2 Habits to Stop Regarding Your Eyes
Hi guys,
It is been a blissful week and i trust that all is well with us all and that the holidays are looking brighter and better as they draw nearer. Today Harmattan started in Ghana, every region of Ghana felt the drastic change in the weather and the dryness that came with it.
This is the typical sign that says, welcome to December, welcome to Christmas and welcome to the Holidays. And so for the few days left for us to journey into the year 2024 i wish for us all to be safe and to enjoy the days ahead.
So today i want to talk about some habits that some of us have been into which is not particularly good for the eye for which we ought to stop or desist from it. It is not much however if you tend to fall within this category my recommendation is to do better as it may pose negative effect on your ocular health.
Unhealthy Habits Involving the Eye
- Rubbing the Eye
The first thing i am going to talk about would be rubbing the eye. This habit tend to be very common and the most popular action that a lot of people are fond of doing which is not healthy for the eye. Some individuals would tell you the act of rubbing the eye itself is very nice and feels good whereas for others it is simply something they cannot resist.
Not because they want to do it but because they eyes feels so itching they cannot help themselves. For others they may have had foreign objects fall into the eye and their immediate reaction is to rub the eye. Here are some of the reasons you should be doing this act, first and foremost the act of rubbing puts a lot of pressure on the eye itself as an organ.
This could directly affect the eye's pressure if one stays consistent, again, should there be a foreign object on the eye, it could easily bruise your cornea which would not only be painful but could become ulcerative or even infected leading to other complications which when not dealt with well could permanently affect your vision.
- Reading in the Dark
Whether you are reading from your phone, or using your phone in the dark, or reading from a hard copy book in the dark using a flashlight, it is not a good thing to be doing, it is not good for your eyesight and could hurt your ocular health and vision as a whole.
What happens is that in the dark, our pupils are dilated to enable us see in monochrome with the smallest amount of light in the environment, when we exposes our dilated pupils or eyes to these bright light from our fons or flashlight against the dark surrounding they tend to hurt our retina.
Our retina is an area within our eyes itself where light energy is converted to electrical impulses for the purposes of brain interpretation and vision, when the energy to these cells are extreme, they could die and their death means some small amount of vision lost from our field of view, and so a habit like this is certainly not a good thing for our eyes.
Conclusion
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Some actions may seem harmless at first until the effect accumulate and then we tend to now get the impact, as i said, if you happen to be fond of these acts or find yourself having a habit like these, then today you have learnt about why you should stop them and i truly hope that this is enough to aid you to change.
It was a pleasure serving you once again, i look forward to seeing all your holiday fun and beautiful times with the family, best of luck to us all, stay safe and have a wonderful day. Cheers!
Further Reading
Touitou Y. Light at night pollution of the internal clock, a public health issue. Bull Acad Natl Med. 2015 Oct;199(7):1081-1098. English, French. PMID: 29879330..
Eriksen E, Jørstad ØK. Transitorisk smarttelefonblindhet [Transient smartphone blindness]. Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen. 2021 Mar 18;141(5). Norwegian. doi: 10.4045/tidsskr.20.0972. PMID: 33754676..
Sahebjada S, Al-Mahrouqi HH, Moshegov S, Panchatcharam SM, Chan E, Daniell M, Baird PN. Eye rubbing in the aetiology of keratoconus: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 2021 Aug;259(8):2057-2067. doi: 10.1007/s00417-021-05081-8. Epub 2021 Jan 23. PMID: 33484296..
Najmi H, Mobarki Y, Mania K, Altowairqi B, Basehi M, Mahfouz MS, Elmahdy M. The correlation between keratoconus and eye rubbing: a review. Int J Ophthalmol. 2019 Nov 18;12(11):1775-1781. doi: 10.18240/ijo.2019.11.17. PMID: 31741868; PMCID: PMC6848869..
Thank you for this couple of tips! I have a few questions:
Does it mean that if we are working at night on the computer, I should have the room light on?
What if the computer screen is quite large?
Does this apply only to "reading" or watching anything? Should I not watch TV or watch Youtube on my phone in a dark room?
To your first question, the answer is yes, it’s advisable to leave the light on as a luminaries environment keeps the pupils smaller limiting the amount of wavelengths and light that gets to the retina, serving asa protective front
Two, I don’t think the size of the screen affects the illumination of the room, keep the room lit and if you can’t do that please stay quite distant from the screen as is done in cinema halls
Three, yes, this applies to using your fon, tv, YouTube etc. If you love doing some of these activities in the dark do well to make use of the warm features on your gadgets and do get a lens from your Optometrist for additional protection
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Thank you
Rubbing the eye feels nice indeed but hope not all eye itching is as a result of infection or eye disease
Oh no please, not all itching is necessarily an infection or disease
I also fall in this category it feels nice to rub my eyes. Though not really my making. What could be the cause of the eye itching?