It’s never too soon to consider how to protect your eyes as you get older

While there is no stopping the clocks on ageing, there are things that we can do to preserve our youth, and that includes our vision, too. There are various steps we can take to prevent or slow down the vision-related issues that may crop up as we age, so let’s look at a few ways you can protect your eyes as you get older.

How do our eyes change as we age?

From around the age of 40, many adults find it tricky to focus on close-up objects, leading them to adopt glasses or start wearing contact lenses. This is because the lens inside the eye becomes less flexible with age.

As well as this, our pupils get smaller as we age, making it difficult to see in low light – using bright lights can make reading more comfortable.

Changes in the eye’s natural lens can also cause light to scatter and create more glare. Meanwhile, the gradual yellowing of the lens can dull the vibrancy of colours and make it harder for us to perceive different colours.

Another effect of ageing is that our body produces fewer tears as we get older, and experts at Lenstore say that this can lead to dry eye syndrome. This can be remedied with artificial tear drops and by applying a warm compress to your eye.

This article focuses on how to protect your eyes as you get older, but it is also important to understand that there are many different types and makes of contact lenses available. Nowadays, as with most products, you can purchase a broad range of contact lenses online.

What about more serious eye issues?

Aside from these more general changes, as we get older we may also experience more serious age-related eye diseases:

• Cataracts: cloudy patches on the eye’s lens. They are very common in people over 60 and can almost always be removed with surgery.
• Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that damage the optic nerve. It tends to develop slowly over the years and affects the edges of your vision first.
• Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) affects your central vision and your ability to focus on detail. It’s caused by the gradual breakdown of the cells at the back of your eye.

How can we protect our eyes as we get older?

Vision problems like the above can lead to a higher risk of falls, driving accidents, and incorrect use of medications. They can also make day-to-day life harder. While some vision changes are genetic, others can be made worse by external factors, which we can control.

Quit smoking

If you are a smoker, no doubt you have been told about the health risks of smoking such as an increased likelihood of cancer and dementia. But did you also know that stopping smoking can majorly improve our eye health as we age?

Smokers are twice as likely to lose their sight from eye diseases compared to non-smokers.

Book regular eye tests

Even if you’re blessed with 20/20 vision, you should visit your optician once every two years. More than measuring your sight, an eye test can detect early signs of eye conditions and other health problems that may occur as you get older. For example, many types of glaucoma are only detected during a routine eye test.

Take a screen break

Screens emit a lot of blue light, which can cause our eyes to become dry and irritated. You may want to follow the 20/20/20 rule – every 20 minutes, take a 20-second break, to focus on something 20 feet away.

Clearly, if screen time for either work or leisure is a major part of your life, it is particularly important to take care of your eyes. We all know how easy it is to sit down to work and find you haven’t moved for an hour or two – but it really is a habit you need to try and break!

Keep active

Keeping active can help reduce the risk of developing eye conditions. It also helps avoid health problems, like high blood pressure and diabetes, that can also damage our eyes. Any light exercise you enjoy can go a long way, particularly if that is out in the fresh air. Regular brisk walks in the countryside are often one of the most pleasant and effective ways of keeping fit and healthy.

Ensure a balanced diet

Incorporating a rainbow of fresh fruit and veg into our diets can help to protect our eyes from age-related conditions. Berries, nuts, dark leafy greens, dark chocolate (not the sugary stuff) and oily fish, all have great benefits.

Most of us like a treat now and again and occasional take-aways and/or ready meals will not do us any harm, providing these are treats and not the mainstay of our diet.

Protect your eyes from sunlight

Too much sun exposure can increase the risk of eye problems like cataracts and temporary eye burns. Sun damage can occur year-round – even on a cloudy autumn day. Our eyes do need fresh air and sunshine but it is important to get the right balance and certainly to avoid squinting into bright sunshine, so always have good sunglasses to hand even on those cold but sunny days of winter!

However, decreased sun exposure has been associated with a drop in serotonin levels, which can lead to major depression.

Conclusion

Some of the tips we have listed above to protect your eyes as you get older are also very relevant to general health and wellbeing, but some are quite eye-specific. However, we recommend you embrace all these tips if you want to maintain healthy vision for as long as possible.