6 Common Habits That Can Damage Your Vision
Your vision is more than just your eyesight, it also contributes to your overall health. For example, your eye health can be an indicator of your heart health and chronic diseases. Even if you don’t have any known vision problems, it’s still important to have your vision checked regularly to ensure that you’re maintaining the best possible vision health. American Academy of Ophthalmology reports that at least 150% more people will experience vision problems in the next 30 years.
Sometimes it’s your daily habits that sabotage your eye health. We’ve compiled the most common bad eye habits and the preventative measures you can take to avoid them.
Read on to discover which foods you can add to your diet and what you can do every day to support your eye health.
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1. Using expired makeup
It’s easy to forget that your favorite makeup products have a lifespan, especially if you use them every day. However, using expired mascara and eyeliner can expose your eyes to infection risks. A good rule of thumb for determining when it’s time to ditch the product is to look at the Period after opening. This stamp tells you how long you have after opening the product before it needs to be replaced. For example, usually mascara can last about three months.
It is also important to store your cosmetics properly. Improper storage can affect the shelf life of a product and can lead to the growth of bacteria or mold, putting you at risk of infection.
2. Reusing contact lenses
If you think you’re saving money by recycling your contact lenses, it could actually be costing you more in the long run. As someone who used to do this and got multiple eye infections as a result, I can attest that it’s a habit worth breaking. When I switched to wearing daily contacts and alternating between glasses, I drastically reduced my chances of getting an eye infection and my eyes stayed healthier.
It is worth considering switching to daily lenses: a study has shown that people who Reusable contact lenses are approximately four times more likely to develop Acanthamoeba keratitisa rare eye infection that may increase the risk of vision loss or blindness, compared with people who wear contact lenses every day.
Other habits to break with your contact lenses include sleeping, showering, or swimming with your lenses in. Dr. Mackenzie Sward, a board-certified ophthalmologist, warns, “Sleeping with your contact lenses in and not cleaning your lenses properly can significantly increase your risk of a corneal ulcer caused by a bacterial, fungal, or parasitic infection.” As if that weren’t worrying enough, vision loss from contact lens-related complications can be serious and permanent.
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3. Don’t wear sunglasses
You know that your skin needs sunscreen to protect it from harmful UV rays, and believe it or not, your eyes need protection, too. Sward recommends wearing good UV protection whenever you’re outside or in the car, even on cloudy days. “That’s because harmful UVA and UVB rays in the atmosphere can increase your risk of macular degeneration, cataracts, eyelid skin cancer, and other eye diseases,” she explains. To protect your eyes, Sward recommends opting for sunglasses with 100 percent UV protection every time you go outside.
“Cumulative UV exposure and damage only increases the incidence of macular degeneration, cataracts, pterygium and skin cancer,” she explains. These conditions can be permanent or require surgical treatment to correct them. People in professions that involve more outdoor work, such as construction or landscaping, are at higher risk for certain conditions related to UV damage, so they should be more careful about protecting themselves.
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4. Not wearing protective glasses
You should also wear protective eyewear if you play sports or do work that puts you at risk for eye injuries. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “estimates that about 2,000 people a day suffer work-related eye injuries, and the American Academy of Ophthalmology estimates that there are 30,000 sports-related eye injuries in the United States each year,” Sward says. Many of these injuries are preventable and usually involve foreign bodies that get stuck in the eye, such as dust, wood, metal or plant debris. Other injuries you can sustain from not wearing eye protection include blunt or direct trauma from falls or from larger objects such as tools striking the face.
5. Smoking
In addition to the well-known health risks that smoking can bring, it can also be harmful to your eyes. Smoking doubles the risk of macular degenerationwhich can cause you to lose vision in the part of your eye known as the macula. Smoking also damages your retina and increases your risk of cataracts, which cloud the lenses of your eyes and can also lead to vision loss. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, smokers are about three times more likely to develop cataracts and up to four times more likely to develop age-related macular degeneration compared to non-smokers. So if you are a smoker, it is in your best interest to kick the habit.
6. Spending too much time on screens
We can all admit that we… Limit our time on our smartphoneslaptops and tablets. Spending less time on these items would also be good for our eyesight. Digital eye strain or Computer Vision Syndrome is a condition that occurs when you stare at a computer screen all the time or phone screen for too long. It may cause dry eyes, blurred vision, headache, back pain and other symptoms of discomfort.
Sward recommends taking regular breaks from screens to let your eyes relax and getting fitted for a pair of prescription lenses that are specifically made for computer use. “It’s important to visit an eye care professional regularly to make sure you’re wearing the right prescription and [to] “screening for eye conditions that might otherwise not cause symptoms,” she said.
