7 Tips for your Child's Eyes in this Exam Season
- drgunjandeshpande
- Jan 23, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: May 13, 2024
Exams can be a stressful time for kids and it's important to make sure they're taking care of their health, including their eyes.
This blog post provides some tips on how to take care of your child's eyes during the school exam season. From taking regular breaks, to making sure they have proper lighting, eating a healthy diet, getting enough sleep and visiting an eye doctor regularly. Following these tips can help prevent eye strain and other problems, and help your child perform their best on their exams.
How to take care of eyes during exams?
Eye care is an important aspect of overall health, especially for children who spend long hours studying for school exams. Here are a few tips to help kids take care of their eyes during this stressful time:
1. Take regular breaks:
Children frequently get so absorbed in what they're doing that they don't notice symptoms of eye strain. Remind them to take breaks.
Encourage your child to take short breaks every 20-30 minutes to rest their eyes.
They can look out the window, close their eyes for a few minutes, or do a quick eye exercise such as looking up and down or left and right. Constant fixing for near distance while reading can cause headache in the long run.
2. Care while using digital screens or laptops:
If kids use digital screen or a laptop for studies, then ask them to follow 20-20-20 rule. That means, after every 20 minutes of screen-time, they must look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Watch video here.
It is also known that increased screen exposure reduces the blink rate and leads to dryness of eyes. Your doctor may suggest lubricating eye drops.
Make sure that the screen/laptop is not at the eye level and is placed slightly lower. Adjust the chair and table accordingly. Avoid using screens in dark rooms.
Use ample and adequate light. Try to position computers so that light from windows, lamps and overhead lights aren't shining directly on screens. Decrease the brightness of the screen to a more comfortable level for viewing.
Follow the the 1/2/10 rule, that is mobile phones ideally at one foot, desktop devices and laptops at two feet, and TV screens at around 10 feet (depending on how big the screen is).
3. Use proper lighting:
Appropriate lighting can reduce eye fatigue and headaches, which makes completing tasks easier. In particular, good lighting ergonomics can prevent computer vision syndrome, which is a type of eye strain that occurs when you use a computer for a long period of time, cases of which have been rising recently.
Make sure your child has adequate lighting when studying. Warm light is better for your eyes and vision than cool light, such as blue light, and UV light, which can damage the eyes in long-term. A well-lit room with a mix of natural and artificial light is best.
Avoid using a computer or other electronic device in dimly lit rooms. Use appropriate illumination levels when using digital screens. Reading against high brightness can cause strain. The presence of proper lighting improves our concentration, our ability to read, and also differentiate between shades of colours, known as contrast sensitivity.
4. Eat a healthy diet:
Eating a diet rich in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants can help protect your child's eyes. Foods such as leafy greens vegetables, fish, lean meat and nuts are particularly good for eye health.
Do not leave out red vegetables like carrots, beetroot and pumpkin from daily diet.
Nutrients such as zinc, lutein, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamins A, C and E have been found to be beneficial to eye health. Fruits with vitamins C and E, such as oranges, strawberries and mangos, can help restore tissues and prevent infections.
5. Get enough sleep:
Sleep is essential for overall health, including eye health. Skimping on rest affects your kid's mood, motivation, memory, metabolism, and so much more. It even affects the health of their eyes.
Much like the brain and the body, eyes heal themselves as you sleep. Not getting enough sleep can lead to having dry, itchy, or bloodshot eyes. There may be less tears after a night of insufficient sleep. This can open the door to eye infections. Their eyes may even be more sensitive to light, or may have blurry vision.
The American Academy of Paediatrics recommends children to not sleep with devices in their bedrooms, including TVs, computers and smartphones.
In addition, the AAP recommends avoiding exposure to screens for 1 hour before going to bed. Using devices past bedtime, especially for violent video games or shows, can interfere with sleep. Studies also suggest the blue light given off by screens might also make it difficult to sleep.
Make sure your child is getting enough sleep each night. Aim for 8-10 hours of sleep per night.
6. Wear glasses or contacts as prescribed:
If your child wears glasses or contact lenses, make sure they are wearing them as prescribed by their doctor. Not wearing them as directed can lead to eye strain and other problems.
Also without glasses, kids face difficulty in seeing the finer details both for near and for distance objects. Make sure that their glasses are clean and scratch-free.
What about blue-blocking lenses?
If kids are on their screens for studies then you might want to know about blue-blocking lenses or blue-filter lenses, which filter blue light given off from computer/laptop screens. Although there is no evidence that blue-light is harmful to the eyes, it is known to make falling asleep harder and can contribute to eye strain, However, turning screens off an hour before bed and using the 20/20/20 rule can help.
7. Visit an eye doctor:
Regular eye exams are important for maintaining good eye health. Make sure your child sees an eye doctor at least once a year, or more often if recommended by the doctor.
It's important for kids to have their eyes examined regularly, as many vision problems and eye diseases can be detected and treated early.
By following these tips, your child can take good care of their eyes during the stressful time of exams and help them to study and perform well.
Thanks for valuable inputs. My kids will definitely follow the instructions 😊