The Role of Sleep in Eye Health: The Importance of Good Sleep

Why Sleep is Essential for Healthy Eyes

Like any other muscle in our body, sleep is essential for eye muscles to rest and recover. A lack of sleep can cause short-term vision issues and contribute to more long-term eye problems like myopia (shortsightedness) or glaucoma.

Sleep deprivation can impact both brain and eye function, causing symptoms like dry or itchy eyes, blurred vision, eye spasms, and dark undereye circles.

During sleep, the eyes are flushed of toxins and replenished with essential nutrients to maintain their function. They also receive a continuous flow of oxygen, helping to repair and renew cells. Bad sleep quality can disrupt this natural process and increase the risk of developing dry or strained eyes.

What’s more, a bad night's sleep can also decrease tear production and aggravate symptoms of dry eyes. Tear production is essential to healthy eyes, as it provides necessary lubrication.

A lack of sleep also weakens the muscles around the eyes. This can impact the ability to focus and maintain steady eye movement.

Common Eye Problems Related to Poor Sleep

There’s a link between a lack of sleep and eye problems like eye strain and blurred vision. Let’s explore some of the most common ones below.

Heavy and Tired Eyes

There are a few reasons why your eyes might feel tired after waking up - one of the leading causes being screen use and a lack of blinking, causing the eyes to suffer from digital eye strain.

A lack of sleep can also be to blame for this. If your eye muscles don’t get enough time to recover, you’ll likely wake up with heavy or tired-feeling eyes.

Blurry Vision

Sleep-deprived eyes can cause blurriness. After a bad night's sleep, you could experience eye spasms and a greater sensitivity to light, which can disturb visual acuity and cause blurred vision.

Eye Strain and Fatigue

Sleep loss can weaken the ocular muscles, impacting the ability to focus and maintain steady eye movement. When these muscles become fatigued, they can cause headaches and strained eyesight.

Morning Eye Issues: Waking Up Foggy Vision

Do you sometimes wake up with blurred vision? There are a few reasons why you may experience this, including:

A lack of sleep - Sleep deprivation can cause your eyes to strain and become itchy, dry, and sore, all of which can cause foggy vision.

Sleeping with your eyes open - Also known as ‘nocturnal lagophthalmos’, not being able to fully close your eyelids can impact your sleep and contribute to blurred vision.

Refractive errors - Myopia, hyperopia, or astigmatism are vision problems that can cause blurred vision after waking up.

Dry eyes - Blurry vision can be a result of dry eyes. Symptoms of dry eyes can worsen with sleep loss.

Sleeping with contact lenses in - Sleeping with your contact lenses increases your risk of developing an eye infection and blurred vision.

Allergies - Allergies can cause blurry vision when the eyes swell or tear up as a result of an allergic reaction.

Eye conditions - Conditions such as glaucoma, cataracts, Fuchs dystrophy, and keratoconus can all cause blurry vision upon waking up.

How to Relieve Tired Eyes Naturally

Wondering how to relieve tired burning eyes? Or perhaps you’re looking for a remedy for eye pain due to a lack of sleep? Try these tips:

• Apply a warm washcloth on your eyes to relieve symptoms of tired, achy eyes. A warm compress can add moisture, ease pain, increase blood flow and relax muscle spasms.
• Dim room lighting and screens to reduce symptoms of digital eye strain. It may also help to wear blue light glasses when using a screen.
• Improve the air quality of your bedroom to improve sleep and add moisture to the air and eyes.
• Use eye drops to keep your eyes lubricated and reduce the symptoms of dry, fatigued eyes.

The Connection Between Sleep Deprivation and Eye Appearance

A lack of sleep can have an impact on the physical appearance of the eyes. For example, you can develop dark undereye circles - a common physical attribute associated with sleep deprivation. Plus, sleep-deprived eyes can also cause your eyelids to spasm or droop.

There is also a link between bloodshot eyes and sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation can cause the blood vessels in the eyes to overfill, resulting in redness or ‘bloodshot’ eyes.

How to Improve Sleep Quality for Better Eye Health

There are a couple of ways you can try to improve your quality of sleep, including:

• Create a sleep-friendly environment - Make your room as dark, cool and quiet as possible. If you can, keep the room temperature between 16°C and 18°C.
• Avoid electronic devices - Don’t use electronic devices such as a cellphone, laptop or TV before bedtime.
• Have a bedtime routine - Create a calming routine to get you ready for bed each evening. This could include taking a warm bath, meditating or reading.
• Avoid consuming sugar, caffeine or nicotine - These are stimulants that can contribute to disrupted sleep.
• Eat healthy - Try incorporating foods such as milk, chicken, turkey and pumpkin seeds as they contain the chemicals tryptophan and serotonin, which produce the sleep hormone melatonin.
• Exercise regularly - Exercise is good for your health generally but also helps tire you out naturally. Try to avoid exercising at least 2 hours before bedtime though.

Sleep Disorders That Impact Eye Health

There are a number of sleep disorders that can impact eye health.

Sleep apnea is a condition where an individual involuntarily stops breathing during sleep. People with sleep apnea experience extended pauses in breath while they sleep, which impacts the body's supply of oxygen and disrupts overall sleep quality.

People with chronic sleep apnea are also at a higher risk of developing glaucoma. This is because the decrease in oxygen levels can cause optic nerve damage.

Insomnia is when you experience regular problems with your sleep. Those with insomnia find it difficult to sleep, wake up several times during the night, and often still feel tired after waking up.

Insomnia can exacerbate the symptoms of dry eyes, which if not treated properly can cause more long-term eye problems.

Prioritising Sleep is Essential for Healthy Eyes

Good rest is important to maintain vision and comfortable eyes. If you’re having trouble sleeping, get in touch with a medical professional as soon as possible.

Alternatively, if you think you may be suffering from some kind of vision problem, don’t hesitate to book a free, 30-minute consultation with our ophthalmologist to find out more.