Everyone knows that sleep is important for our overall health. Few people know though that we can impact our sleep quality with our vision choices. We put electronic devices in front of our eyes right before we try and go to sleep and this has a major effect on our sleep. We lay there watching tv thinking it will help us relax and unwind and be ready for bed, but after the show we feel just as awake as before. This can be a vicious cycle impacting our eye health too.
Sleep Deprivations impact on Eye Health
Everyone has sleep deprived in the short term at some point in their life. We feel irritable, lethargic, and drowsy. If this continues longer than just a few days, the effects are more severe. Constantly being sleep deprived can weaken our immune systems, increase injuries, make it harder to lose weight, increase our blood pressure, make us moodier, and make us more prone to forget things. Our eyes get damaged too.
Most experts say that five hours of sleep each night is enough for our eyes to replenish themselves for the day. Being overly tired can cause eye twitches, dry eyes, and eye strain.
Blue Light and Our Internal Clock
We spend our day with our devices, but we can’t change the anatomy of our eyes. Those devices have drastically increased the amount of blue light our eyes get. However, our brains are wired to think that blue light is daylight. So, the later in the day we look at our screens, the more we tell our brains that it is daytime and not night time.
Limit the Blue Light Before Bedtime
Anyone who’s had a harder time falling asleep in the smartphone era might have a better chance if they avoid devices for an hour or so before bed. If you can’t make that happen then the night time setting on the phone will help some. I personally have my phone set to night time all day every day. If you try both of these things for 2 weeks I would be surprised if you didn’t have improved sleep quality.
Contact Lenses and Sleep
The cornea is the clear layer at the front of the eye where the contact lens sits. It is also the only part of the human body that gets its oxygen directly from the air. Today’s contact lenses are far more oxygen-permeable than they were. This means they allow more oxygen to our eyes. Even though, they breathe better you still need to take them out before bed because when your eyelid is over the contact lenses they do not breathe very well.
Giving your eyes that break from contact lenses during sleep helps to reduce the risk of eye infections in the short term. It also decreases the risk of long term corneal swelling from repeated lack of oxygen to the cornea. Anyone who prefers to leave their contacts in during sleep, should first make sure that the contacts are acceptable to be slept in. Check the information on the box of contacts or ask your local eye doctor if they are acceptable to be slept in.