New years resolutions.

Now that the Festive party season is over...now its time for the dreaded new years resolutions!

Here are a few key tips for keeping your eyes healthy:

1. Good diet: Diet plays a large role in keeping your eyes healthy. A diet rich in sugar and fats puts you more at risk of raised cholesterol and diabetes both of which have serious implications for eye health. Omega three's are important to maintaining good eye health and may even help with dry eye. Foods that are rich in omega 3's include oily fish, and flaxseed. Foods rich in lutein and xeanthanin are important for maintaining the health of the macula (and therefore reducing the risk of macula degeneration). Green leafy veg are also important for keeping your macula healthy so stock up on veg like broccoli, kale, cabbage, and spinach.

2. Regular exercise is important for maintaining good cardiovascular health, which is important for keeping your eyes healthy.

3. Some recent studies have also suggested that spending time outdoors (30mins a day) is beneficial for eye health especially for children.

4.      Sun Protection: It is important when spending time outdoors to wear a pair of good quality sunglasses to protect your eyes from ultra -violet light (U.V) as U.V is thought to play a role in the development of cataracts, macula degeneration, and pterygium. And this is even more important when playing sports on highly reflective surfaces such as water and snow sports.

5. Stop Smoking: If you can manage to give up smoking this is one of the best things you can do for both your general health AND your eye health. Smoking increases you risk of so many different eye diseases it’s hard to list them all here! But some examples include: cataract, macula degeneration, dry eye, vascular occlusions (clots), glaucoma etc....