Easily the most common question I am answering is “Why am I so exhausted using my eyes now when I could manage a few years ago?”

One of the reasons for this, that I have seen in those approaching 40 and beyond, is the continually focusing on daily tasks becomes extremely tiring on the eyes and eye muscles.

We multitask all of the time that we are out and about, from the constant notifications on our watches and phones to working from home on screens, whilst continually checking on everything else all at different distances. Its harder for the eyes to maintain this change of focus as we age.

Particularly for those that have never needed spectacles before, it’s hard when you finally do. Despite us being able to perform essential eye health checks, many people still only attend an opticians appointment when it’s obvious there is a problem.

Close up vision is different. It’s possible for someone in their 30´s and 40’s to make their own muscles work harder and make themselves see. This is the tiring part. It really is exhausting.

Visual hygiene techniques can help by relaxing the tired eye muscles by looking into the far distance. This is what we were made to see. So we release the stress of the close vision by relaxing into the far. We ideally fit this into our day every 20 minutes for 20 seconds. Even a very long hard blink helps relax the muscles from this constantly close work whilst also rehydrating the eyes. Eventually its putting on reading spectacles of a low magnification that is required alongside these daily exercises. These are more useful for those doing the one task distance all of the time. Then they have to be removed for far vision else its blurry.

The new generation multifocal contact lenses are magically (simultaneous focus) designed to allow you to see mostly everywhere all of the time. If you do prefer spectacles then multifocals (progressives/varifocals) do enable good vision at all distances after a longer period of adaptation.

And if you would like to avoid multifocals but still not have the on/off of close vision spectacles? We can bias your dominant eye towards your dominant task, this works very well in contact lenses.

All of these options for comfortable bincoular vision post age 40 will help you decide the best outcome for cataract surgery when you need it or when you want to future proof your spectacle independence.