How To Prevent and Treat Eye Strain

Eye strain is an extremely common eye disorder, each person has different symptoms when they experience eye strain but it can broadly be defined as anything that causes discomfort or pain to your eyes while viewing something. Eye strain is caused by your eye muscles becoming fatigued due to the overuse of your eye muscles during intense tasks such as driving a car, working on the computer or even reading a book.

You might have been out on a long drive, probably spanning many hours. Or, you might have just picked up an interesting novel at the library, and could not leave it aside until you came to the very end, even though this involved many hours of reading. Or, your job might involve hours of staring at a computer monitor. All the three scenarios mentioned above involve considerable effort on the part of your eyes and could easily result in eye strain. Your eyes become sore, tired, and even itch at times.

They might water and become sensitive to light. Worse still, you might experience sporadic headaches and a sore neck as the day progresses. Eye strain treatment is not complicated, and most of these symptoms can be eased by following a few simple tips that would take you a few minutes at the most. However, if there is a noticeable change in vision, extreme eye discomfort or prolonged double vision, you might need to visit an ophthalmologist to get your eyes thoroughly checked. Read on to explore tips on how to treat strain.

Symptoms of Eye Strain:

   1. Headache
   2. Neck/back pain
   3. Twitches/Spasms around the eyes
   4. Lightheadedness
   5. Dizziness
   6. Nausea
   7. Car sickness
   8. Blurred vision
   9. Sore or tired eyes
  10. Double vision
  11. Itchy eyes
  12. Dry eyes
  13. Watery eyes
  14. Burning eyes
  15. Heaviness on the forehead/eyelids
  16. Lack of concentration
  17. Fatigue
  18. Reading problems

Causes of Eye Strain:

   1. Excess use of computer
   2. Fluorescent lighting
   3. Low levels of light
   4. Brightness
   5. Glare
   6. Low levels of screen contrast.
   7. Bad viewing angle
   8. Fatigue
   9. Poor posture
  10. Tiredness
  11. Excessive intake of drug and alcohol
  12. Stress

Eye Strain Treatment:

    * Work the muscles that have become strained, by relaxing your eyes and allowing them to shift focus from the object on which you are concentrating.
    * Gently massage your eyes, around the eyeballs, for 5 minutes. Do this once every hour, especially if you are doing some work that requires a lot of reading or focusing on a computer monitor.
    * If you find that your eyes are susceptible to strain, make it a practice to splash your face with water as cold as you can stand, the first thing each morning. This will help soothe the eye muscles.
    * Soak two tea bags in water, for around 15 minutes. Remove the tea bags and wring out any excess water. Place them in the refrigerator to chill, for around 5 minutes, before taking them out again. Place the tea bags over your eyes and relax for 15 minutes.
    * Rest your eyes. Place slices of raw potato or cucumber on your eyes and relax for 15 minutes.
    * If raw potato or cucumber is not available, you can make do with a cool, wet cloth. Place this over your eyes and relax for 15 minutes.
    * Drink a lot of liquids. Dehydration can cause eye strain and is often associated with headaches as well. Increased intake of liquids will help flush out excess salt from your body and will reduce eye strain and puffiness.
    * Get sufficient sleep. This will help rest your eyes and ease eye strain.
    * Even the tiniest blood vessels are known to be affected positively by grape seed extract. In fact, it is used as a supplement to fight cataracts and macular degeneration. Studies have proven that if 300 milligrams of grape seed extract is taken for 60 days, there will be a long-term positive impact on eye strain and there will be improved contrast vision as well.

Advice:

If after trying these methods you still suffer from discomfort of your eyes, contact your eye Doctor and make an appointment for an eye examination.