A confluence of factors including genetics, age and your personal environment can affect you vision. While people may correct their vision by just getting a pair of glasses or contact lenses, they tend to ignore other steps that are essential to take care of their eyesight. As the world gets surrounded by screens, it is easy to develop bad habits that may contribute to poor vision. According to a WHO report, at least 2.2 billion people across the world have a near or distance vision impairment. In at least 1 billion – or almost half – of these cases, vision impairment could have been prevented or has yet to be addressed. In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Dr Tushar Grover, Medical Director at New Delhi's Vision Eye Centre, revealed 5 everyday habits that one should break to maintain a healthy vision for the rest of your life:
1. Too much smartphone use -
Smartphones can strain your eyesight and cause vision problems if you are using them for hours daily, especially if you try to read small text on your mobile phone screens too often. Just like smartphones, prolonged exposure to laptop screens can also harm your eyes as the light emitted from these screens can cause dry eye, headache and eye strain.
2. Smoking -
While there are many reasons you shouldn’t smoke, including increased risk of throat and lung cancer, you need to ‘kick the butt’ as it can cause vision problems also. Smoking cigarettes and other forms of tobacco has been linked to serious conditions like macular degeneration and cataracts that can even lead to blindness!
3. Not wearing sunglasses -
You may be exposing your eyes to harmful UV rays if you do not wear sunglasses regularly while stepping outside. These harmful rays can cause vision problems, and also invite other eyesight issues as well such as macular degeneration and eye cancer!
4. Frequent rubbing of eyes -
You need to avoid temptation of rubbing your eyes, no matter how much you want to do that. The reason is that you can damage the outer surface of your eyes causing stinging and burning sensation, in addition to spreading dirt and bacteria in your eyes.
5. Using eye drops without doctor’s consultation -
People have a habit of using eye drops without consulting their doctors. Overusing eye drops without proper consultation can damage your eyes. If your eyes appear red to you, then do not panic, and put drops as redness of eyes is very common after a sleepless night or long working hours.
