Table of contents:
- What causes minus eyes?
- How to prevent minus eye?
- 1. Eat nutritious foods
- 2. Checking the eye to the doctor regularly
- 3. Not looking or reading too closely
- 4. Avoid reading in dark places
- 5. Rest your eyes when you start to feel tired
- How to prevent eyes that are already minus from getting worse
- 1. Keep your glasses on
- 2. Use of atropine drops
Minus eye aka myopia is a vision disorder that is very common. This condition makes it difficult for the eye to see distant objects. Then, can minus eye conditions be prevented? To find out how to prevent minus eye, continue to look at the review below.
What causes minus eyes?
Myopia or minus eye is one of the refractive errors of the eye. This condition occurs when the structure of the eyeball becomes longer, or the cornea (the front of the eye) becomes sunken. As a result, the light that enters the eye cannot focus properly, and objects that are far away will appear blurry.
Experts do not yet know clearly what the main cause of eye minus. However, it is estimated that there are several factors and daily habits that affect the appearance of minus eyes, such as:
- genetic or hereditary factors
- wrong reading habits
- environmental conditions, such as less outdoor activity
How to prevent minus eye?
Usually, minus eye conditions begin in childhood and stop when entering adolescence. However, not all minus eye cases end that way. Not infrequently, visual disturbances such as minus eyes will last into adulthood.
Then, is minus eye a preventable condition? In fact, there are no definite ways to prevent eye minus. However, you can reduce your risk of getting minus eye by avoiding the risk factors.
Here are some tips that you can try to prevent eye minus:
1. Eat nutritious foods
It is undeniable that what you eat will affect your health, including eye health. Therefore, how to prevent minus eye conditions you can start from adjusting a diet that is rich in nutrients.
According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, choosing a diet filled with vegetables, fruits, and whole grains is believed to reduce the risk of developing vision problems. Instead, choose vegetables and fruits that contain high vitamins and antioxidants, such as vitamins A, C, and E. Some examples of foods rich in these vitamins are:
- orange vegetables and fruits, such as carrots, sweet potatoes, oranges, apricots
- strawberry
- tomato
- paprika
- avocado
- almond nut
- sunflower seed
In addition, also choose dark green vegetables because of their high antioxidant content. In green vegetables, lutein and zeaxanthin which produce a green color in vegetables, and these substances are antioxidants that can protect our vision. Vegetables that you can eat include:
- broccoli
- spinach
- lettuce
- green beans
- Kale
2. Checking the eye to the doctor regularly
In addition to preventing by changing your diet, you can also avoid the risk of minus eyes by doing regular eye examinations. This is especially important for children whose parents have minus eyes, or adults who spend a lot of time in front of screens. gadget .
Through an eye exam, you can find out if you have certain vision problems, or have risk factors that make you more prone to minus eyes. That way, you can take precautionary steps early on.
3. Not looking or reading too closely
Visual disturbances such as minus eyes are also triggered by activities that require the eye to read or see objects too closely. Usually, this tends to be done when you are reading, writing, or using gadget such as cell phones and laptops.
Therefore, the way you can do to prevent minus eye is to try not to look or read too closely. Apart from that, you can also start limiting the time you spend in front of the screen gadget to reduce the risk of vision problems.
Make sure you are reading with a minimum sight distance of 30 cm from your eyes. For computer screens, keep at least 50 cm away from your eyes. Meanwhile, you should watch television with a minimum viewing distance of 2 meters.
4. Avoid reading in dark places
The habit of reading or writing with insufficient lighting also has an impact on the health of your eyes. Room conditions that are too dark cause your eyes to work harder to focus on objects in front of them.
Therefore, make sure you use good lighting while reading as a way to prevent minus eye exposure.
5. Rest your eyes when you start to feel tired
Another way that is no less important to prevent minus eyes is not to force your eyes. If you are starting to feel tired when looking at the screen gadget or read for too long, do not delay the time to rest.
You can use the "20-20-20" rule to rest your eyes. The trick, take your eyes off gadget every 20 minutes. Look at the object or objects that are at least 20 feet (6 meters) away for 20 seconds.
For children, you can invite them to do activities outside the house more often than playing with them for too long gadget or watching television. Children are advised to spend 2 hours outdoors per day to prevent eye damage.
How to prevent eyes that are already minus from getting worse
Sometimes, we can't completely prevent vision problems even though you've tried the tips above. If you have been exposed to minus eyes, the only way you can do is to maintain eye health to prevent minus from getting worse. The reason is, it does not rule out the minus you can increase at another time.
One of the causes of increased eye minus is the use of glasses that are not quite right. Incorrect eyeglass prescriptions are a fairly common mistake during eye examinations. When the lens count is only slightly off by a degree or two, you will end up with glasses that have blurry lenses and cause blurred vision.
On the other hand, difficulty to focus vision on pictures or writing is an unavoidable sign of aging. This condition is called presbyopia and can affect us all, so most of us end up wearing glasses.
Many eye conditions, including presbyopia, get worse on their own over time - with or without glasses. Sooner or later, like it or not, you will experience it and there is not much you can do about this natural aging process.
The minus eye growth cannot be completely prevented. However, you can do the following ways to slow down the process of increasing minus on the eye:
1. Keep your glasses on
Many think that wearing glasses constantly can actually add to the minus of your eyes. This is of course wrong because glasses actually help you see more clearly.
So, deteriorating vision after you take off your glasses is really just you back in your original vision mode, looking even clearer because you are so used to sharper vision thanks to the help of your eyeglass lenses.
It's a different story if you wear glasses with the wrong prescription. Glasses with unsuitable lenses will have a negative impact on your vision in the long run.
2. Use of atropine drops
Another way that can be done to prevent eye minus from getting worse is to use atropine type eye drops. Giving atropine in a certain daily dose can reduce the risk of eye development minus by as much as 50%.
However, this drug still has quite strong side effects, so its use in the long term is still a matter of debate. In addition, you are certainly not recommended to use this drug without a prescription and a doctor's rule.