It’s easy to forget about caring for your eyes, despite putting them through their paces almost constantly, from squinting over a menu to staring at a screen for eight hours a day. While changes to your eyes as you get older are natural, it’s still important to be aware of them and get them checked out.
We spoke to some eye doctors to find out about the common mistakes that could have some serious consequences for your eyes.
1. Forgetting to schedule your regular eye exams.
Despite our fear of ruining our eyesight, it’s quite easy to push the health of our peepers off our priority list.
2. Staring at screens all day.
It’s quite unfortunate that we now spend most of our time staring at screens, but that’s the sad reality. From laptops to phones, and more, we don’t really give our eyes a much-needed break.
Dr. Preeya K. Gupta, MD, a board-certified ophthalmologist and corneal specialist at Duke University Eye Center said:
“When we are staring at screens we don’t blink as often, in fact, our blink rate can decrease by 50% … The tear film is vital to protecting the surface of the eye from stress—when we don’t blink we don’t allow that protective tear film to coat the eye fully allowing the eye to become dry.”
3. Over-using drops to relieve red eyes.
We all are guilty of stocking these kinds of eye drops because it’s the easiest thing to do when we struggle with red, irritated eyes.
4. Misusing contact lenses.
Patients usually use their contact lenses past the time they are recommended, thinking it’s totally harmless. The truth is lenses can grow bacteria and it could spell trouble to your eyes.
5. Ignoring the effects that smoking can have on your eyes.
Dr. Alan Mendelsohn, MD, FACS, a Miami-based ophthalmologist explained:
“Hookah smoking, like any type of smoking, causes both reduced amounts of oxygen to be absorbed in the bloodstream as well as constriction of blood vessels throughout the body … Smoking hookah only further reduces the amount of blood and oxygen that can get to the eye, hastening severe damage that can permanently impact a patient’s quality of vision.”
6. Forgetting your sunglasses.
Some of us use sunglasses because it’s a cool fashion accessory but actually, they have a deeper purpose than that as they can protect our eyes from unexpected debris.
References: goodhousekeeping.com, elitereaders
