How to Improve Eyesight Naturally: 10 Ways to Improve Vision

Squinting to see distant objects? Or struggling to read the small letters in a magazine? While you can’t correct vision without glasses or surgery, there are many ways to support and even improve eyesight naturally.

So, how to improve eyesight naturally at home?

You can start by eating a nutrient-rich diet for eye health, exercising your eye muscles, and taking regular breaks from digital devices. You can also use protective eyewear, go for regular eye exams, maintain eye hygiene, and take a plant-based eye health supplement.

Read on for a closer look at how to improve eyesight naturally.

1. Get Enough Key Nutrients

Your everyday diet plays a major role in your eye health. It provides nutrients to your eyes, keeps the cornea and retina healthy, and even produces protein-rich tears.

You want to include key nutrients like Vitamin A, C, and E, zinc, and omega-3 fatty acids in your meals. These nutrients will protect your eye cells, reduce inflammation, and also help prevent dry eyes and night blindness.

Add a rich dose of lutein and zeaxanthin to your diet too. These powerful antioxidants help preserve eye health.

They act as a natural blue light and UV filter, enhance vision, prevent diabetic retinopathy, and slow the progression of age-related macular degeneration.

Tip: Not sure which foods are good for your eye health? Just look for leafy greens, colorful fruits and vegetables, oily fish, and nuts and seeds. Great eye health foods include lettuce, kale, spinach, carrots, oranges, bell peppers, raspberries, goji berries, blueberries, almonds, peanut butter, and flaxseeds.

2. Exercise Your Eyes

Eye exercises can keep your eye muscles in good shape. You can practice these in the morning, before bedtime, or whenever your eyes feel tired.

Eye exercises may not improve vision, but they can slow or prevent vision loss, according to a study.

There are many different eye exercises you can practice at home. These take only a few minutes and can strengthen your eye muscles. This will help you regain focus and improve distance vision.

Start with any of the following eye exercises.

• Palming: Begin by rubbing your palms together. Once they’ve warmed up, gently place them over your eyes for five seconds. Repeat the process 3 to 4 times. This will warm up and comfort your eyes, reducing dryness and eye irritation.
• Rolling: You can also roll your eyes to exercise your eye muscles. Look up, down, and side to side. Also, circle your eyes, first clockwise and then anti-clockwise.
• Pen push-ups: To sharpen your focus, hold a pen at arm’s length and focus your eyes on its tip. Slowly bring the pen closer to your eyes until it’s only a few inches from your nose. Move it away from the eyes again slowly. Repeat this exercise 10 times.

3. Use Protective Eyewear and Sunglasses

According to the American Optometric Association, eye injuries are to blame for the most common vision problems. Whether you’re playing rugby at school, working in your garage, or performing a science experiment, make sure to wear protective eyewear.

This will keep stinging chemicals, sharp objects like wood shavings or metal shards, or even an inadvertent elbow during a game from injuring your eyes. And don’t forget to wear goggles while swimming to protect your eyes from chlorinated water.

You also need to block out the harmful UV rays every time you step outdoors. Never go out on bright days without your sunglasses. Make sure they have 100 percent UV and glare protection, plus mirror coating and tinting.

Wearing sunglasses will also protect your eyes from wind, dust, smoke, and stray particles. Your eyes will feel less dry and itchy, and better rested, too.

4. Opt for Regular Eye Exams

Eye exams may not sound like much fun, but they are quick and painless. Don’t wait for vision problems to start before you go for an eye exam. Get your eyes examined regularly. This can help diagnose any vision problem right away before it becomes severe.

During the eye exam, your ophthalmologist will do a thorough checkup. They will examine your central and side vision, depth perception, eye movement, and eye alignment.

They will also check your pupil, cornea, retina, and optic nerve health. And they will take a look at your medical history and what medications you take.

So, how often to go for eye exams? For people over 20 years, eye checkups are recommended every 5 years. As you age, opt for checkups every 2 years. Teenagers and young adults can also opt for yearly eye exams.

That said, people with diabetes, high blood pressure, and a family history of vision problems should have their eyes examined more frequently. That’s because they are at a higher risk of eye diseases.

5. Take Screen Breaks

In the digital age, it’s important to rest your eyes and relieve any stress or eye fatigue. Take regular breaks from the screen. This is especially important if you work on a computer.

You can get up from your desk and go on a 10-minutes walk, voicecall family or friends, or make a diary entry, anything that doesn’t strain your eyes.

If you don’t have so much time at hand, you can also follow the 20/20/20 rule. Simply take a screen break every 20 minutes. Look away at a blank wall 20 feet away. Relax your eyes for 20 seconds before resuming work.

This simple rule will make your eyes feel better rested by the end of the workday. It will also help prevent digital eye strain, eye fatigue, headache, neck tension, dry eyes, and decreased vision.

6. Manage Chronic Conditions

Chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol, heart diseases, asthma, and multiple sclerosis can affect your vision.

These conditions can damage the delicate blood vessels in the eyes, inflame the optic nerve, and change the structure of the retina. It’s important to manage them by getting the appropriate treatment and taking medications.

You can also eat healthy, drink plenty of water during the day, and keep yourself physically fit to better manage any chronic condition you have.

7. Create an Eye-Friendly Work Environment

Many things you may do while working can be bad for your eyes. These include working in very bright or dim light, sitting in a poor posture, and not using blue light filters.

One way to improve eyesight naturally at home is to create an eye-friendly work environment. That way, your eyes won’t feel as strained by the end of the day.

Use proper lighting while working. Lighting that’s too bright or too dim can contribute to eye strain. Also, cut out glare on your computer screen with anti-glare glasses or a protective screen.

Adjust your workstation to improve your posture. Place your monitor about 25 inches from your face. The screen should be a few inches below your eye level. This will prevent you from keeping your eyes wide open all day, which can lead to dry eyes.

Tip: You can also switch on the blue light filter on all your devices. It will make the screen warmer and help prevent eye strain.

8. Practice Healthy Habits

Your lifestyle and everyday habits don’t affect just your body health. They also affect your eyesight.

Start by eating a balanced diet. Include fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds in your meals. These will provide your eyes with all the important nutrients to keep healthy.

Also, exercise for 20 minutes a day. You can go on a run, walk, hit the gym, or do yoga at home. Exercising will improve your blood circulation, remove harmful deposits from your body, and keep you fit. This, in turn, will also benefit the blood vessels in your eyes.

You must also get enough sleep. A regular and restful night’s sleep helps boost immunity. Sleeping will also give your eyes a chance to rest. When you wake up, they will feel renewed. Check these sleep hygiene tips to sleep better at night.

Finally, if you smoke, quit. Smoking is not just bad for your lungs and heart, it also harms your eyes. According to the New York Department of Health, smoking can increase your risk of developing age-related macular degeneration and cataracts.

9. Maintain Good Eye Hygiene

Your eyes are very vulnerable to infections. Using old contact lenses, touching your eyes, and not removing eye makeup before bedtime can cause inflammation, redness, itchiness, and eye infections. For these reasons, it’s important to maintain proper eye hygiene.

Make sure you wash your hands with soap and water before touching your eyes. If a foreign object enters your eye, don’t try to rub it away. Instead, immediately flush it out with clean water.

Before handling contact lenses, wash your hands. At the same time, don’t use old or infected lenses.

It’s also important to disinfect or replace your lenses after each use, as instructed by your doctor. And never sleep with contact lenses on, as that can lead to bacterial infections.

Mascara, eyeliner, and eye shadow can clog the oil glands at the base of your eyelashes. This can cause irritated, red, and watery eyes. So, take off your makeup at the end of the day for healthy eyes.

10. Take a Plant-Based Eye Health Supplement

A plant-based eye health supplement like SightC from Sightsage is a rich source of lutein and zeaxanthin, in addition to other nutrients and antioxidants.

These antioxidants have vision benefits that help improve eyesight. They protect against macular degeneration, cataracts, diabetic retinopathy, and other eye diseases. They can also help with dry eyes and the effects of eye strain.

Plant-based supplements are generally better absorbed by your body than synthetic ones. What’s more, being extracted organically, they are safe for long-term usage without side effects.

Eye health supplements are not a substitute for eating healthy. But they can complement your diet to help your eyes function at their best.

Learn more about SightC.