Sleep and The Eye

It is a beautiful day today, and the serenity of Sunday cuts across the entire globe, perhaps this happens to buttress the saying, "the peace that comes before the turmoil" or "the silence that comes before the action". Whichever it may be I love Sundays and I love the family time it brings.

I do hope that you had a good weekend though and that you are doing amazing and having a wonderful time. This weekend I decided to visit my sister in the capital city and I ended up having loads of fun and so much stress in addition that later on when I desperately wanted to sleep, it seem to elude it.

Eventually, I was able to get the rest I needed and I finally made it back to my town today after traveling for four hours back from the capital town, then looking back at the stress and how my sleep eluded me I wanted to talk to you about sleep and the eyes today. And so as usual I do hope you enjoy the read and have a good time.

We have all heard about how important sleep is to the body, how we ought to ensure that we get the recommended amount of sleep of at least 6 hours within every 24 hours for optimal function of the body and brain, etc, but hardly do we here scientist talk about the effect of insomnia on the eye.

An Optometrist i get to see patients from all walks of life with varying ages and among these geriatrics seem to dominate. At a point in time most aged tend to suffer from acute insomia or chronic insomnia and even though they may come to you with their eye health issues this is something that can be quite bothersome and so you would always hear them talk about it and ask for your help as a health professional.

And so over the past few years since i started practicing even whiles in school i noticed a pattern of an ocular condition that seem to persist among these individuals with sleeping issues or difficulties and i realized that when these patients are able to get their sleep pattern back on track either with the help of medication or change of lifestyle, these ocular conditions subside for them. So let's see about these conditions perhaps you have experienced it before?

When we fail to get good rest consistently for a while it tends to have negative impact on our general health as well as our eyes. One common thing i noticed is that somehow the eye becomes dry. Individuals who tend to have difficulties sleeping present to hospital a lot with burning sensations in the eye and most often when you do the tear break up test you release that the eye is dry.

A lot of times too they would complain of pain in the eye and this i have come to learn that most often is as a result of rise in systemic as well as intraocular pressure or pressure in the eye. Our inability to sleep puts the body into overdrive, the cells which are supposed to replenish their energy whiles we sleep are not able to do that well and the body attempts to cater for this by going into a hyper mode.

This inevitable brings about the rise in both pressures which also comes along with headaches. And so the eye pain could be as a result of the increase in IOP or a referred pain from the discomforting headache. Another thing i noticed amongst those who suffered from chronic insomia was the development of dark circles around the eye.

This was more prominent in the young adults especially the ladies and whiles they always sought out medications and various therapies to help get ride of this, getting enough sleep and changing the lifestyle to a healthy one seem to do the trick for them. Lack or inadequate amount of sleep could also result in a pink eye.

This is one that is quite common and for most people you may notice that even when you are sleepy and you hold back instead of getting the needed rest your eyes becomes or appear red and your friend or family may point it out. This is just as a result of the blood vessels on the conjunctiva getting engorged and the systemic pressure increase.

And so not getting enough sleep could have reprecurssions on your eye and ocular health generally and it can be quite discomforting sometimes. Yes, i know sometimes it is not our fault but if we can do better for ourselves then we should especially in terms of lifestyle or habit, however if things seem not to improve then do hold wait, see your primary physician right away for the best course of action or medication.

Everything we do that has to do with our general health and well being directly or indirectly affects our ocular health too and just as you may have learnt from today's discussion failing to even get the right amount of sleep consistently could prove dire to your eyes. And so let's make effort to live healthier and stay healthier.

When in doubt always speak to a professional, avoid over the counter medication without proper clinical care and diagnosis and remember that you sight is your light and the window to the beautiful scenery of this life. I wish you a wonderful week ahead, thank you for your time and also for reading, very much appreciated. Cheers!