We all tend to take our health for granted, and our eye health gets an especially low level of attention in most cases. We rely on our eyes to see and we all can imagine how difficult it would be to navigate the world without sight, yet we don’t make much of an effort to care for our vision.
Good eye health is crucial for avoiding certain eye diseases, taking care of our vision and keeping our peepers healthy. But how do we take care of them in the first place? Here are six eye health tips to help you give some love to your eyeballs.
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Visit Your Eye Doctor
Of course, we all know that there are health practitioners who dedicate themselves solely to the health of our eyes and helping us to see better. Visiting your optometrist on a semi-regular basis is an important part of maintaining eye health. These doctors don’t just hand out spectacles, they check the health of your eyes and can detect any vision issues or eye diseases with the testing they do.
If you do need vision correction, it’s even more important to go for testing every year and to wear the correct prescription. You can even get prescription glasses online if this will make the process easier for you.
Wear Sunglasses
Wearing your specs is important so that you don’t get headaches and sore eyes and damage your vision further. However, wearing sunglasses is pretty important too if you’re going to be outdoors in the sun.
High-quality sunglasses aren’t just there to jazz up your outfit – they’re crucial for protecting your eyes from the sun’s harmful rays (the same reason you wear an SPF on your skin) and also helping you to see easier on super bright days.
Eat a Healthy, Balanced Diet
You must be tired of reading about the importance of a balanced diet for your health. Unfortunately, you’re going to read more of it here, because believe it or not, your diet plays a huge role in your eye health too. We all know the concept of eating carrots for good vision – well, it’s true. The vitamins and minerals we get in fruit and veg are crucial for maintaining your peepers.
If you think you might be missing key nutrients in your diet, consider adding in some dietary supplements to boost your immune system and general health.
Stay Hydrated
Another one you’ve probably heard before is to drink more water. Hydration is important for a number of reasons and can impact so many functions of your body and aspects of your life, from brain and eye health to sleep and weight loss.
If you suffer from dry eyes, the first place you should look toward is your water intake. The amount of water you should drink each day will depend on many factors, such as your age, weight, height, activity levels and more – but if you don’t feel like reading too much into it, just aim for a minimum of 8 glasses a day.
Maintain a Healthy Weight
Your diet and exercise are important for more than your nutritional intake – they also play a role in your weight management which can impact your eye health too. When you’re overweight, you run a much higher risk of developing diabetes.
Believe it or not, diabetes is a major factor in glaucoma and another eye disease known as diabetic retinopathy which – you guessed it – is an eye disease which can cause blindness and is caused by diabetes.
Keep Your Hands Clean
We all learned how to wash our hands properly when the pandemic started, but hand hygiene is important for other aspects of your health too. Rubbing, scratching or touching your eyes when they haven’t been washed properly can lead to all sorts of germs getting into your eyes which can cause an infection.
This is especially important for those who wear contact lenses – washing your hands thoroughly before handling your lenses or taking them in or out is crucial to avoid disaster.
Remove Makeup Gently
Finally, those of us who wear makeup need to be aware of two things. First of all, certain makeup products like eyeshadow and mascara are highly likely to get into our eyes at some point, and these chemicals might be dangerous if you’re using low-quality makeup products.
Second, removing your makeup with harsh wipes or more chemical products can be damaging to the eye and the area around it, so make sure that you use gentle products and treat the area with care.
