Keep Your Eyes Healthy: Top Tips

Your eyes are vital for almost all your daily activities. Yet, despite the efforts you make in caring for your eyes, many factors can cause various eye conditions. According to the American Association of Ophthalmology, at least 20 million people in the United States suffer from extreme loss of vision. Although your eyes deteriorate through aging, you should do your best to keep them healthy. If you want to pay more attention to your eyes, here’s what you should know.
 

Be Aware of Risk for Eye Issues

When you reach a certain age, you start to feel the onset of certain ailments. Your risk of developing eye diseases increases if you have the following traits:
 

• Native American, African American, or Hispanic.

• Obese or overweight.

• High blood pressure.

• Diabetes.

• Eye disease in family history.
   

If you think you are likely to develop an eye condition, you should talk with your attending physician.
 

Keep Your Routine Eye Exam Appointments

A comprehensive dilated eye exam is painless. It is the simplest effort you can make for your eye and vision health. Even if you don’t have any eye or vision issues, you should still see your eye doctor. That way, your specialist can spot ailments that do not have warning signs or any obvious symptoms. Early detection results in early treatment. During your eye exam, inform your doctor about your family’s health history. Several eye diseases, such as glaucoma and macular degeneration, tend to run in families.
 

Focus on Your Health

If you protect and even maintain your good health, you can even go beyond securing your eye and vision wellness. It can reduce your risk of developing chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes. You can improve your health by:
 

• Saying goodbye to smoking. Studies show that this bad habit can increase your risk of developing cataracts and macular degeneration.

• Exercising regularly. If you stay active, you maintain good blood circulation. This lowers your risk of developing chronic diseases like diabetes, high cholesterol, and cardiovascular diseases.

• Eating healthily. By consuming foods that are rich in antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids, you can improve your eye and vision health.
   

Practice Eye Protection

Keeping your eyes healthy also involves protecting them all the time. Wear UV-protective sunglasses each time you step outside. If you engage in DIY work, sports, or laboratory work, you must wear necessary protective eyewear. Let your eyes rest a while when you work on your computer for hours. To prevent eye infections, practice sterile handling of your contact lenses, and never wear your disposable lenses while you sleep.
 

Avoid Rubbing Your Eyes

When you rub your eyes, you break the thin capillaries in them. This habit also thins and scratches your cornea. It can transfer pathogens into your eyes as well.
 

Keeping your eyes healthy should be a daily practice. At Eye Care Center, we always educate our patients on proper eye care. Please visit our clinics in Fridley, Maplewood, and Maple Grove, Minnesota, for an in-person consultation. You can also call us at 763-308-8440 (Fridley), 651-777-3555 (Maplewood), or 763-420-6981 (Maple Grove). That way, we can help schedule your appointment or answer your questions about how to care for and even enhance your eye and vision health.