Caring for your eyes

As dentists and health professionals our assets are our minds and body. If either one starts to decline then our work with suffer as a result. The foundations of health involve a good diet, ideal sleep, sufficient exercise and good stress management. If we take care of our bodies well then our minds will benefit as a result. Our eyes are probably our most important yet most fragile asset. Once we have a decline in eye performance our ability to perform fine motor tasks goes out the window. Here are some tips to take care of your eyes:

-Have regular eye checks: Most people should have their eyes checked every 2 years so that degenerative conditions and decline in vision can be caught and addressed early.
-Wearing the right prescription lenses: On the advice of your optometrist you should wear the correct prescription of lenses because although the change in vision may be imperceptible to you, over days of working your eyes will fatigue faster with the incorrect prescription and you will find your ability to work declining.
-Wearing protective safety glasses: Our eyes have sensitive, exposed mucous membranes. As part of good PPE practice we should wear protective eye glasses that will stop potentially infective splatter and aerosols that could cause eye infections as well as foreign bodies which could cause penetrative injuries. To be up to standard, these glasses must be close fitting and cover the whole periorbital region. To be up to standard, most optical lenses must have side shields fitted.
-Wearing dental loupes: Loupes have multiple benefits. They will allow you to sit straighter to improve your posture and move your face further from the high aerosol zone. Magnification should reduce eye strain and allow you to work better for longer. Well fitting loupes of appropriate magnification are a must in contemporary dental practice. A headlight is equally as important as it will allow good illumination of the oral cavity in the area you are looking at. The issue with overhead lights is that they aim at the mouth in an alternative angle to your eye sight which will result in undesirable shadows and cause eye strain.
-Eye exercises can be used to train the internal and external eye muscles to slow degeneration and improve eye function. Resting your eyes can be just as important as exercising them:

• Have regular eye breaks: Focusing on a distant object will rest the eye as it requires more effort to focus on near objects
• For every half an hour, focus at something far away for 1-2 minutes. You can break this up into smaller periods of rest i.e staring out the window for 10 seconds every time the light cure is running. 
• For every hour, stare at something distant for 5-10 minutes. 
• 20-20-20 rule:  every 20 minutes look into the distance for 20 seconds and blink 20 times.
• Eye pushups: Hold a pen at arms length and move it towards your nose slowly focusing on the tip. When you begin to get a double image move it further away and repeat.
• Keep your head still, keep focus on your thumb and move it slowly in different directions. Repeat for several minutes
• Hold your thumb at arms length. Focus on the nail and then look far away and focus your eye long distance.
• Always keep objects you are looking at further than Harmon's distance. This is the distance from the elbow to the middle knuckle.