Our eyes should be clean at all times. Refrain from touching the eyes, as they can sometimes be extremely sensitive to the germs that are present on our fingers and hands.
Your eyelids and lashes protect your eyes from some bacteria, but touching or rubbing them can lead to infections like conjunctivitis (pink eye). The National Eye Institute recommends you always practice proper eye hygiene by washing your hands before you touch your eyes to insert contact lenses or apply makeup.
Studies have shown that continuous eye rubbing in susceptible individuals can also lead to thinning of the cornea,1 which is weakened and pushes forward to become more conical. This is known as keratoconus, and is a serious condition that can lead to distorted vision and possibly the future need for a corneal graft.
So why do eye doctors advise against rubbing your eyes? That's because rubbing your eyes poses a threat, especially now, as COVID-19 can be spread through the eyes' mucous membranes. Moreover, rubbing can potentially damage your eyes' structure and vision.
Rubbing your eyes with dirty hands can lead to infections, including pink eye and worse. While some of the risk can be mitigated by good hygiene, if you rub your eyes, you're always going to place yourself at a higher risk of eye infection no matter how carefully you wash your hands.
While the eyes are generally capable of cleaning themselves, a person may need to clean them manually in certain circumstances. If a chemical or foreign object gets in the eye, it is crucial to act fast and flush it out to prevent further damage. Usually, tears help clean the eyes every time a person blinks.
Every time you blink your eye, a tiny bit of tear fluid comes out of your upper eyelid. It helps wash away germs, dust, or other particles that don't belong in your eye. Tears also keep your eye from drying out. Then the fluid drains out of your eye by going into the lacrimal duct (this is also called the tear duct).
Pressing down on the eyeball can stimulate the vagus nerve, which slows down your heart rate and relieves stress by triggering your oculocardiac reflex. Despite the benefits associated with an occasional gentle ocular massage, rubbing your eyes can potentially do more harm than good.
Rubbing stimulates the eyes' lacrimal glands, which creates lubrication and gives some relief. And there's more than just the feeling of an itch vanquished, pressure on the eyes actually stimulates the vagus nerve. That reflex slows down your heart rate and can take you from tired to downright snoozing.
When fully light-adapted, the human eye features a wavelength response from around 400 to 700 nanometers, with a peak sensitivity at 555 nanometers (in the green region of the visible light spectrum).
A person with total blindness won't be able to see anything. But a person with low vision may be able to see not only light, but colors and shapes too. However, they may have trouble reading street signs, recognizing faces, or matching colors to each other. If you have low vision, your vision may be unclear or hazy.
Closing your eyes to the value of sleep
Resting with your eyes closed can calm your mind and help your muscles to relax. Your blood pressure drops and your heart rate slows. Resting can also: reduce stress.
Can you squish your eyeball? The eye is somewhat malleable and can conform to a certain amount of “squishing,” but It can be bruised, get corneal abrasions and even lose vitreous fluid leading to collapse. Blunt or even sharp trauma to the eye can be very debilitating oftentimes requiring emergency treatment.
Pinheiro et al. (1995) studied the anterior chamber of the eye and found rupture pressures for unoperated human eyes to be 1.27 ± 0.06 MPa.
Retinal detachment can present with symptoms such as seeing flashes, floaters, or a blacking out of the vision, but other times it can go undetected until it's too late. Rubbing the eye causes unnecessary trauma to the globe, which can rupture the attachment of the retina to the back of the eye.
I recommend not picking your eye boogers, but using a wet, warm washcloth to get rid of them. Simply hold the warm washcloth to your eye to soften the mucus and gently wipe it away. Be sure to wash your hands afterward to avoid spreading an infection.
Everyone produces the mucus that causes eye boogers. This is normal in healthy eyes. However, some changes in lifestyle or eye health may cause the eyes to produce excess mucus. These changes can also make it more likely that the rheum sticks to the eyes.
The saline level of your tears helps to keep your eyes healthy. Washing your eyes with water irritates the ocular surface and can damage the lens cells of your eye. Splashing tap water in your eye puts you at risk of developing a severe eye infection, due to the contaminants that we've already covered.
The trouble with tap water
Because tap water's pH and osmotic pressure (isotonicity) is incompatible with that of the eye, flushing with it can disrupt the eye's protective epithelial layer and cause further damage to the already injured eye.
Put simply, eyewash is a sterile liquid that is pH balanced to the eye's tear fluid, meaning it has optimal soothing power. These products are specifically formulated to be kind to the eyes, so they are a much less harsh option than simply using water.
The object (or particles) will always stay in the front part of the eye. Some parents worry that it can get lost behind the eyeball. This will not happen. The space beyond the eyelids goes back ¼ inch (6 mm) and then stops.
Our eyes are also incredibly durable. In fact, they're one of the fastest healing body parts. With adequate care, a corneal scratch can heal in a period of as little as two days.
You should be able to get your eye back in place without serious, long-term damage. (If the ocular muscles tear or if the optic nerve is severed, your outlook won't be as clear.)
Massaging your eyes, eyebrows & temples is a simple yet excellent exercise to get rid of eye stress. This exercise is proven to reduce eye strain by increasing the blood flow to these areas. The light pressure felt during these exercises increases moistness in the eyes, which provide relief to our tired eyes.
Most people can't focus on anything as close as a face at kissing distance so closing your eyes saves them from looking at a distracting blur or the strain of trying to focus. Kissing can also make us feel vulnerable or self-conscious and closing your eyes is a way of making yourself more relaxed.