How can sleep deprivation affect our vision?
Isn’t it easy to lose out on sleep nowadays? We’ve all made up our mind at some point to achieve a healthy sleep habit, but did we really?
Losing out on sleep was never a good idea. However strong the temptation to watch the new season of your favourite Netflix series might be, you’ve got to get under those blankets.
To inform you how severe sleep deprivation has heightened in the UK, the following data might be helpful -
- Two third (67%) of UK adults undergo disrupted sleep while only a quarter (23%) get 5+ hours of sleep a night.
- Half (48%) of UK adults confess to not getting enough sleep. Women (54%) are mostly affected than men (41%).
- More than half of the UK population take sleeping tablets (13%) while the rest (13%) reside on drinking alcohol to sleep.
- A quarter (26%) of UK adults aim to improve their sleep habit while half (51%) don’t initiate any measures to help them sleep.
What’s the risk of not getting enough sleep?
With the rise in demands of blue light glasses, comprehending people’s sleep habit and quality is crystal clear. We all are aware of sleep deprivation complications — losing focus, easily irritated, demotivated and unproductivity.
In terms of appearance, our eyes develop puffy lids, bloodshot sclera, dark circles, and appear exhausted at all times. Sleep deprivation impacts our physical, and mental wellbeing, including our overall eye health.
Lack of sleep isn’t just limited to exhaustion, weary appearance, or dark circles. It also leads to a severe level of eye discomfort and vision changes. Here are symptoms of sleep deprivation on our eyes -
- Light sensitivity
- Blurred vision
- Eyestrain
- Headache
- Difficulty in focusing eyes
- Dry eye
- Eye infections
- Double vision
- Burning sensation
- Eye spasm
- Itchiness or watery eyes
Eye spasms aren’t directly damaging to our vision but it can be uncomfortable to undergo such an eye condition. It’s known as a myokymia, eye spasm develops due to lack of eye rest and subsequent straining of the eye. When the tension around the eye area increases, you tend to experience unusual twitching and other eye conditions.
While blurry vision and light sensitivity occur as a side effect of dry-eyes, that happens when our eyes aren’t lubricated. If you focus on a screen for an extended period then you are less likely to blink resulting in frequent dry-eyes.
It’s when you are sleeping, the fluids circulate evenly and hydrate your eyes.
The lacrimal glands produce enough tears to guard your eyes against all sorts of infection and keep it clean for the next day.
Needless to say, the longer you sleep, the healthier and hydrated your eyes will turn out.
Apart from these troubles, sleep deprivation also increases the risk of potential eye diseases. Glaucoma is one such condition that can develop if your eyes aren’t well-rested. It occurs due to extreme pressure building inside the eyes, harming the optic nerve and affecting the peripheral vision.
If our eyes aren’t treated priorly, the risk of complete sight loss is quite possible to occur.
Resting your eyes overnight, rehydrating and rejuvenating them every day is essentially required to keep them off from straining which can trigger a series of eye problems and diseases. Apart from just permanent eye diseases, sleep deprivation can also cause type 2 diabetes, which increases the risk of diabetic retinopathy.
How to maintain a healthy sleep routine?
Sleep is also an art that requires special skills to master.
Lucky for you, the skills are pretty easy to gain. After all the talk of the damage done to our eyes due to lack of sleep, we must know how to sleep better to prevent such incidents from occurring.
It involves not only the use of gaming glasses A.K.A blue light glasses but also to limit screen time, and improve the overall sleep quality.
1. Sleep Environment
Where and how do you sleep? Your sleep environment matters when it comes to the sleep quality you get. Factors like lighting, noise levels, temperature, and bed help you to sleep better. A dim-lit bedroom, with total silence and comfortable bed with pillows, helps you Zzzz faster than anything.
In terms of temperature, most people prefer to sleep in an 18–20 degrees Celsius room. It ensures you don’t sleep shivering or wake up sweating in the middle of the night.
2. Blue light glasses
One of the most talked-about solutions for sleep deprivation in this digital age is blue light glasses. Since we all manage to find time to scroll Instagram or binge-watch one last episode on Netflix, our sleep cycle faces an unprecedented change.
Digital screens of smartphones, laptops and emit artificial blue light, that suppress the release of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin. Resulting in the disruption of natural sleep/wake cycle. To cancel out blue light absorption in the eye, blue light filters on non-prescription and prescription glasses help to restore sleep. Learn more about the benefits of blue light glasses here.
3. Limit Screen time
Apart from taking precautions against screen impact on our eyes, it’s effective to work on removing the root cause of the problem. In this digital age, smartphones travel with you more than anything else in life. From waking up to getting to bed, we are surrounded by screens everywhere. Avoid screen use for an hour or so before your bedtime and dimming the lights around you for sound sleep.
4. Exercise
This might not be your expected tip, but believe us exercise can help you sleep way better and quicker than anything else. Just how people love to go for a morning run or a gym session as it wakes them up and prepares them for the day. An evening exercise can resolve any sleep troubles you’ve been experiencing and lead you to feel sleepiness at a good time. Try to limit your workouts to only three hours before hitting the bed for complete rest.
Above all, try to stick with an effective sleep routine. Our busy lives can disrupt a lot of things, but we can turn things around by constructing a sound habit. We can excuse the weekends but other than that, follow the routine strictly.
