How to look after your creative eyes.

Making great design comes from having a good eyesight. The quality of your visual, relaying information, position, perspective, balance, colour and so-forth all rely on having a good eye. As a visual artist staring at the computer monitor for many hours on end strain the eyes, making us feel tired and eventually could cause myopia, in other words eye short-sightedness. It is a health risk that we often neglect and should take more care of our eyes.

The eye is a very complex part of our organ and I’m no specialist give an insight, however when doing a research I found a very interesting podcast worth listening on the FX Guide website “Take Care of Your Eyes” by Jeff Heusser interviewing Batool Jafri, MD – Assistant Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology, UCLA Jules Stein Eye Institute.

In summary and in simple words, when your eye focus on one element for lengthy time the brain suppress the blink rate. When there is a lack of blink the eyes do not get moisturised and could cause the tear film which is a micron thin outer layer covering the eye to dry up eventually creating an opening from the center causing vision issues.

When you look far away your eyes are relaxed but when you look up close for lengthy time your eyes muscles gets strain. This is so reflective of our daily situation, we solely focus on the every pixels making the design work look amazing all in front of a monitor hours on ends neglecting or even forgetting to do anything to take preventive measures.

Dr. Jafri suggestion from the 20 20 20 rule. Every 20 minutes of focused work, we should look away 20 feet (6 meters) and blink 20 times.

Other important actions we can take to look after our eyes includes:
Drink lots of water, good circulation helps hydrate the eyes.
Have a good diet – include spinach, tomato, kale, salmon and carrots. (Carrots are good for night vision) in your meals with intake of O-mega 3.
Wear Sunglasses for eye protection.
Don’t Smoke, it’s toxic and can cause a blind spot at the center to the eye.
30 Minutes physical exercise with a minimum 3 times a week.
Have your eyes checked up with a specialist.

The eye is our all to make great visual creative work incredible amazing. Don’t take it for granted, take action to look after.

Related Links:

FX Guide ( Take Care of Your Eyes )

Design Sync, sharing ideas and knowledge for a healthier creative lifestyle.

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