Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, many are finding that the increase in screen time has had a negative impact on the eyes. Perhaps reading has become more tiring and you find yourself struggling to read television captions or even books. If this is the case for you, then it might be time to invest in a pair of reading glasses. Not only can reading glasses help with the general ease of reading, but they can also help dispel some of the symptoms that come from eye strain including headaches and exhaustion. The below article explores some of the reasons why reading glasses can be such a major benefit for your overall health.

Resting Your Eyes

When it comes to reading glasses, it’s so important to remember that they are not one size fits all. While you might be able to pick up a pair of reading glasses at your local pharmacy or drugstore, the best way to ensure that you’re properly resting your eyes when it comes to reading is to get an eye test. Not only will you be able to determine what type of glasses you might need, but you can also explore other options which can protect your eyes from things like harsh sunlight or even blue light from computer screens.

Going through our daily lives, we are constantly relying on our eyes to help us understand the information around us. From reading signs to advertisements while in transit, to even reading our phones, we’re constantly reading. If you’re in a situation where your work requires you to read frequently, or even if you enjoy reading or using your computer for leisure, it’s so important to make sure that you use reading glasses if you find your eyes straining. Using glasses will help your eyes take a breather and cut out any strain that your day might have added.

Importance of Reading Glasses

One of the most valuable aspects of reading glasses is that they can help ensure your vision stays healthy for as long as possible. If you’re experiencing minor eye strain from reading, wearing glasses can help ensure that long-lasting damage doesn’t occur. During read, the muscles of the eye are relaxing and contracting, and wearing glasses can help the muscles around your eyes relax so that they are not constantly straining.

Wearing reading glasses that match the proper prescription best suited to your own vision challenges can help reduce screen glare, increase contrast making images less blurry, and reduce light sensitivity. In turn, these will also help with symptoms of dryness, headaches, and fatigue that are often associated with eye strain.

Three Tips for Helping Your Vision

Apart from making sure you wear your reading glasses at the appropriate time, there are a number of other ways you can help take care of your eyes, reduce strain, and prolong your healthy vision.

Avoid Dryness in the Eye

When we’re straining our eyes and focusing on our devices, the intense focus can often mean that our blinking is slowed. Unfortunately blinking is what hydrates our eyes and keeps away dryness and redness, so increased eye strain can often cause these symptoms. Increased dryness can also often cause issues with your cornea and make it more susceptible to scratches. If you’re experiencing increased dryness, one of the best ways to help this issue apart from blinking is through using eye drops. These will act as artificial tears and hydrate your eyes to reduce dryness and irritation.

Eye Exercises

Another potential cause of eye strain is when we don’t give our vision enough rest during sessions of heavy use. If you’re reading or working on your devices for hours at a time, consider resting your eyes through using the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes focus on something 20 feet away for 20 seconds so that you’re not continuously straining your vision.

Luckily, there are a number of other exercises you can do that can help reduce your eye strain as well as the corresponding symptoms. You can also try out the focus change- with this exercise, hold your finger a few inches from your eyes and focus on it. Then, slowly move your finger away from your face while maintaining focus, look away for a moment into the distance, re-focus on your finger and bring it slowly back to your face, and then look away and focus on something in the distance. Repeat this process a few times. For more eye exercises, make sure to also look-up near and far focus and figure eight to see which ones might be best suited for your needs.

Keep Your Eyes Clean

For our final eye health tip, make sure you’re doing your best to keep your eyes clean. If you have make-up or facial products on, be sure to thoroughly wash your face in the evening so that residue and debris don’t track their way down to your eyes. Wash your face both in the morning and the evening to help reduce the risk of agitating your eyes which can negatively impact vision in the long run.