Vision Wellness is a lifestyle…
Your daily choices of how you eat, exercise and rest all affect your vision; including light; quality of light, exposure to outdoor light and blue screen light, affects sleep/wake cycles and many other circadian rhythms.
Visual Hygiene: taking breaks throughout the day, using good posture and lighting considerations.
Tips for good Visual Hygiene:
- The 20/20/20 rule: when reading or using the computer take a break every 20 minutes and gaze 20 feet away for 20 seconds, add some blinking and deep relaxed breathing as you look away.
- Lighting: when reading have good general room illumination and good quality task lighting.
- At the end of the day reduce your exposure to blue light, especially if you are viewing screens. Install the flux.com program on your computer, which alters screen light from blues to yellows to match the day/night light cycle. Excessive blue light can interfere with melatonin production which can then affect sleep. Most cell phones have a “night shift” option under Display & Brightness.
- Exposure to bright outdoor light early in the day can help with insomnia, premenstrual syndrome and seasonal affective disorder.(see Mead).
- Outdoor sun exposure appears to be related to reduced development of nearsightedness (see French et al and Dolgin)
- Reading: upright posture to allow full breathing, avoid tummy reading for children.
- Reading at the “Harman distance” which means holding reading material no closer than the distance from you knuckle to your elbow as your knuckles touch your nose.
- Avoid squinting to see: instead if you are feeling eye strain or blue try blinking and eyes open and relaxed.
References
Other Types of Eye Breaks:
Developed by Dr William Bates, an ophthalmologist around at the turn of the century.
He felt that stress played the largest role in eye disease and in refractive error (nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism and presbyopia or “old eyes”). While his theories were controversial, he did get results, and his exercises have sustained the test of time.
Palming
Palming involves first briskly rubbing the hands together then placing the cupped hands over the closed eyes, without applying any pressure. Breathe and do a guided relaxation throughout your head, neck and body, releasing tension with your breathe.
Here is a video demonstrating palming:
Swinging
Swinging involves a gentle swinging letting your whole body twist to one side and back, letting arms swing and weight shift lifting one heel. Let the eyes gentle and softly gaze over the environment as you swing back and forth.
Here is a video demonstration of swinging:
Feldenkrais Eye Exercises
Moishe Feldenkrais developed an entire system of body work for which is is quite well known. The focus of his approach is on subtle awareness of movement, leading to awareness of areas of tension and then release. He left no muscle uninvestigated, including the eye movements.
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Feldenkrais Eyes
and awareness…
Nutrition for healthy vision
When it comes to eating healthy for your vision it is generally recommend to eat like the rainbow. The reason for eating fruits and vegetables including many different colors is because the photoreceptors within our retinas use photopigments which are derived from lutein, and zeaxanthin. Other important nutrients for vision include Vitamin C and E, zinc and omega-3 fatty acids.
Nutrition is a complex and vital area of eye health, especially if you are struggling with an eye disease. An excellent resource is The Ocular Nutrition Society which is devoted to staying abreast with current research. See https://www.ocularnutritionsociety.org/