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Do Your Blinking Exercises

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Did you know you can do blinking exercises to help prevent dry eyes? Yes, even your eyelids need exercising!

Your eyelid glands are crucial to keeping your eyes well-lubricated with the proper tear film. Keeping them fit and healthy means working them regularly and properly to avoid them drying out.

Why Are Blinking Exercises Important?

Think of your muscles. When you don’t use them, they atrophy or stop being able to perform at peak performance. Similarly, if you don’t work your glands regularly, they atrophy and dry up. They stop producing the healthy tear film that keeps your eyes happy.

Doing blinking exercises are especially important if you work at a computer all day or spend a lot of time starting at any digital device. This is because we blink not just less, but also less completely when working on a digital device.

What Is a Complete Blink?

A complete, or proper, blink is one in which the upper eyelid meets the lower eyelid. This physical connection is what causes the glands to be “squeezed” and the tear film released. Incomplete blinking may temporarily relieve the eye from dryness, but fails to nourish the eye. Over time, this can cause redness, dryness, itchiness, and ultimately gland dysfunction and Dry Eye Disease.

Lucky for us, blinking exercises are simple to perform and can be performed anywhere at anytime. We recommend the 20-20-20 rule.

20-20-20 Rule for Blinking

When you’re at your device, take a break every 20 minutes.

Gaze 20 feet in front of you, beyond your device.

Perform the blinking exercises below for 20 seconds.

Our Favorite Blinking Exercises

To help “flex” the muscles and glands that play a role in giving us a healthy tear film, we need to work our glands and muscles. We use the simple phrase:

Close – Pause – Pause – Squeeze – Open – Relax

Watch the video of us doing our blinking exercises!

Make Blinking a Habit

It’s important to remember that thereOther times that you may decrease your blink rate include driving, reading, watching TV, working at your desk, or any concentrated visual task.
If you are having difficulty consciously incorporating the blinking exercises into your daily schedule, there are a few things you can do:

  • You can set a timer on your phone for ever 20 minutes, especially when working on your computer
  • You can pair it with another daily routine such brushing your teeth, answering phone calls, commuting, sending emails, drinking sips of water, getting dressed, etc.
  • You can have a blink accountability partner! That means you hold each there accountable to take these blinking breaks just like you may have a workout buddy to keep you accountable to go to the gym.

If you have kids, this can be a fun and healthy game and one that builds a life-long practice of taking care of their eyes and preventing Dry Eye Disease from forming prematurely.

And just like that we can make healthy blinking a habit!

If you are suffering from dry eyes and dry eye diseaseget in touch. We’d love to help you and your family find a solution that works best for you.

Written by Dr. Watson

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Watson Dry Eye Center is located in Raleigh, right on the corner of Forest Pines Drive and Common Oaks Drive. There’s lots of parking available right in the lot right in front of our practice.        

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    11081 Forest Pines Dr.
  • Raleigh, NC 27614

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Our teenagers are spending more time every day on their screens. Dry eye symptoms can be exacerbated by excessive screen time which is becoming increasingly common among teenagers and young adults.

Your teen doesn’t have to struggle with dry eye symptoms. At Watson Dry Eye Center, we have an incredible team that specializes in dry eye treatment and management.

Their education and social life are the center of their world and dependent on clear, comfortable vision. Allow them to focus on it with dry eye treatment.  

Get ahead of dry eye by booking an appointment with our team.

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Blepharitis is a common eye condition in which the eyelids become inflamed, causing discomfort and irritation. It can have a variety of causes, including infections, blocked meibomian glands, and sensitivity to eye makeup. If you’ve been diagnosed with blepharitis or know someone who has, you might be wondering whether it’s contagious and what steps you […]

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Many people wake up with eyes that feel dry, gritty, or irritated. As dry eyes linger through the day, they can interfere with tasks and vision health. Enter IPL treatment, a promising solution for persistent dry eyes. Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) treatment for dry eye is a non-invasive procedure that uses bursts of light to […]

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A man rubs his uncomfortable, dry eyes as he wakes up in bed.

Dry eye syndrome doesn’t take a break when you close your eyes for the night—it’s a persistent condition that affects people around the clock, regardless of the time of day. If you’ve ever found yourself waking up in the middle of the night or the morning with dry, irritated eyes, you’re certainly not alone in […]

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