Ways To Help Improve Your Eye Health

Poor eyesight, in turn, creates a whole bunch of different problems, from choosing eyeglasses and contact lenses to saving money for expensive surgery. It’s really important to care about your eyes and vision, you might be able to accomplish this by using some natural ways to help improve it.

Feed Your Eyes

Your eyes require specific elements from your diet to function properly. A diet that is rich in vegetables and fruit while being low in fatty foods and sugar that your eyes demand is, actually, beneficial for your whole body. Berries, grapes, goji, and blueberries contain potent anti-inflammatory properties and components that can help to improve your vision. As for crab, turkey, and oysters, they contain zinc and copper. Zinc helps to produce the eye-protecting pigment melanin. Copper helps to prevent the development of age-related macular degeneration. 

Onions, garlic, and capers will help enrich your diet with lecithin, sulfur, and cysteine which will help prevent the lenses of your eyes from getting cataracts. Omega-3 fatty acids (in the amount of 1,000 mg per day) will help you to avoid dry eyes and macular degeneration. That's why mackerel, herring, tuna, salmon, walnuts, and flaxseeds should be frequent ingredients in your diet. If you can't get any seafood, buying fish oil supplements will be a good alternative. 

Dark leafy vegetables, sweet potatoes, carrots, and pumpkin contain beta-carotene, zeaxanthin, and lutein, these elements help to protect your eyes from being damaged by the sun. Strawberries, eggs salmon, mackerel, oranges, and nuts provide vitamins A, C, and E. Vitamin A will help improve night vision and prevent night blindness. Vitamin C will help to slow down the development of cataracts and macular degeneration. Vitamin E is beneficial to those with early signs of macular degeneration that is age-related. 

Anecdotal evidence based on individual experiences and observations suggests that honey, spinach, ginger, and chamomile tea may help your eyes to appear to be more brighter in appearance in a few weeks, but there’s no real science to back these claims up. 

Think About Implementing Some Lifestyle Changes

First and foremost in these changes is to follow a healthy diet, quit smoking, control your weight, and consider investing in an air humidifier.

Lighting is probably one of the easiest and important things you can control. For example, fluorescent lighting is not good for your eyes. Also, when you work or study, keep a shaded lamp on the desk, the light should be pointed at your work while the shade will protect your eyes.

Try to use your computer as little as possible, which can be easier said than done if your work is tightly connected to it. Even so, there are some ways to reduce the negative impact of staring at the computer screen all day long. Implement a 20-20-20 rule to your working routine. According to this rule, you should look at something situated 20 feet away from you for 20 seconds every 20 minutes. Don't forget to blink, this way you'll produce tears necessary to refresh and moisten your eyes. Make the font size larger and the screen brighter and more contrast to help you to read and browse easier. Your monitor should be directly in front of you with the screen located a bit below your eye level.  

Improve the quality of the air in your office and at home with a humidifier. The reason people develop dry eyes is typically due to a lack of moisture and lubrication on the eye surface which can lead to a mild irritation or to serious inflammation of delicate eye tissues.  Airflow can also affect the eyes if it is too strong such as when sitting too close to an air vent. Windy outdoor conditions can also contribute to vision issues as can poor air quality and high pollen counts. Try to remember to wear sunglasses when you go outside to protect against radiation and flying debris. 

Pet dander is also a potent eye irritant making cleaning and vacuuming an important factor in eye health. Smoking does more than harm the lungs, it also contributes to macular degeneration, optic nerve damage, cataracts, and diabetes which in turn can damage your eyes. Gain control of your weight with a healthy diet that will provide your eyes with all the nutrients, vitamins and minerals needed and also will help you to avoid diabetes which puts you at an increased risk for diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma ultimately leading to blindness. 

Regular physical exercise not only helps to control your weight and prevent diabetes, but it also helps to prevent high blood pressure and high cholesterol which can lead to eye and/or vision problems. 

Exercises To Strengthen And Train Your Eyes

Try near and far focusing exercises to significantly strengthen your eye muscles. Start with some pencil pushups which are done by making a dot and a pencil, look at the dot then move it away from your eyes, you shouldn’t lose concentration, then move it back towards your eyes stopping when it starts to double. Now close your eyes for a few seconds and look back at the pencil, you shouldn’t see double anymore, and now move the pencil away from your eyes again repeating for several minutes. You can also try near and far focusing exercises, by drawing a figure "eight" with your eyes, and directional exercises. You can do this exercise in a sitting or standing position, it doesn't matter. Another exercise is to choose an object 10-20 feet away from you and focus on it. Stay like this for 10-15 seconds. Then refocus your eyes on your thumb that is 10 inches away from your face. Stay concentrated for 10-15 seconds and repeat these exercises 5 times. After you do these exercises gently palm your eyes to relax them after training. 

Your eyes are an important part of health that most people rely on to see and make sense out of the world around them. They are just as important to keep healthy as is your body, yet they are often overlooked.  Be sure to have your eyesight tested and to check for vision and eye problems, especially if you are experiencing issues.