Tips for Eliminating Eye Strain When Driving
9 July, 2023
Using your eyes for a long time without enough rest will cause eye strain. This condition is often experienced by people of modern society living in cities since their lifestyle and work activities demand them to use eyes continuously and intensely.
Symptoms of Eye Strain
Eye strain can be recognized in some symptoms:
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Eyes feel very heavy and sometimes watery.
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Irritation, dry, or even a little itchy.
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When eyes are really exhausted, one will lose focus of sight. Sight will get blurry for a few times and eyes will be sensitive to light.
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Additionally, head, neck and shoulders areas, or even the back will also feel pain.
The Cause of Eye Strain
The following are some things that can cause eye strain:
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Driving in a long-distance trip.
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Staring at monitor screen or gadget for a long time.
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Reading for too long.
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Observing continuously in a room with minimum light.
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Being exposed to object that is too bright or too shiny.
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Additionally, dry weather, stress, fatigue, and eye conditions such as eye muscle imbalance and visual disturbance that are not treated well will also lead to eye strain.
Eye strain may happen when you drive a car for a long period of time. Your concentration on the road sometimes makes your eyes rarely blink. This can make the surface of your eyes become dry, said Dr. Hadi Prakoso, Sp.M, an ophthalmologist from Klinik Mata Nusantara, Jakarta.
Apart from that, continuous blowing air from air condition (AC) will also lessen air humidity in the car. When you are driving your car at night, beams of light coming from cars in opposite lane will also cause glare that eventually will irritate your eyes. If this happens constantly in the long run, it will certainly affect eye health. Having eyes with irritation in dry weather is surely not an ideal condition for driving. Fatal accident may occur due to lack of visibility and concentration.
If it rains heavily, the temperature will go down, become cold, and cause fog. Even vision will be very limited. Well, this is where we will be greatly helped by fog lamp. Its main function must be to increase visibility in the rain. Besides helping vision on the foggy roads, fog lamp can increase the visibility of the rider at night even if there is no fog. This lamp can serve as an additional light from the main light.
How To Eliminate Eye Strain?
Eye strain doesn’t require serious treatment as long as you are attentive and take necessary measure so that your eyes get enough rest. Resting your eyes is sufficient to get rid of exhaustion. You can also do these things to eliminate eye strain:
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Having enough sleep is one of the most effective treatments. That’s because while you’re sleeping, your eyes become replenished with essential nutrients. If you are driving on a toll road, you can sleep for a while in a rest area.
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Blink your eyes. Blinking will produce tears that moisturize and refresh your eyes.
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Put some eye drops to moisturize your drying eyes.
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Tear glands (lacrimal glands) can be stimulated with gentle massage on eyelids, the muscles right above eyebrows and above your cheeks. Do the massage maximally two times a day for 10 second each. This massage can make your eyes relaxed and fresh again immediately.
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Broiling sun light can also make eyes dry and tired. That is because eye nerves and muscles continuously work to manage the amount of light coming into the eyes. Black sunglasses will help reduce the amount of light coming into the eyes, making you feel cooler and more comfortable.
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If you feel uncomfortable with your eyes but you don’t feel sleepy other than just a little strain, do some light workout to do away with it. Move your body from upper body parts to lower parts in an order sequence. Working out will not only refresh your eyes, but will also make bloodstream in your body flow more smoothly.
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Apart from the above measures, consider as well about your daily foods. Make sure that what you consume contains sufficient vitamin A, C, E, B complex and zinc in order to maintain eye health. Take additional supplement when necessary if you want to improve the quality of your sight.
Also read: Safety Tips When Riding A Taxi
For those of you who have high intensity of driving, it is important to pay attention to your eye health. High concentration on the road makes your eyes rarely blink, despite the fact that blinking is a process to release tears to lubricate the eyes. If you rarely blink, your eyes will get dry and red.
Don’t push your eyes to work hard. If you already feel tired, pull over your car and take time immediately to rest the eyes. Repetitive condition in the long period of time will cause worse impact to your eye health. It will surely jeopardize yourself and other street users if you keep pushing yourself to drive in bad eye condition. Prepare your physical condition well, for better driving quality too.
Source: alodokter, doktersehat & liputan6
