The cold temperatures and dry air associated with the winter months can make your dry eyes feel worse – not what you need in and around the festive season. Fortunately, there are things you can do to help, both before and after experiencing eye irritation.[1]
Below, we explore what you can do to help prevent and treat dry eyes in winter.
How to prevent dry eyes in winter
While it may not be possible to completely prevent dry eyes from occurring, there are things you can do to make it less likely. Many of these things will be effective all year round, but might be particularly helpful during the winter months.
For example, winter is a time when we often spend more time indoors using screens. When there’s less daylight, we’re more tempted to spend hours in front of the TV or on our computers and phones, which can make us more vulnerable to eye strain and similar discomfort. To help reduce the impact this has on your eyes, try to spend less time looking at screens – or use the 20/20/20 rule to take a 20 second break every 20 minutes to look at something 20 feet away.
Another simple change is to combat dry air in your home or workplace. Central heating can dry out the air and leave your eyes feeling unlubricated and itchy, so reintroducing moisture to the air can help to relieve the discomfort. Make sure to open your windows and ventilate your house every day, even just for a few minutes.
Of course, you probably don’t want to have your windows open all the time in winter, so how can you add moisture and keep the heat in? The answer is to use a humidifier – a device specifically designed to reintroduce moisture in closed environments like homes. This lets you correct overly dry air and can easily be turned off once the desired level of humidity is reached.
If you don’t already have a humidifier and you want to test whether adding moisture to the air is really the solution before investing in one, then there are a few DIY alternatives. Firstly, air drying your laundry indoors is a great way to increase the moisture in your home while checking something off your to-do list. If you don’t have a load of washing ready to go, then you can simulate the effect by placing bowls of water near your radiators. The water will evaporate into the air as the heat reaches it, preventing it from becoming too dry.
Important! Make sure to ventilate your home well in order to prevent the onset of mould caused by excess humidity when drying clothes indoors. Finding the right balance is key.
In a similar vein to opening the windows to let some moist outside air into the building, you can also help to tackle dry eyes by spending more time outdoors. While it’s natural to want to stay snuggled up in the warmth when it’s cold outside, getting out into the fresh air can make you feel better and give you a change of scenery to stimulate your mind as well as exposing your eyes to more humidity.[2]
How to treat dry eyes in the winter
What can you do to treat the uncomfortable side effects of dry eye syndrome in winter? Well, many of the tips above can help to lessen the condition and reduce eye irritation as well as making it less likely to come back again.
If those measures aren’t enough to keep dry eyes at bay, you can use targeted eye drops to relieve dryness and irritation, such as TheraTears® Dry or Tired Eye Drops. These contain hyaluronic acid which is specially designed to replenish the natural moisture of your eyes.
Depending on the cause of your dry eyes, you might find other eye drops useful as well. For example, if you use screens a lot in the winter, then TheraTears® Screen Eyes Eye Drops can help to combat eye strain and similar forms of discomfort associated with dry eyes. This specialist formula contains Euphrasia to support natural eye whitening in the case of redness due to tiredness and irritation.
Whether you experience dry eyes all year round or just in the winter, the above tips can help you to make the discomfort more manageable so you can get back to enjoying this wonderful time of the year with your loved ones.
Resources
[1] – https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/dry-eyes/
[2] – https://lookafteryoureyes.org/eye-care/winter-eye-health/winter-eye-health-infographic/
