Edmonton Optometrist: Your Key To Excellent Visual Health
August 16th, 2010Strong vision is one of our most precious physical gifts. The health of your eyesight must be conscientiously maintained as part of your overall health regime, especially as one ages. The quality of one’s vision is directly related to the overall quality of one’s general well being.
Deteriorating eye health and increasingly poor vision are a fact of life for millions of North Americans from middle age onward. It is a fact of life that as we age, parts of our body lose their elasticity, flexibility and vigor. By age 50, most of us require reading glasses and we have to hold reading materials further and further from our eyes. However, we can keep our eyesight sharp and clear as we advance in age, as long as we take care to follow particular health tips as laid out by health care professionals.
Our general eye health can deteriorate as we age if we allow it to. Reducing strain on your eyesight is the major thing you can do to protect your eyes as you age. The following vision-care tips can significantly help reduce increased visual stress and maintain proper eye health and vision:
1. Look up and away often when performing near vision tasks. Do not place your eyes under prolonged, close-range stress.
2. The lighting in your office desk area should be three times brighter than that in the rest of the room. Never use a single lamp for reading; be sure that your work space is very brightly lit.
3. Try to maintain a distance of 14 to 16 inches from the eyes when performing near vision tasks. For instance, if you are performing a task such as needlepoint, be sure to keep your materials at least 14 to 16 inches from your face.
4. Place your TV at a significant distance from your viewing area or sofa. Again, this reduces the opportunity for your eyes to be placed under prolonged, close range stress as your watch television.
5. Get involved in sports or other activities that require using distance vision. The promotion of distance vision is our goal as we age: reduce your dependency on those “reading glasses”!
6. Eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables of all colors. Supplement this diet with anti-oxidants and botanicals that are known to promote good eye health.
7. Be vigilant about your sun glasses! Wear black-gray and green-gray sunglasses because these colors pass the full spectrum of colors evenly without distortion. And be sure to get the utmost in UV protection from your sunglasses! Make sure you purchase a pair that has the term “UV filtered” on the tag.
8. Be sure that your daily prescription eye glasses have good, protective anti-reflective coating.
9. Finally, see your optometrist annually for a routine check-up!
You can maintain your good eye health and vision — possibly reducing the need for ever stronger glasses — with the help of an Edmonton Optometrist .