Having good vision is essential to our daily life. From simply being able to see things around us clearly, to reading a book, or even watching a movie, having good eyesight is something that many people take for granted and miss once their eyesight is less than perfect.
What you may not know is that improving your vision can be achieved naturally. That’s right – there are several modalities and techniques that you can use to help improve your eyesight without having to resort to surgery or medications.
How Do We See?
The first step in improving your vision is understanding how our eyes work. The eye is a complex organ composed of multiple components – the cornea, lens, and retina to name a few. Each of these parts play an essential role in allowing us to perceive the world around us. The cornea helps refract light onto the lens which focuses it onto the retina, where millions of photoreceptors interpret light into electrical signals, which are then sent to the brain for interpretation.
According to David Williams, the William G. Allyn Professor of Medical Optics at the University of Rochester in upstate New York, “more than 50 percent of the cortex, the surface of the brain, is devoted to processing visual information.” This puts into perspective just how crucial vision is to our lives. Naturally, anything we can do to improve it and make it work for us without serious medical intervention is a good idea.
How Can We See Better?
Let’s look at a few ways in which we can try to help our vision along naturally. One of the most popular ways to do this is by improving their diet. Eating more plant-based foods with omega-3 fatty acids and lutein can help keep your eyes healthy by providing them with the vitamins and minerals that are essential to the proper functioning of your visual system. Even doing something as basic as reducing sugar intake can positively impact your overall eye health.
Another way to improve your vision naturally is by tweaking lifestyle habits, i.e. wearing sunglasses outdoors, limiting screen time (especially late at night), and taking breaks when working with screens, to keep from straining too much when focusing on objects for long periods of time – something many people do unconsciously when staring at screens for hours each day. It’s also important to make sure you are spending enough time daily looking at far-off objects, to keep your distance vision sharp. If you wear eyeglasses, something as simple as cleaning them regularly can help you see better. Better sleep hygiene has also been shown to have a profoundly positive effect on improving overall eye health and bettering visual acuity.
Finally, exercising on a regular basis has also been shown to improve visual acuity over time. According to Andrew D. Huberman, Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at the Stanford School of Medicine, our retinal cells are the most metabolically active in the body, and so any whole-body exercise that improves your cardiovascular endurance and delivers oxygen and nutrients to your brain and eyes will also help your vision.
Improving your vision naturally doesn’t happen overnight; it requires dedication and discipline over an extended period of time before you start seeing results – no pun intended. Still, it’s something worth exploring if surgery or prescription medications aren’t something you’re comfortable with trying first due to their potential risks or side effects.
Give it time and your best shot. With a little patience and perseverance, you may find yourself seeing things more clearly than ever before.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings