Making New Year’s resolutions is an excellent way to set a goal and find a way to stick to it. Many people resolve to be healthier. Don’t forget your eyes in your health resolutions! In order to be able to see clearly, you need healthy eyes and to ensure that you’re taking proper care of any visual aids you use.

Here are some excellent New Year’s resolutions for your eye health to strive to in the upcoming year.

#1. Schedule An Eye Exam

If you use contact lenses or glasses, you may already have an eye exam in the books in order to ensure that your prescription is up to date. However, even if you have 20-20 vision, you should ensure that you schedule an eye exam.

This is because eye exams aren’t just to test your vision, but also to check your eye health. Many eye diseases can progress to serious stages before you even notice. Getting your eyes checked each year helps you rest easier that if you do develop an eye disease, it will be caught sooner rather than later, when it is easier to treat.

During your eye exam, you can also mention any lifestyle concerns you may have. For instance, if you work in a lab, you may ask about prescription safety glasses. If you’ve been experiencing any vision changes or problems, your eye doctor will be able to see what’s going on and give you a prescription or update your current one if needed.

#2. Cut Down On Screen Time

Screens are an unavoidable part of modern life. Regardless of whether you love technology and the digital world or whether you only have a phone and computer because you have to, we all spend a lot of time on screens.

To protect your eye health, make it a resolution to spend less time on your screens, or to more stringently follow the 20-20-20 rule. This is because when you’re looking at a screen, you can forget to blink. This can dry your eyes out. You can also experience eye strain.

If spending hours on screens is unavoidable, ensure you look away from your screen every 20 minutes at somewhere 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Blue light-blocking glasses could also help to protect your eye health. 

#3. Strive Towards A Healthier Lifestyle

Resolving to lose weight, exercise more, and eat healthier are some of the most common New Year’s resolutions. These are good for your overall health and wellness, as well as for your eye health. 

This is because when you stay active and nourish your body with more whole foods, you’re helping to prevent health problems that can affect your eyes. For instance, being overweight increases your risk of diabetes, which ergo increases your risk of glaucoma.

Incorporate leafy greens and eye-healthy foods into your diet. Ensure that you’re getting enough vitamins to help your eyes. If you’re not sure where to start, our previous blog, Vitamins That Help Your Eyes, is a great jumping-off point. 

#4. Take Proper Care Of Your Contacts And Glasses

It’s easy to get lazy when it comes to taking care of your contacts and glasses. It’s also easy to forget about the guidelines your eye doctor gives you. You may wear your contacts for too long or even sleep in them. You may skip over hygienic steps, like washing your hands before putting your contacts in or taking them out. You may try to clean your glasses with just the edge of your shirt. 

In order to keep your eyes healthy and to protect your corrective lenses, it’s important to ensure that you’re taking proper care of them. If you have any questions about how to take care of your contact lenses or glasses, your optician can answer them for you. 

By taking the appropriate measures to be hygienic with your corrective lenses and to ensure that they’re being taken care of, you can both help them last as long as possible and protect your eyes from what can happen if you don’t. 

#5. Educate Yourself On Eye Health

One of the best things you can do to protect your eyes and keep them healthy is to educate yourself on eye health! Our previous blog, Steps To Protect Your Vision, is a good overview. For more in depth and personalized information and advice, consult with your eye doctor. 

Wolcott Optical is here to help you see the world clearly with contact lenses and glasses. If you have any questions about contacts or glasses, please don’t hesitate to contact us today! We’re here to help. 

Tired eyes can cause your eyes to feel dry and itchy. There are many different things that can cause eye fatigue, from spending too much time using screens to driving for long distances. Tired eyes is a very common condition that can impact your entire day until you find relief. 

If you suffer from eye fatigue (also known as asthenopia or eyestrain), there are several things that you can do in order to improve your condition. If this is a common issue for you, there are also things that you can do in order to decrease the likelihood of this problem. If fatigue persists in spite of self-care measures, you will want to consult with your eye doctor in order to determine the cause and appropriate treatment methods.

Here’s what you need to know about what can cause eye fatigue and the things that you can do to help it.

Common Causes Of Eyestrain

In order to better understand what you can do to help eye fatigue, it’s helpful to know what the common causes of this issue are. Eyestrain can be caused by quite a few different circumstances. These range from easily adjustable to more serious conditions that need medical attention.

Some of the most common causes of eye fatigue include:

• Excessive use of screens. This isn’t something that can be prevented for many people, given how many jobs involve long hours using screens. However, blue light exposure can lead to tired eyes, headaches, and more.
• Intense eye focus. This applies to anything that you need to focus intently on, from reading to crafting to driving and more. If you don’t give your eyes a break, you may struggle with asthenopia.
• Poor lighting. If you’re having to squint and lean in close in order to see what you’re doing, this can strain your eyes. Light that is too bright can also cause you to squint and struggle to see.
• Lack of sleep. As you may expect with fatigue in the name, if you don’t get enough sleep, this can cause eyestrain, as your eyes aren’t getting the rest that they need.
• Exposure to dry moving air. This is more common during the colder months, when people have their central heating running more often.
• Underlying eye conditions. There are multiple underlying issues that can lead to asthenopia, such as uncorrected vision and dry eye. 

What You Can Do To Help Eye Fatigue

If you suffer from asthenopia, there are multiple things that you can do in order to improve your condition and to prevent it from occurring again in the future. 

Some of the ways you can both help and prevent your eyes from getting tired are as follows.

#1. Be Smarter With Your Screen Time

In an ideal world, you wouldn’t spend an excessive amount of time on your screens. However, for many people, they don’t have a choice in the matter, because they need to for school or for work. 

Fortunately, there are still things that you can do. You can adjust the screen settings so that it is easier to see. You can take breaks every 20 minutes by looking somewhere 20 feet away for 20 seconds. You can ensure that you sit an arm’s length away from your screen and that your gaze is slightly downward.

If possible, try to reduce your screen time when you can. For instance, if you like to read, you may consider reading a physical book rather than an e-book.

#2. Take Breaks From Focusing

Whether you’re working, crafting, or driving, you should take regular breaks from anything that requires intense focus. Utilizing the above-mentioned 20-20-20 rule can help (but not if you’re driving!) If you’re driving, ensure that you pull over to take regular breaks so that your eyes have a chance to rest.

#3. Adjust Your Lighting

As mentioned above in regards to your screens, you’ll also want to adjust the lighting around you in order to ensure that you don’t have to strain your eyes in order to see properly. You don’t want it to be too bright or too dim, but, as Goldilocks says, just right. You can fiddle with your lighting to find that sweet spot that works best for you.

#4. Get Enough Sleep

Easier said than done if you already have eyestrain from lack of rest, isn’t it? Still, it’s crucial that you get your full 8 hours in, not just for the sake of your eyes, but for the sake of your overall mental, emotional, and physical health. 

#5. Avoid Air Blowing Right At You

You can do this inside by avoiding sitting by vents and fans, if possible. Glasses can provide a bit of protection here. If you venture outside, sunglasses can also protect your eyes from wind that would otherwise dry them out or cause them to water.

#6. See An Eye Doctor

If self-care measures don’t help your eyestrain, you should schedule an appointment with your eye doctor in order to determine what’s going on.

Wolcott Optical can help you prevent eyestrain with our quality eyewear services. From blue-light-blocking glasses to sunglasses and more, we have an extensive selection of eyewear to suit your needs. Contact us to learn more about how we can help you. 

If you typically wear glasses rather than contact lenses or vice versa, you may assume that getting a pair of the other would be as easy as calling your eye doctor and ordering them. This isn’t so, though. Unless you’ve tried to do this or you use both glasses and contact lenses, you may not know that glasses and contact lens prescriptions are not the same. 

You need a separate prescription for glasses and for contact lenses due to some seemingly minute but significant differences between the two. If you wear contact lenses, your eye doctor may already provide you with a glasses prescription. However, this is not always the case.

Here is what you need to know about the differences between glasses and contact lens prescriptions, and what to do if you want to try the other type of lenses out.

Why Are Glasses And Contact Lens Prescriptions Different?

If you’re surprised to learn that glasses and contact lens prescriptions are different, you’re not alone. Many people assume that a prescription is a prescription, and that if you already have glasses, you should be able to get contacts with ease.

Glasses and contact lens prescriptions are different due to how you wear them. Glasses sit on the bridge of your nose, about 12 millimeters away from your eyes. Contact lenses are worn directly on your cornea. Because of the difference in how far away they are from your eyes and how you wear them, they require separate prescriptions.   

How Are Glasses And Contact Lens Prescriptions Different?

Glasses and contact lens prescriptions are different in more ways than you may expect! Here are some of the chief ways in which they differ. 

For Contacts

Because you wear contact lenses on your eyes, a contact lens prescription needs to be fitted to the size and shape of your eye. They don’t just need to have the lens strength, they also need to be fitted to your individual eyes so that they are comfortable. Different people have differently shaped and sized eyes, which impacts the contacts they wear. 

Different people also have different demands of their contacts: for instance, one person might need more breathability in their lenses because they wear them for long periods of time or accidentally fall asleep in them from time to time. This is why when you get contact lenses, your eye doctor may have you try out different brands and then include the brand that works best for you on your prescription. 

For Glasses

Since you wear glasses at a slight distance from your eyes, glasses prescriptions need your pupillary distance (the distance between your pupils), so you don’t have to worry about crossing your eyes or anything like that. Glasses prescriptions are often weaker than contact lens prescriptions due to the fact that the space between their lenses and your eyes leads to a change in prescription strength. 

While your contact lens prescription includes how they should fit, when you purchase glasses, the people you purchase them from will have you try different frames on and ask how they feel. They may make adjustments to the frames in order to help them fit you better. You may opt for one pair of frames over another, due to style, fit, and price.

What Do You Do If You Want To Get Another Prescription?

If you’re an avid glasses or contacts wearer and you want to give the other type of lens a go, you’ll likely need to make an appointment with your eye doctor. Sometimes, when you have your yearly eye exam, your eye doctor will fit you for both contacts and glasses and provide you with both prescriptions. However, state laws vary, and you may need to have different appointments to be fitted. 

If you want to try out contacts, you will need a contact lens fitting. This is so that the eye doctor can ensure they are fitted to your eyes and will be comfortable for you. 

• About colored contacts. It’s important to note that even if you do not need corrective lenses, if you want to try out colored contacts, you will still need a contact lens prescription. A prescription without lens strength like this is a plano prescription. If you buy colored contacts from a store that does not require a prescription, you could suffer many adverse effects. Learn more about this in our previous blog: Colored Contacts And Your Eyes: Keep Your Eyes Safe This Halloween. 

If you want to try out glasses, you will need to be fitted for these too, with your pupillary difference. The parameters on glasses prescriptions can differ from contact prescriptions. If you want to try plano glasses, or glasses without corrective lenses, you can just pick these up in a store, as they do not carry the risks that non-prescription colored contacts do.

Wolcott Optical is here to help you with your glasses and contact lens needs. Contact us today to learn more about the services we can provide you with.