Ever thought about just how amazing your eyes are? Every imagined what life would be with them? Close your eyes for one whole minute and you just might start appreciating your eyes a little bit more!
Our eyes are without doubt our most important sense and they are responsible for a staggering 80% of the information we receive about the world we live in. I thought I would use this post to list my top ten weird and wonderful things you probably didn’t know about your eyes:
- Sneezing: It is 100% impossible to keep your eyes open whilst sneezing! I am certain some people reading this are going to give it is try but you will be wasting your time . . .
- Colour blindness: Contrary to what it may sound like, colour blindness does not mean people cannot see colour. In fact most people with colour blindness can see colour fine it is just that they tend to get them confused. The colours that are most likely to be confused are browns, greens and reds which could explain some dodgy colour combinations of clothes!
- Boys get colour blind girls don’t: This is not strictly true but boys are far more likely to get colour problems than girls. About 8% of boys have colour problems which means there is likely to be one or two children in each classroom at school with colour blindness. This is 20 times more common than it is for girls to be colour blind.
- Colour detection: Our eyes can differentiate between a staggering 10 million colours which highlights just how complex they are.
- Blinking: On average we blink around 12,000 times per day and every blink is extremely important to the health and functionality of our eyes. Blinking replenishes the surface of our eyes with anti-bacterial cells to prevent any infection and it also removes any debris to keep our vision clear.
- 2 million parts: Incredibly our eyes are made up of around 2 million individual working parts. Imagine trying to build such a complicated object!
- You see with your brain not your eyes: The role of our eyes is to gather all the information about an object and then send all this information to the visual cortex (the seeing part of the brain). It is the brain that then assembles all this information to produce the image that we recognize.
- Vegetables are healthy for your eyes: Yes, getting your 5 a day certainly can help maintain the health of your eyes although it’s not just a case of eating any old vegetables! Green leafy vegetables such as Cabbage and Kale contain Lutein which is an anti-oxidant which is important in preventing diseases such as cataracts and macular degeneration.
- Diabetes and blindness: In the USA diabetes is the number one cause of blindness in the working age range. Few people realise this and if you have diabetes you should make sure you keep your blood sugar levels are stable as possible to reduce the risk of losing your vision.
- Reading: We generally read about 20% slower on the computer when compared with reading off paper. That means if you were reading this article on paper you would have already finished reading it by now!
I hope this article gives you a little insight into just how incredible our eyes are and if nothing else it gives you a few interesting facts to share at your next dinner party! Our eyes took millions or years to evolve and this is the reason they are so amazing. Just bear in mind we only get one pair of eyes so make sure look after them and appreciate them!
This article was written by Tim Harwood of TreatmentSaver.com an Optometrist based in London in the UK. He also writes articles on cosmetic surgery including topics such as Botox prices and dermal fillers.