Healthy Vision: Keep Your Eyes Healthy

Even if you have good vision now, you are more likely to develop eyesight problems as you age. But there are things you can do to help keep your eyes healthy. You can start taking preventative steps to reduce your risk of some of more common eye conditions, such as cataracts, glaucoma and macular degeneration as you age.

Consider the following tips for better vision:

• Eat healthy and hydrate: A healthy diet with plenty of vegetables, fruit, seeds, and nuts will provide you with many healthy vitamins, including A, C, and E, all important for eye health. Vitamin A can also come from foods such as liver, oily fish, and cheese. Lutein is a type of vitamin called a carotenoid. It is found in leafy green vegetables and is thought to filter harmful blue light that can damage the retina. If you find that you aren’t getting enough vitamins to reach your daily recommended intake, you may want to consider taking a good multivitamin.
• Exercise: Your eyes need oxygen to stay healthy. Regular aerobic exercise can help to get oxygen to your optic nerves and helps to lower pressure in the eye.
• Protect: Your eyes should be protected from the sun as diligently as you protect your skin. Excessive UV exposure can damage your eyes, and lead to problems such as cataracts, macular degeneration, and eye cancers. Use good-quality sunglasses that provide 100% UV spectrum protection.

You should also follow good eye protection when you do work or exercise that might injure your eyes. This includes protection from airborne particles. Wear goggles when appropriate to reduce the possibility of injury.

Most importantly, you should have regular vision exams. These preventive exams not only detect eye disease and vision loss, but also can give you clues about other aspects of your health. It is recommended that you have an exam every 2 years unless your eye doctor recommends otherwise.