Cornwall Living Best Of 2014

Health

NIGHT BLINDNESS

é ABOVE Regular eye tests will help keep your eyes healthy while the available brands will keep you on trend

When the nights draw in and we retune our bodyclock, night driving becomes a regular feature. Stay safe in the poor light.

N

ight driving: you either handle it okay or struggle. If you’re firmly in the ‘struggle’ camp, it is probably partly to do with the level of visibility you have while you are driving. Those full beams glaring in your rear-view mirror aren’t helping either.

If you find it especially difficult to see clearly while night driving, or find the experience tiring on the eyes, you might need glasses, even if your eyesight is perfectly fine during the day.

The Reverend Dr Nevil Maskelyne, the fifth English Astronomer Royal in 1797, first discovered the condition when he had problems when viewing the stars. He had to correct his sight with glasses, but only at night. Then the condition was brought to light again during the Second World War. The phenomenon became a problem for lookouts who had trouble visually detecting points of light out to sea or in the night sky.

And now, Night Myopia could be hindering

At low light levels, people with otherwise perfect vision during the day, can find themselves temporarily myopic"

our driving capability and making you potentially unsafe on the roads.

A significant part of the Night Myopia problem is down to the nature of the visual stimulus and the environment around it, hence why you may experience this only at night.

Myopia is known to many of us as shortsightedness (the difficulty in seeing distant objects). At low light levels, people with otherwise perfect vision during the day can find themselves temporarily myopic. As the light levels are lower at night, your pupils enlarge and this can accentuate any existing small errors you have in focusing.

The best way to ensure that you are safe on the roads as daylight saving hours creep in is to get your eyes tested to make sure that you aren’t one of the few who are affected by low light levels.

Keeping bright-eyed

Being able to see well at night is a must, so here are a few things you can do to make sure you can see the road ahead as well as possible: • Have regular eye tests • Keep a spare pair of glasses in the car • Don’t use tinted lenses but do use an anti-reflection coat on your glasses • Keep your windscreen clean, both inside and out

REID AND GORDON OPTICIANS

22 Lemon Street, Truro TR1 2LS 01872 275225 jim@reidandgordon.co.uk www.reidandgordon.co.uk Find out more online: www.cornwall-living.co.uk

words by:

Joanne Stinton CORNWALL LIVING 17