Wearing contact lenses makes everyday activities that much easier to enjoy, especially for those who lead active lifestyles. However, while you’ll notice straight away the benefits of wearing contact lenses during your day to day activities, it’s still very important to maintain your eye health while doing them.
Whether it’s your favourite pastime, or whether you just pick up the odd book when you’re lounging by the pool on holiday, reading is a hobby that pretty much everyone enjoys. You should know, however, that reading can actually have an adverse effect on your eyes if you’re prone to a few bad habits that we’ve laid out for you below. So, do your eyes a favour and keep them in top shape next time you hit the books with our helpful tips.
Take regular breaks
Concentrating hard on words on the page can cause a strain to your eyes if done for an lengthy and uninterrupted period of time. This effect is particularly harmful for contact lens wearers and those with sensitive eyes, you could find it difficult to wear contact lenses while your eyes are strained.
At Feel Good Contacts, we recommend that you simply take a few short breaks every now and again.
What better place to pause than at the end of a chapter? Why not take a quick walk around the room, or go and make a cup of tea? The book will still be there in a few minutes’ time, even if it is a real “page-turner”!
Wear the right lenses
Power is a very important factor when selecting your contact lenses, as lenses that are too weak will likely result in blurred vision. Ultimately, your contact lenses are a necessary appliance when it comes to reading, so the more accurately-matched the lens power is to the requirements of your eyes, the better for you.
You can find out your required contact lens power by visiting your local optician, while for those that know theirs, at Feel Good Contacts we stock contact lenses in a very wide variety of different powers.
Hold your book at eye level
Whether it’s turning page after page of your latest novel, scrolling through your iPad or flicking through this week’s Heat magazine, you should hold your reading device at eye level.
If reading from an angle, your contact lenses can slide out of place and result in pain and irritation for your eyes, while adjusting your eyes to an uncomfortable angle can also be another cause of eye strain.
Adjust the lighting
Reading in low-light conditions is one of the fastest ways to tire your eyes out and bring on fatigue. So, it should come as no surprise that doing this for extended periods of time can cause a strain on your eyes.
This is easily avoidable, however, by switching on a light source before you get down to reading. At the same time, however, when reading at night or in a lowly-lit room, you’ll need to make sure that the light source you’re using to read isn’t too brightly shone onto the pages of the book, as this can again cause pain and discomfort for readers.
Blink plenty!
The best of books have us reading so intensely that we don’t even realise we’re doing it, however for contact lens wearers, this can create a horror story of itself. By focusing for long periods of time on the words on the page, you’ll most likely forget to blink, which results in your eyes not getting the moisture they need to stay fresh and healthy.
As a result, they begin to dry out, as will your contact lenses. Lenses can be rewetted by applying some moisturising eye drops, however this can be a tiring process to go through every time you pick up a book.
We know that some stories almost jump off the paper and grab your attention, but you’ll need to let them go at some point or another. Simply put your book down and look around the room, allowing yourself to blink and refresh your eyes, every now and again.
