DAILY SUN of January 27, 2010 carried an interview with Igwe (DR.) Charles Abangwu, a son of Eha Alumona in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu state. A highlight of the interview was that at 90, age had not affected his vision. It was as perfect as that of a teenager.
Hear his testimony: ‘I read the littlest of italics without glasses or strain on my eyes. I have never used eye glasses”. Only a few people can match his experience. This is because he appears to be one of those people with the genes for good vision at old age.
Most people don’t therefore, fall within his experiential bracket. For this reason, people need to know certain tips for preserving their eyesight. To start with, we should learn to eat for the eyes. The book PERFECT EYESIGHT FOR LIFE contains a list of nourishing food for the eyes. Another worth-while book is THROW AWAY YOUR GLASSES by Michael Cutler” It informs you of the 18 key nutrients your eyes require for healthy vision. They are. Vit A, Vit B6, Vit C with bioflavonoicls, Vit E, selenium, copper, lutein, zeaxan thin, ginkgo biloba, eyebright elderberry, taurine, bilberry, lycopene, N. Acetyl cystiene, EDTA and tocotrienols.
Don’t forget, too, that eating lots of fruits and vegetables supplies the eyes with the nutrients they need. Choose organic fruits/ vegetables for best results whenever they are available.
In addition, avoiding eyestrain is another way of preserving your digital age, several people have eyestrain from long hours in front of the computer.
One way of preventing computer eyestrain? Learn to break up computer work for at least every 30 minutes. Such work stoppages help the eyes. Furthermore, to minimize computer eyestrain, always increase the font size of your work once you are in your middle ages or when you notice that your vision is losing its sharpness. By increasing computer font size to see any display on the monitor your eyes are better for it.
From the foregoing, it is evident that as you age, your eyes undergo changes for instance, they begin to lose their capacity to make contrasts and to focus properly. Hence, once again, apart from increasing the computer font size you work with, you need brighter lights at any of your work stations.
Therefore, use more light to illuminate your reading desk, office, or computer /television screens. If you don’t then you will strain to see properly so that with time you will start having problems with your eyesight.
Also, to prevent eyestrain, avoid staring at darkness. Unfortunately, people do so often at night because of the frequent blackouts by BEDC these days. Each time the lights are switched or just go off, the eyes suddenly are forced to stare at the blanket darkness enveloping everywhere. Invariably, BEDC can be said to be contributinly to eyesight damage today. How I wish BEDC knew this. Well, this is an advice for them. Before it takes light,, it should give a warning by blinking the light. Expectedly, people would then have the opportunity of closing their eyes to await the final blackout. This practice would help the transition of the eyes from light to darkness and so curb the eye shock or strain to the eyes arising from sudden power outage.
Still, another eyesight preservation tip: Avoid all reflections of the sun entering your eyes. They can damage your eyesight just like the sun overhead with its heat, light and ultraviolet rays. So between 10am to 3. 3pm on a sunny day wear your prescription sunglasses. Don’t look up directly at the sun.
In addition, you must routinely protect your eyes from containination. There are two ways you can do this.
Firstly wash your hands well with clean, running water before picking your eyes with your fingers. Secondly, always bathe with clean water. If you don’t, you may end up infecting your eyes with micro-organisms in the water.
Be warned too that using unclean well water may get your eyes infected with germs. Similarly, water from boreholes or the rain could be unclean from source and still get contaminated during storage. Therefore, it is important you have handy, water purifier or disinfectants like izal and dettol for use in killing germs in your bath water or water for washing your hands. In passing I need to say here that a lot of us assume that all water in overhead tank are clean. Lies. Most of such tanks have never been washed since they were erected. Invariably, they are a cesspool of germs. The fact that the tank water appears clean does not mean there are no germs in it. Unknown to you, the eye infection you have frequently may be traceable to the water from the tank you use for bathing which gets into your eyes. From the