Millions of Americans have vision impairment or blindness, with many needing corrective eyewear or procedures to help them deal with it. Eye problems typically affect adults or seniors, but anyone can have vision conditions regardless of age.

Infants and children can experience vision loss or have eye diseases that can affect their lives. As such, it’s crucial that every member of the family gets proper eye care to ensure the health of parents and kids, preventing further complications and finding the best treatments. Here’s why eye care is essential for families and how to encourage it at home:

The Importance Of Eye Care For Family

Checking for genetic eye issues

Eye conditions are caused by various factors, many of which are out of one’s control. However, some causes of blindness and other issues are genetic. This may affect them from birth or make them more likely to develop eye diseases later in life.

Some hereditary problems that cause blindness are age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, and cataracts. Proper eye care for the whole family can help identify genes that may affect your family’s vision.

This care can help you take preventative measures or prepare for possible blindness and vision impairment for future generations. It allows parents and children to understand their eye issues and makes it less overwhelming.

Building better habits

Parents with vision impairment issues play an essential role in modeling good habits for their children who also struggle with vision problems. Young children pay close attention to how you wear or handle glasses, what you spend time looking at, or how you ensure your eyes are taken care of. Children may not want to wear their glasses or visit an eye doctor if they notice their parents don’t do the same. When the whole family is involved in building better eye care habits, it’s easier for children to follow and practice good behavior when parents or older siblings, and relatives model it.

Improved family life

Daily life is challenging when you or other family members have unaddressed or untreated vision problems. It affects how parents perform at work or how kids perform in school and can cause stress in your home life. When the family gets the eye care they need, they can find the proper vision correction methods or lifestyle changes required to improve sight and maintain eye health. Getting vision issues addressed can lift a burden on every member, making it easier to go about life with the assurance that your eyes are in better shape.

How To Promote And Maintain Family Eye Health

Finding deals and discounts

Getting everyone’s eyes checked regularly and buying the necessary protective eyewear doesn’t come cheap, especially when the whole family is involved. However, there are many ways to cut costs, mainly by finding the best deals and discounts. When buying prescription glasses, online retailers offer many payment options; you can purchase eyewear using most vision insurance plans, both in and out-of-network. Buy now, pay later plans are also an option, allowing you to convert your purchase into smaller payments. It’s also easier to check for promos and sales when shopping online, and you can get great frames and lens coatings for less. Deals and discounts can make a big difference in the price of family eye care.

Model good behavior

As mentioned above, exhibiting proper eye care habits at home can ensure everyone, even younger children, can follow along. If your kids are hesitant about wearing glasses, parents can wear their own pairs to show them how it can benefit them and improve their vision. Healthy habits such as eating a balanced diet also improve eye health, and parents should be the first to model it. Too much screen time is also a critical part of eye care, as too much of it affects the eyes and causes gadget drain that affects vision and sleep due to the blue light. Parents can enforce rules on gadget usage, but should also practice what they preach and put their own phones or computers away when their children do so.

Get eye exams regularly

Even if someone in the family doesn’t need vision correction, eye exams are still important for eye care and overall health. Children should get their eyes checked every two years or annually if they need vision correction, and parents should visit the eye doctor anywhere from one to five years, depending on age and vision issues. Eye exams can be costly, but your health insurance can cover them. There are also many programs for children and babies to receive free eye exams and glasses, and they typically visit schools or libraries for easy access.

For more tips for whole-life health, check out more posts and resources from Lifestyle to help you live your best life!

Article written by Sophia Emma

Exclusively for Lifestyle Magazine

The post Why Eye Care is Essential for Families appeared first on Lifestyle.

The mind-body connection is real and strong…very strong. 

How you feel in your body physically affects your mind. And what you think and imagine affects how you feel physically and emotionally.

We are physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual creatures; everything is interconnected.

How we move and interact with our surroundings affects how we feel, think, behave, and believe. 

The mind-body connection starts early in life. 

The earlier young children become mobile and reach cognitive milestones, the faster they develop and maintain their mental health. And it continues as we age. 

Physical activity in adults slows cognitive decline and promotes healthy aging. A fit body promotes a healthy mind, and a healthy mind promotes a fit body. 

Exercise and regular physical activity keep the body fit and stimulate the mind.

The Mind-Body Connection

The mind-body connection is the relationship between the body and the mind.

This connection is powerful; so powerful, in fact, that your body may experience a physical response, like nausea, crying, or a stress-induced headache if you think about a particular thing.

How Does The Mind-Body Connection Work?

The four primary parts of the brain that directly affect the mind-body connection are: 

The emotional cortex, which is responsible for dealing with your emotions.

The hippocampus, which deals with how you consolidate your memories. 

The prefrontal cortex, also known as the brain’s command center, which is responsible for long-term planning, strategizing, and deciding what to do.

Finally, the amygdala; it controls the fight-or-flight response. The brain activates this response mechanism when the body feels threatened, resulting in large releases of the stress hormone cortisol.

In times of danger or trauma, this hormone signals your lungs and heart to make you breathe faster and flood your muscles with adrenaline, helping you escape danger or fight your way to safety.

Each physical symptom you experience is also something you feel emotionally, and vice versa. 

So, for example, if you sprain your ankle, the physical pain can also be accompanied by a sense of anger, sadness, or loss.

On the other hand, if you experience a panic attack, the emotional pain can be accompanied by tightness in the chest, nausea, and achiness.

What Are The Benefits Of The Mind-Body Connection?

The Dalai Lama XIV once said, “If the mind is tranquil and occupied with positive thoughts, the body will not easily fall prey to disease.”

Science supports the mind-body relationship. Turns out so many of our emotions and thoughts are in constant communication. 

Everything from the immune, endocrine, and peripheral nervous systems, many of our organs, and all our emotional responses share common chemicals that go back and forth.

Here’s why the mind-body connection is so important, and how we can use it to improve our overall well-being and lifestyle.

Boost Attentiveness

Awareness of the mind-body connection makes us pay more attention to our thoughts and emotions, allowing us to use this connection to our advantage.

For instance, if you’re not doing well emotionally, your body will give off specific cues. If you’re in tune with them, you’ll know exactly how to react before you become overwhelmed.

One of the best ways to harness this power is by being mindful of your thought patterns and how you talk to yourself. 

Train yourself to be aware of when negative thoughts come into your mind and what triggers the negative self-talk.

Knowing this lets you stop them before they escalate and get out of hand. You can manage emotions more healthily, minimizing their physical toll on you physically. 

Learn to Release Emotions

It’s easier to cope with and release negative feelings if you know what provokes certain thoughts that, as a result, trigger certain negative emotions. 

Try finding activities that affect your mind and body, like learning various breathing techniques, positive visualizations, prayer, meditating, and gentle stretching, among other things.

As a result, you learn what your body is feeling and find potent ways to calm your mind, which is extremely helpful if you’re prone to stress, anxiety, or depression.

Negative emotions aren’t necessarily bad, although their effects on your body and emotions can be harmful because the positive side to negative emotions is they’re a warning that something needs to be addressed.

Create Healthy Habits

Learning to deal with difficult emotions puts you in charge of your thought patterns, boosting your overall well-being.

You will be more aware of your life and better understand what you need to address. You’ll also know what triggers you and why, so you won’t turn to drinking, drugs, or binge eating to cope emotionally when having a tough day or in a “bad” mood.

Instead, you will tend to engage in various physical activities to release negative feelings and pent-up emotions or avoid certain situations and people altogether. 

You’ll find yourself taking better care of yourself, eating and sleeping better, drinking more water, and being more consistent because you have a greater appreciation for your happiness and well-being. 

You can begin harnessing the positive, life-changing power of the mind-body connection by consciously forming healthy habits and living a balanced whole-person lifestyle emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually, thereby unlocking your best life!  

The post Connecting The Mind And Body For Greater Health & Happiness appeared first on Lifestyle.

The post COPD Special appeared first on Lifestyle.

The post Kicking the Habit of Being Average with John & Holly Carney appeared first on Lifestyle.

The post From Heart Transplant to Broken Miracle with Paul Cardall appeared first on Lifestyle.

The post Putting The Cerebral Back In Palsy – Special appeared first on Lifestyle.

The post Donna Mills – Special appeared first on Lifestyle.

The post Longevity & Laughter with Jamie Farr appeared first on Lifestyle.

The post Socially Fit with Kit Hoover appeared first on Lifestyle.

The post Work Out With Obi appeared first on Lifestyle.