This seemingly unusual habit may hide a huge health risk and may even induce glaucoma and lead to blindness. So, can playing cell phones with the lights off really lead to blindness? And how should we use our eyes properly?
Cell phone screen in the dark, why become the eyes of the “invisible killer”?
After turning off the lights, our eyes are in a dark environment, the pupils will naturally dilate to increase the amount of light. However, when we turn on the cell phone screen in this state, the sensitivity of the eyes to light will increase, and it is easy to be damaged. At the same time, pupil dilation also makes the iris squeezed and piled up in the outlet of the aqueous humor, resulting in a blockage of aqueous humor outflow, which in turn triggers an increase in intraocular pressure (aqueous humor is a fluid inside the eye, which flows inside the eye and exerts a certain pressure on the retina, and this pressure is the intraocular pressure). This pressure is the IOP. In the long run, this may induce serious eye diseases such as glaucoma.
Glaucoma is a complex eye disease whose development is closely related to intraocular pressure exceeding the normal range. When IOP rises, it puts pressure on the retina, leading to optic nerve atrophy. With optic nerve atrophy, the patient’s range of vision is gradually reduced, and as the disease progresses, this range becomes smaller and smaller until total blindness. Therefore, once glaucoma occurs, it will cause irreversible damage to vision and may even lead to blindness.
It is worth noting that glaucoma is the world’s first irreversible blinding eye disease. During an acute attack, patients will experience symptoms such as eye soreness, pain, headache, eye congestion, redness, and significant loss of vision, which require prompt treatment to save their vision.
Who is more likely to be “victimized”?
Although the outpatient clinic because of the lights off playing cell phone directly induced glaucoma case is not rare, but experts remind, there are some vulnerable groups such as advanced age, farsightedness, glaucoma family genetic history, etc., this kind of people in the lights off playing cell phone, more likely to appear in intraocular pressure rises sharply, thus inducing glaucoma.
In addition to the risk of glaucoma, playing cell phones with the lights off may also bring other eye health problems. With dilated pupils, too much light may cause damage to the retina, leading to eyestrain, dry eye and many other negative consequences. These are not as serious as glaucoma, but they can affect eye health and quality of life just as much. Therefore, ophthalmologists strongly recommend avoiding the bad habit of playing with cell phones with the lights off, whether or not they are susceptible to glaucoma.
How to play with your cell phone before bedtime in a healthy way?
Maybe some people will think, I do this every day, as if it does not matter ah! But in fact, eye damage is subtle and silent, it is difficult for the general public to quickly notice. If you usually have: increased red blood, conjunctival congestion (redness of the white of the eye), dry eyes, foreign body sensation, eye soreness, orbital swelling and pain, conjunctival stones (eye surface white stones of the size of rice grains) and other symptoms, it is already the eyes are sounding the alarm!
Since there are so many risks associated with playing with cell phones with the lights off, how should we use our eyes properly? Here are some suggestions:
1、Turn on the light to play the phone: turn on the light to play the phone can reduce the brightness contrast between the phone screen and the surrounding environment, to maximize the protection of our eyes. You can open a soft lamp or background light, as long as you avoid a completely dark environment. At the same time, the brightness of the phone to the minimum, which can reduce the screen light on the eye stimulation, reduce eye fatigue.
2、Do not lie on the side to play the phone: lying on the side to play the phone although comfortable, but will let an eye for a long time in a state of pressure, is not conducive to eye health. Therefore, it is recommended to lie on your back to play the phone or sit to see, keep the phone and eyes in a straight line, and keep the distance above 30 cm. If you feel tired, you can use a cell phone holder to assist.
3、Control the time to play the phone: the time to play the phone before going to bed should not be too long, it is recommended that each time no more than 40 minutes. Every once in a while, you should close your eyes and rest for 3-5 minutes, so that your eyes can fully relax.
4、Do eye exercises: you can try some simple eye exercises to relieve eye fatigue. For example, squeeze the eyemind point, rub the four white points, press the solar plexus wheel scraping orbital and other actions, each action to do 20-30 times, in order to have a slight sense of soreness and swelling of the points to the degree. These actions can promote blood circulation in the eyes, relieve eye fatigue and dryness.
In conclusion, although playing cell phone with the light off is a common life habit, it may bring irreparable damage to the eyes. We should start now to change this bad habit to keep our eyes away from harm. After all, the eyes are an important window for us to perceive the world, and only by protecting it can we better appreciate the beauty and colorfulness of the world.