Taking care of your eyes is as easy as 1,2,3

Eat well, rest well, don’t smoke are 3 things that my mom advises me to do to look after myself. This applies to taking care of our eyes as well.

Nutrition and Diet

First and foremost, a healthy body definitely contributes to healthy eyes. A good and balanced diet contributes to good health and that extends to healthy eyes too. In general, a diet full of fresh sources of protein, whole grain carbohydrates, fresh fruits and vegetables combined with a lifestyle that includes adequate amount of exercise and activity can lead to a reduced risk of contracting common diseases such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. These diseases are associated with an increase in the risk of heart and circulatory problems that can extend to the blood vessels of the eyes. Diabetes in particular, can be associated with retina blood vessel diseases, which can range from mild to visually devastating, culminating in painful blindness. A good control of diabetes obviously may require more than a healthy diet, as medications are required when the disease is significant. It is highly recommended for you to go for an annual health screening. If you have been diagnosed with diabetes, it is best to get your eyes checked once a year.

Consider including two nutrients: lutein and zeaxanthin in your diet. These nutrients are commonly present in colourful food such as goji berry, papaya, capsicum, blueberries and egg yolk can contribute to lower risk of age-related macular degeneration, a retina disease that affects the elderly. Age-related macular degeneration can destroy our central and near vision, causing difficulty in reading and performing near tasks. It is best to prevent than cure!

Incorporating a supplement of high-quality omega-3 fatty acid is also beneficial in improving dry eyes and the health of our ocular surface. This can be more important than you think it is as dry eyes are such a common plague in our digital age. These supplements can usually be found in drugstores, and some are specially made for dry eyes too.

Give your eyes a break

Resting well rejuvenates our body and allows our body to heal from the days’ depletion of our bodily resources. This applies equally to our eyes too. In our visually demanding environment nowadays, where visual input dictates so much of our activities, our eyes are working much harder than before. This also means that your eyes would need more rest since it’s working so much harder. Our golden mantra for eye rest is easy to remember: rest for 20 seconds after every 20 minutes of visual task so that you can preserve 20 / 20 vision. 20/20 means perfect vision, of course!

Avoid smoking

Just like the rest of our body, our eyes suffer from oxidative damage from smoking. Smoking can contribute to an earlier onset of cataract, which causes fluctuating and blurred vision, and may need surgery to correct. In addition, smoking can also increase the risk of age-related macular degeneration, which affects our central vision. These age-related eye diseases may not be entirely preventable as we age, but we can certainly work at delaying their onset. Best plan: avoid smoking!

Practicing good hygiene when wearing contact lens

On top of these common-sense advice, for those of us who wear contact lenses, please make sure that you avoid contaminating the contact lenses particularly if they are for extended use such as two weekly and monthly disposable lenses. Even daily disposable contact lenses had been associated with corneal infections. Always insert your contact lenses only after washing your hands, and do not use the contact lenses beyond what it is meant for. It is also important to keep your eyes away from swimming pool water if you are a contact lens wearer to avoid potentially getting your eyes infected from poorly treated water.

Eye screening

Last but not least, don’t delay an eye check if you have any suspicious eye problems. Be they dry eyes, eye pain, irritation, tearing and redness, mild to serious blurred vision or simply seeing a few new black spots in your vision, and early eye check will definitely help to detect any potentially serious diseases at an earlier stage, which means they can usually to be treated more successfully.