The eyes are the windows of the soul. Keeping your eyes healthy is vital to your health. The visual impairment will bring a lot of inconvenience to life and work.
1. Your Eyes Are an Important Part of Your Health.
The eyes are one of the most important sense organs of human beings. Its main function is to form vision.
The importance of keeping eyes healthy is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
First, keeping eyes healthy to get a clear vision.
Clear vision is of great significance to normal life, work, and study. Eyes healthy problems can lead to vision loss. Severe vision loss will make the patient incapacitated.
Second, keeping eyes healthy to form a broad vision
Normal visual function is not only to see clearly but also to see a wide enough range. If an unhealthy eye results in a narrowed field of vision, it can severely limit the patient’s movement. For example, the patient may trip over while walking. He may also miss his steps when going up and down stairs.
Third, keeping eyes healthy to have an advanced visual function
The healthy function of both eyes is the basis for the formation of advanced visual functions such as stereopsis. Even if the function of one eye is impaired, it will affect the distance judgment.
2. Common Eye Disorders and Diseases
Refractive Errors
Refractive error means that when the eye is not adjusted, the parallel light cannot form a clear object image on the retina after passing through the refraction of the eye. Instead, it forms images in front of or behind the retina. It includes farsightedness, nearsightedness, and astigmatism.
Age-Related Macular Degeneration
Age-related macular degeneration is an age-related chronic disease. It is also one of the main causes of vision loss among people over the age of 50.
Macular degeneration is a pathological change in the macula. With macular degeneration, a person’s vision can be severely reduced. It will cause distortion of vision, black spots in the center of the visual field, and even irreversible loss of vision.
Cataract
Cataracts are degeneration of the lens proteins caused by various reasons, resulting in the clouding of the lens. Because the lens is cloudy, light is disturbed by the clouded lens. Therefore, light cannot be projected onto the retina, resulting in blurred vision.
Cataracts are more common in people over the age of 40. And with age, the incidence rate increases year by year.
Diabetic Retinopathy
Diabetic retinopathy is one of the complications of diabetes. It is generally divided into two types. One is the microvascular disease of diabetes. Another is macular edema because the fluid in the blood continues to leak from retinal vessels.
Glaucoma
A glaucoma is a group of eye diseases. The common causes are increasing intraocular pressure or irreversible damage to the optic nerve. It is the second most common cause of blindness in the world.
The main symptom of glaucoma is increased intraocular pressure. It causes damage to the optic nerve in the retina and tubular changes in the visual field. At the later stage of the disease, it can lead to continued loss of vision and even blindness.
For various types of glaucoma, the most critical treatment principles are early detection, early diagnosis, and early treatment.
Amblyopia
Amblyopia is usually asymptomatic and doctors can detect it only when examining monocular vision. Unlike nearsightedness and farsightedness, amblyopia cannot be corrected to normal vision with nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism.
There were no obvious organic lesions in the eyeball. When the best corrected visual acuity of one eye or both eyes is lower than that of the corresponding age, it is called amblyopia. Or the visual acuity of both eyes differs by 2 lines or more, and the eye with lower visual acuity is amblyopia.
Amblyopia is an eye disease that seriously endangers children’s visual function. With proper treatments, people can restore some amblyopia to normal.
Strabismus
Strabismus is a clinical phenomenon in which the axis of any eye deviates from its normal position. The common causes are an abnormality of monovision in both eyes or an abnormality of the neuromuscular muscles that control eye movement.
The classification of strabismus is complex. If you find obvious strabismus in the eyes, you must go to the hospital for a routine eye examination.
3. Ways to Keep Eyes Healthy
1)Eat vision-healthy foods
Foods that keep the eyes healthy mainly include the following types:
First, foods rich in vitamin A, such as carrots, animal liver, meat products, etc.
Vitamin A is a light-sensitive substance in the synthetic retina. Therefore, vitamin A supplementation is helpful to improve the function of the retina.
Second, foods rich in vitamin C, such as green leafy vegetables such as rape and cabbage, and fresh fruits such as oranges, tangerines, kiwis, and mangoes.
Vitamin C has anti-oxidative, anti-injury, and tissue-repairing effects. Vitamin C helps maintain the normal function of the cornea, lens, and retina. It also protects eyesight by preventing diseases such as cataracts and macular degeneration.
Third, calcium-rich foods, such as dairy products, eggs, etc. These foods can increase the toughness of the sclera. Eating them can help to prevent the occurrence of myopia.
2) Get adequate sleep
Adequate sleep can effectively protect the eyes, and prevent dry eyes, eye fatigue, and other symptoms.
People should develop good sleep habits. Adequate sleep can effectively alleviate the deepening of myopia.
In addition, people must develop good habits to keep their eyes healthy. For example, going to bed early, getting up early, and not staying up late. Ensuring adequate sleep is good for your health.
3) Wear eye protection during outdoor activities
The biggest cause of eye damage in outdoor activities is UV radiation. The best way to avoid UV damage is to wear sunglasses with UV protection.
In outdoor sports, eye protection is particularly important, especially in ball games. It is important to avoid eye injury caused by the impact of the ball on the eye. Also, people should pay attention to UV protection.
Even with the eye protection by wearing sunglasses, you should also avoid being outdoors for long periods. In particular, try to avoid being outdoors between 10 am and 2 pm. Because UV radiation is at its strongest during this time, people should avoid excessive sun exposure.
4)Maintain your blood sugar levels
- A1c
Glycated hemoglobin reflects the average blood sugar level over the past three months. High glycated hemoglobin levels indicate higher blood sugar levels. Long-term hyperglycemia can cause many complications. For example, high blood sugar affects the blood vessels of the eye. It can lead to retinal retinopathy, severe bleeding, and blindness.
- Blood pressure
High blood pressure can affect the eyes. High blood pressure can lead to fundus lesions, eye bleeding, and possibly even blindness. Therefore, for patients with high blood pressure, it is necessary to control blood pressure to prevent the occurrence of complications.
- Cholesterol
If cholesterol elevation is not effectively controlled, many complications will occur, including arteriosclerosis in the fundus. Once the arteriosclerosis of the fundus occurs, it will cause vision changes. Because it may cause fundus hemorrhage and even retinal detachment. These causes can lead to vision loss and even blindness in severe cases.
5)Keep your weight under control
Simple obesity generally does not affect vision. If obesity is also accompanied by underlying diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure, it may affect vision. High blood pressure can lead to increased intracranial pressure, which can cause blurred vision. Diabetes can cause retinopathy, which can cause blurred vision.
Therefore, obese people should lose weight in time, control their eating, and exercise more. They must avoid various diseases caused by obesity. In addition, you should pay attention to keeping your eyes healthy to avoid eye fatigue caused by prolonged use of your eyes.
6) Quit smoking or never start
Smoking not only causes great damage to the eyes but also affects the health of the body. The smoke produced by smoking contains harmful substances such as nicotine. Therefore, the damage to the eyes is particularly large, and it will lead to lesions of the optic nerve. In severe cases, it can also lead to chest tightness and other conditions.
To avoid diseases such as vision weakness, it is best to quit smoking at an early stage to reduce damage to the eyes and body.
7) Keep screens at a distance
Don’t look down at your phone for a long time. Don’t lie down and keep staring at your phone. When you’re lying down, do not put your phone screen directly at your eyes. The phone screen can be tilted down 45 degrees. Keep your eyes at least 30-50 cm away from your phone.
When standing or sitting, keep your phone screen at the same height as your eyes and keep your head vertical. This will help reduce pressure on the spine and avoid shoulder and neck pain.
8) Throw away old eye makeup
Expired and spoiled cosmetics may irritate the eyes and skin, causing allergic reactions such as itching, redness, and even inflammation. Cosmetics containing bacteria can cause redness, swelling, and inflammation of the eyes. In severe cases, it can damage the eyes and affect vision.
9)Care for your contact lenses
For people who often wear contact lenses, it is necessary to reduce the wearing time, regulate lens care, moisturize your eyes, and replace lenses regularly.
1. Reduce the wearing time: Do not wear it continuously for 12 hours. It is best to wear it for less than 8 hours a day. Remove the lenses while sleeping to avoid hypoxia in the eyes.
2. Standardized care of lenses: Make sure your hands are clean and dry before wearing or removing them. Take regular care of the lens, and be sure to use special care solutions. Do not directly wash them with water.
3. Strengthen eye moisturizing: You can often blink your eyes when wearing lenses. It can moisturize your eyes to a certain extent. It can help reduce and prevent the occurrence of dry eye. You can also supplement artificial tears on time.
4. Replace the lens when it expires, including the lens case.
In the process of wearing, if there are symptoms such as tingling or eye redness, you should stop wearing contact lenses immediately. And you should better go to the hospital for examination as soon as possible.
10) Give your eyes a break
Your eyes may work for eight hours or more because of the demands of your daily work. Surfing the Internet, watching TV, reading, or playing video games can also put undue stress on the eyes.
Just like the rest of the body, the eyes need a break between jobs. Those who use the eyes for a long time can follow the 20-20-20 rule to relax the eyes properly.
Rest your eyes for 20 seconds for every 20 minutes of screen time. During breaks, relax your eye muscles by looking away from the screen and looking at objects 20 feet away.
11) Wash hands and avoid rubbing your eyes
Our hands are the most flexible part of the body and the place where we have the most frequent contact with the outside world. Therefore, the hands are particularly susceptible to bacteria. Even if you wash your hands frequently, you can’t completely wash away the germs. So do not touch your eyes with your hands.
If dust or foreign objects do get into the eyes, just gently lift the upper eyelid away from the eye. In this way, the tears that flow out after being stimulated will wash the eyelids and the surface of the eyeball. Eventually, the foreign body will be washed out.
If your eyes feel itchy, seek medical attention immediately. Do not rub it with your hands to avoid serious consequences.
12) Know your family’s eye health history
Studies have shown that there are nearly 400 genes in the human body that can be inherited to cause eye diseases. Common inherited eye diseases include cataracts, glaucoma, high myopia, and so on.
Inherited eye diseases are not uncommon. They have become the main cause of blindness threatening children and adolescents, accounting for about 50% of all blinding factors. Among blind patients under the age of 25, 60% are blind due to genetic eye diseases. For children with a family history of eye disease, parents should pay attention to keeping their eyes healthy from an early age.
13) Visit your eye doctor regularly
Modern people have changed the way they live and work. It is common to overuse their eyes. Many people feel uncomfortable in their eyes when they spend a lot of time in front of computers and mobile phones. Long-term excessive use of the eyes in adulthood may also worsen myopia. As a result, regular inspections are required every year.
First of all, check your vision to see if there is any deepening of myopia.
Also, do some ocular surface checks. People who face the computer for a long time are especially prone to dry eyes, which is called screen terminal syndrome of the eyes.
In addition, a fundus examination is also performed to see if the slight radiation will adversely affect the lens and fundus. For example, cataracts have a certain relationship with the long-term heavy use of computers.
Regular eye exams every year are helpful for the early detection of diseases. Early detection allows for timely treatment and effective prevention.
