Most people don’t think much about their eyes because they seem to work so effortlessly. However, there is a lot going on to keep them functioning properly. Here’s a look at some facts you may not have known.

1. Songs are written about them. True love is professed through them. Life
just wouldn’t be the same without them. Your eyes: they’ve been with you
since birth, helping you navigate your way through school, work and play.
They tend to be quite reliable, turning on the moment you open them in the
morning until you close them again at night. Perhaps that’s why they use
half of the brain to function. Here’s a look at some interesting facts you
may not have realized about your peepers.

2. Eyes are quite efficient at taking care of themselves, which is one reason you might
give them little thought. When properly cared for, they are one of the fastest healing
parts of your body. For example, it usually takes just 48 hours for the body to repair
a scratch on the cornea.
To protect them, you blink an average of 17 times per minute, or about 5.2 million
times a year. Although your eyes began to develop just two weeks after you were
conceived, newborns don’t shed tears until they are between four and 13 weeks old.
The tears you cry depend on why they are starting. The ones that form due to
emotion, such as sadness, carry more protein-based hormones than those produced
for cleaning your eye. As a result, emotional tears help clear your body of the
chemicals that form when you are unhappy or are experiencing stress. Basal tears
are those that coat your eyes to keep them moisturized. Irritant tears, which wash
out foreign substances, are similar to basal but they contain more healing
properties.
Believe it or not, your eyeballs are the same size today as they were when you were
just three months old. According to Cornell neurobiologist Howard C. Howland, the
width of the cornea is finished growing by that age, although the length may grow
another half inch or so. Why don’t they look huge on a baby, then? On an infant,
you see mostly iris and a little white, but as he or she grows you see more of the
actual eye.

3. Appreciate the baby blues, or browns, that you have. There are more than 1
million nerve fibers that connect the eye to the brain, and doctors have yet
to figure out how to reconstruct the connections to allow for a transplant.
Your eyes perform an amazing task every day, without your even thinking
about it. They can take care of themselves, providing you treat them well.
You can find out more about eye care in Chula Vista, visit this website
www.chulavistaelcajonoptometry.com