asthenopia

Now, I know with this podcast we talk a lot about stress and stress reducing techniques.

Now, how does stress or eye strain affect our eyes?

Eye strain can definitely affect our bodies in that it gives us headaches, it makes our eyes feel uncomfortable, and that in turn gives us emotional stress and makes us feel tired.

So the physicality of the strain on our eyes can actually affect our emotions and really add to that burden that we're already feeling of overwhelmed while we're at work, because now our eyes aren't seeing clearly.

And we've got some really great evidence why the eyes don't see clearly in these instances, and some great tips on how to take care of that.

So you need to be cognizant of where do your eyes line up in the, in, within the frame.

If your eyes are really in towards the middle of the frame and you have this giant frame, then the center of the lens is going to be different than where your eyes are lining up.

And that can give you some eye strain i- in the long term if they're not specifically set for you.

We're talking about all things eyes, eyes today.

Um, eye health, eye strain.

Are we in an eye health epidemic with all the screen time we have these days? And here to talk about it with me is Dr.

Dagny Zhu.

Mm-hmm.

The closer you hold things, that's another contributor that increases your risk of myopia.

And yes, eye strain and dry eye, those are all real conditions that can affect our daily living.

But, you know, things like nearsightedness and myopia, if it gets to a point where it's pretty moderate to severe, you can actually have eye disease that affects your vision, like higher chance of retinal detachments, glaucoma, earlier onset of cataracts.

That is something that's been part of my experience as a licensed psychologist, and it's also a direct quote from the article I'm going to review today, because I hope you'll agree that quote, along with some other information in this article, have a lot to do with mental health, even though the title of the article may not seem to at first.

The title of the article is Hope for Dry Eyes and Eye Strain.

How breathing blinking patterns influence dry eye experience.

Authors are Pepper, Yoshino, and Harvey.

There's lots of more details I could be providing here, but if this is your first time hearing all these things, I want to ensure you're aware of the benefit of this information as it relates to your mental health practice.

So we'll kind of generalize things for this episode.

The authors were curious about if there are interventions that might affect the ocular sensation in the eyes when in this sympathetic arousal stage, which tends to lead to dry eyes and eye strain.

Because as part of the heightened state, there are some muscles that tighten around the lens of our eyes.

Screens do not appear to be blinding us, despite the dramatic advertisement for certain blue light products.

But long stretches of close-up focus can contribute to eye strain and headaches, blurred vision, and even dry eye symptoms.

One reason for this is surprisingly simple.

When we concentrate on a screen, we tend to blink less often and sometimes less completely.

But this morning, I was trying to look at my computer screen, and I was twitching, and the only thing that fixed it was I put on my reading glasses and looked through them, and I thought, oh.

Maybe it's eye strain or fatigue or something like that.

Mine has been that way, too.

I've had dry eyes lately, and I don't know if it's weather-related, but I've been wearing my glasses just to cover myself.

And sitting too close to the TV, quote, won't cause any physical damage to your eyes, said Dr. Lee Duffner of the AAO.

However, prolonged TV watching can cause eye strain.

a common condition where the eyes get tired from intense use.

When watching TV, we tend to blink less.

When we blink less, our eyes can get dry.

Staring at the same spot without changing your focal point doesn't help either, and eye strain symptoms can range from dry, uncomfortable eyes to something more painful, like a headache.

Screen use aside, eye strain can also be caused by anything that puts a lot of pressure on your vision.

Driving long distances, working on a computer screen, or staring at the coffee maker while you wait for it to finish, for example.