Stress can cause a lot of different illnesses in the human body. Especially it can affect your mental health and the quality of life of a person. It can lead to mental health issues such as anxiety, and depression and result in insomnia. It also paves the way for illnesses such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, and obesity. Among all these one bit of the other disadvantages of stress is it can cause dry eyes. Through this article I’ll be elaborating facts on dry eyes, its causes, how it affects us, and how to minimize the effects of dry eyes.
Table of Contents
What is stress?
Before discussing the sickness, let’s get to know about stress. So, what is stress?
Stress is the body’s response to any change that it experiences, which requires an adjustment or response. The body reacts to these changes with physical, mental, and emotional responses. Stress can impact a person’s life in both positive and negative ways.
When considering its positive impact, it can spur a person to be productive, meet deadlines, be disciplined, and be consistent in work. In fact, a little stress is a good thing. But when it comes to the negative side, it can lead to numerous health issues including depression, anxiety, obesity and etc. Dry eyes also can be considered as one of them.
What are dry eyes?
To answer this question we should know about tears. Tears lubricate your eyes and make it possible to see things clearly. When you blink, a tear film spreads over the eye and makes the surface smooth and clear. The tear film is made up of three distinct layers,
- Oily layer
- Watery layer
- Mucous layer
Each layer is needed for the tear film to keep our eyes moist.
Dry eyes are a condition that mainly occurs when your eyes don’t produce enough tears to stay wet, or when your tears don’t work correctly. This condition may result in making your eyes feel irritated and also can lead to vision problems.
Symptoms of dry eyes
How can you recognize you have dry eyes? There are several symptoms that indicate the possibility of dry eyes. Some of them are,
- Vision problems.
- Stinging
- Itching
- Scratchiness
- Irritation
- Excessive tearing
If you have at least a few of the above symptoms it’s better to meet an eye doctor and get tested for dry eyes.
Dry eyes affect many people, especially as they get older. Women after going through menopause are susceptible to dry eyes due to a decrease in the tear film’s oil and mucous layer.
Even some medications you might consume may have dry eye symptoms as side effects.
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Main causes of dry eyes
There can be numerous causes leading to this condition. Few of them are,
- Poor sleep quality
- Usage of contact lenses
- Increased screen time.
- Psychological stress.
- As a side effect of some other illnesses.
How does stress cause dry eyes?
Among the causes mentioned above, one of the significant causes is psychological stress. Through research, they have found psychological stress can lead to dry eyes.
It can affect your eyes and the quality of your vision.
One of the ways that stress can lead to eye problems is through eyelid twitches. This normally might occur to college students or undergraduates because they are under a lot of stress during work. One of the reasons for this to occur can be staying in front of a screen for a longer period of time. This generally can be seen in people who are under extreme amounts of stress.
Another general deformity that occurs due to stress is reduced or blurred vision. When you put your body through high levels of stress and anxiety it can be a cause of this condition. If you are a person who tends to be very competitive and wants to have a sense of control over your life and deal with a lot of stress during the day today work this might be a condition you might have to look out for.
Another reason can be going through a traumatizing or heartbreaking event in real life. Some doctors have reported that they had patients coming to them with vision problems and when the doctors check on them, they haven’t found any significant deformity in the functioning of the eye. And when they talked with the person and went through personal records they come to know there has been some tragic tough times going through in the patient’s life and that they are under a lot of stress.
Later after talking to them, they consulted them with therapists and later on checked to see the eyesight and they turned out to be perfectly good. It shows us how powerful the human brain can be and how much of an impact it has on our eyesight.
Stress also can cause many other eye-related deformities which a medically recognized and provided with necessary medications. It’s important to understand how important is your mental health to have good eyesight.
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Treatment methods for dry eyes.
There are several treatments to reduce the effects of dry eyes. And for the record, it’s completely curable.
- Using eye drops – A doctor can prescribe eye drops as a treatment for dry eyes.
- Using a humidifier.
- Limiting the time spent in front of a screen.
- Having good eyelid hygiene – taking good care of your eyes and not rubbing them aggressively can help in reducing the effect of dry eyes and avoid the possibility of transferring germs to the eye.
Other than the above treatments, if the condition is much worse you can seek the help of an Ophthalmologist and get prescribed with necessary medications.
A word at the end.
Stress can lead to a lot of eye-related deformities. It’s our duty to be cautious about our health and take measures to protect our eyesight. Through the above article, I wanted to express facts on how stress causes dry eyes, its symptoms, treatments, and how important our mental health is for a better quality of life. I hope you gathered some important facts through the article.
