Our eyes are our windows to see the world around us, and now that we’re spending more time at our desks and in front of our screens, we need to take better care of them.
COVID-19 has impacted our lives in more ways than one. As the current pandemic heads into what seems to be its third year, people have been spending more time in the safety of their homes, working remotely and, overall, life for most people seems to have shifted from days in the office into almost entirely bound to their desks at home. This means less steps taken during the day, as commuting is now mostly limited to and from the bedroom to the home office or the living room.
This results in people becoming increasingly more sedentary than they would when things were before the pandemic. And what many might perhaps fail to realize, being more sedentary can adversely affect your eye health. For one thing, research has shown that just three hours of exercise a week can greatly reduce your risk of deteriorating eyesight. Going by the numbers, any kind of activity equal to or more than taking 5,000 steps a day can slow the rate of vision loss by 10 percent. So, it’s best to take all the extra steps that you can muster to help retain your eyesight.
The amount of time that we spent in front of our computers have also dramatically increased. It’s only natural, though, since we’re all spending more and more time indoors. From working to relaxing over our favorite shows and movies, we’re becoming more and more attached to our screens, which, in itself isn’t a bad thing; but there are some aspects of this lifestyle that we need to understand better. First, computer and TV screens, as well as our phones and tablets, emit blue light. is is only natural since blue light is much easier to see, but extended exposure can lead to eye fatigue.
Research has shown that we tend to blink less when we’re staring at our screens and thus, we’re effectively straining our eyes. This can cause more long-term effects than we
had originally imagined. Not only can this contribute to the overall deterioration of our, but it can also impact our sleep quality as blue light makes it that much harder for us to fall asleep. So, you might want to think twice before staring at your phone right before bedtime as it may adversely impact your sleep quality.
One thing you can do to help alleviate this problem is, of course, by exercising. But if that doesn’t sound too convenient, then you can do something as simple as taking short breaks after a few minutes of staring at your screen. Doctors tend to recommend that we take a 20 second break after we’ve been staring at our screens for 20 minutes. We also need to keep in mind that our eyes, as we begin to age, will naturally produce less tears. is means that we might need the occasional artificial “tear” every now and then in the form of eye drops to prevent our eyes from drying out.
And if you’re thinking of getting blue light filtering glasses then you might want to think again. Because although it’s true that in research done on mice, blue light does impact their overall eye health, it’s a rather different story for us humans. For one thing, studies have shown that cutting blue light alone did not improve comfort after a long session, but the good news is, dimming your screen can help you with that problem. This is especially important as the day goes on and your body is telling you that it’s time for sleep because a bright screen, thanks to how your brain works, will set your body to daytime-level alertness, increasing the time that you need to fall asleep. In doing so, it reduces your sleep quality which, in turn, will mean that you’re not sleeping as well as you should and your eyes will once again take the brunt it.
Again, in the context of the pandemic, keeping your eyes healthy may help protect you from the virus itself, as study shows that viral particles can land on your eyes and begin to replicate. In some patients, pink eye aka conjunctivitis can be one of the earliest signs of COVID-19. at’s why it’s important to take better care of your eyes by keeping them from drying out, and maybe think about wearing sunglasses as UV light can easily damage the proteins in the lens of your eyes which will result in the formation of cataracts. The eye is a very delicate part of the human body, after all, and it only makes sense that we take good care of it since it’s the only way for us to see the world around us.
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