 50 or you have a family history of eye problems, it’s especially important to visit your eye doctor for regular check-ups. Regular eye exams can help prevent eye diseases and disorders and detect and treat vision problems early.
Eat the right foods
You must eat foods rich in vitamins and minerals for proper eye health. Avocados, carrots, broccoli, spinach, and eggs are some of the best foods for eye health. Eating foods rich in vitamins and minerals can help prevent macular degeneration and other eye diseases.
Treat dry eye with eye drops
As you grow older, your eyes are more prone to dryness. Dry eye is a common eye disease that affects both children and adults. Unfortunately, there’s no cure for dry eye; however, you can manage the symptoms with eye drops. There are many kinds of eye drops used to treat dry eye. The best treatments for dry eye generally include eye drops and moistened eye pads that you can use to wipe your eyes whenever they’re feeling dry.
Protect your eyes from UV rays
As you grow older, your skin starts becoming thinner and weaker. As a result, your eyes become more delicate and weaker as you age. You can protect your eyes from UV rays by wearing sunglasses. Choose the right shade of sunglasses that will protect your eyes from harmful UV rays. Avoid wearing sunglasses that are too dark, as they can lead to eye strain.