By Dr Zaira KS
Technology has become an integral part of our lives. Because of this, the lifestyle of people has become sedentary. More often people stare at small fonts and images on gadgets like smartphones, tablets, laptops, personal computers … which causes eye fatigue and can lead to eye-related problems.
This has equally affected the eye sight of children. It is widely observed these days that children want to spend more of their time at home by watching television or playing Playstation games or fiddling with tablets, smartphones and laptops.
Studies have stated that children who have low vision are the ones who are subjected to more than three hours on computers and next three hours reclining each day. However, not many preventive steps have been taken to tackle the problem of low vision with the number of folks subjecting themselves constantly to these electronic gadgets is increasing.
How to make our vision better?
Dr Zaira KS, ophthalmologist with Aster Medical Centre, C-Ring Road, says: “To protect our vision ability from deteriorating, intake of minerals like copper and zinc and food that include vitamins A, C, E, are essential. Antioxidants, including beta-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin, protect the macula from sun damage. These antioxidants are found in dark leafy vegetables, egg yolk, yellow peppers, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and carrots.”
Studies have also proven that consuming yellow and green vegetables can help prevent age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness. “Eating a well-balanced diet also helps you maintain a healthy weight, which makes you less likely to get lifestyle diseases such as type 2 diabetes.
Diabetes is currently the leading cause of blindness among adults. Foods rich in sulphur, cysteine, and lecithin which include garlic and onions help protect the lens of your eye from cataract formation. Anthocyanin-rich blueberries, grapes, and goji berries have anti-inflammatory properties that can help improve your vision,” says Dr Zaira.
Coldwater fish like wild salmon, sardines, mackerel, and cod contains DHA, a fatty acid, which provides structural support to cell membranes to boost eye health. Wearing the right kind of eyewear protects from harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays as over exposure to UV rays also causes cataracts and macular degeneration.
“It is important to look away from the computer after staring at it for a long time. This can cause eyestrain, blurry vision, trouble focusing at a distance, dry eyes, headaches, neck pain, back pain and shoulder pain. One should always make sure that the glasses and the contact lens one uses should be up to date and should be good enough while they are working on PC, laptop or tablets. The brightness level should be low on your PCs, laptops and tablets. To avoid glare from the screen of the computer, anti-glare screen can be used if required. Blink when you feel your eyes are dry,” adds Dr Zaira.
Relaxation exercises are also considered helpful to destress the eyes. Place your hands together palm to palm and rub them together briskly creating heat. Place them over your eyes and let your eyes relax. Use alternating hot and cold compresses on your eyes daily to help relax them.
Constant exposure to pollution and harsh lights from computer usage and poor eating habits all come together to affect the health of the eyes. The only way to counter this is through exercise. Yoga for eyes which involves movements that massage the eye ball, work out muscles that control eye movement and provide relief to the overworked organ.
When you do yoga for your eyes, you are exercising both, voluntary muscles (rectus muscles that hold the eye ball in place) and involuntary muscles (ciliary and oblique muscles that control eye movement).
“Most importantly, every 20 minutes, give some rest to your eyes by looking 20ft away for 20 seconds. At least every 2 hours, get up and take a 15-minute break. Getting enough sleep is essential for eye health. Sleep allows your eyes to fully rest, repair, and recover. Insufficient sleep may weaken your vision, so try for 8 hours of sound sleep a night,” concludes Dr Zaira.
- Dr Zaira K S is an ophthalmologist at Aster Medical Centre, C-Ring Road.
