Tips for Eye Health and Keeping Good Eyesight (2025)

Keeping your eyes healthy is important, and you can do this in several ways.

Quit smoking

Smoking is known to harm your body in many ways, including your eyes. It can speed up cataract formation, causing blurry vision requiring treatment.

Smoking is also a risk factor for macular degeneration, which can damage the nerves responsible for central vision.

Wear sunglasses

Sun damage can affect your eye’s lens, and blue light can harm your retina. Sun exposure is also a major risk factor for pterygia, a growth on your eye’s surface.

Many cancers in and around your eyes, like melanoma, also link to sun exposure.

Take vitamins

People may have told you carrots are good for your eyes. It turns out there’s some truth to that. Antioxidant vitamins are helpful for eye health. They can include beta carotene in carrots.

Do not sit too close to the TV when you’re young

Your eyes adjust their development based on how you use them. So, if you often use your eyes for close-up tasks during this development period, you’re more likely to develop myopia (nearsightedness) and need glasses.

Go outside

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a rise in nearsightedness, likely because children spent more time indoors.

A 2021 study found that spending more time outside could help prevent this.

Though the exact reason isn’t completely understood, the natural blue light from the sun and sky and focusing on objects in the distance can help prevent nearsightedness.

Contact a doctor

Regular eye checkups are important to detect diseases that may not show symptoms, like glaucoma. Known as “the silent thief of sight,” glaucoma symptoms often go unnoticed until the condition is advanced and vision loss irreversible.

You can maintain good eye health in several ways in the long term. Some of the ways you can try include the following.

Take supplements

Certain vitamins and supplements can be helpful for eye health. Antioxidants can support the health of cells in your retina and may also slow down cataract progression.

Some antioxidants good for eye health are:

Omega-3 is another vitamin helpful in the treatment of dry eye disease.

Keep your eyes lubricated

Much of the bending of light enters your eye at its ocular surface. Therefore, a healthy ocular surface is crucial for clear vision.

You can keep your eyes lubricated using over-the-counter eye drops, known as artificial tears.

Wear glasses as prescribed

One of the most common causes of headaches is eyestrain, which can happen from not wearing eyeglasses or having an outdated prescription. You can avoid this discomfort and improve your vision by getting regular eye exams and wearing prescription eyeglasses as your doctor recommends.

Here are a few things you can try to improve your eyesight naturally. However, regular eye checkups are crucial to improving your eyesight and early detection of eye problems.

Applying warm compresses to your eyes

Your eyelids have special oil glands called meibomian glands, which release a substance to keep your tears from evaporating too quickly. Sometimes, this substance can clump up and turn into wax, blocking the flow.

Warm compresses can help prevent these wax plugs, keeping your glands flowing and your eyes healthy.

Adding antioxidants to your diet

You don’t have to take pills to get the benefit of antioxidants. Adding antioxidant-rich foods to your diet can help.

Antioxidant-rich foods include:

Spending time outdoors

Simply going outside and exposing yourself to natural light from the sky and sun can be helpful for eye health. This exposure can even lower the risk of needing glasses as children grow up.

The 10-10-10 rule is an eye care tip that recommends taking a 10-second break every 10 minutes of screen time. During the break, look at something that’s 10 feet away.

Concentrating on screens reduces your blink rate and can dry out your eyes. Following the 10-10-10 rule can help prevent eyestrain and dry eye.