How to best way to protect your eyes from ultraviolet (UV) rays damage from the sun

Ultraviolet Rays from the sun can cause damage to many eye tissues including eyelids, conjunctiva, cornea, lens and retina. It is important to protect your eyes from UV rays at all ages. Most UV damage in eyes occur before age 18 but adults should also be diligent about UV protection.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. 

   Wear 100% UV sunglasses outdoors, even on overcast days. UV rays are still in the atmosphere on cloudy days. Choose sunglasses with big eye size or curved to wrap around your eyes that do an adequate job of covering and shielding your eyes and eyelid skin from UV rays from all angles.

2. 

   Try to wear hats with a brim which will block additional UV rays from the atmosphere.

3. 

   Be sure your regular prescription glasses have a 100% UV coating even if not tinted/dark lenses. Actual UV coating is clear, not dark. It would be the same coating put on tinted/dark sunglasses. The "tinting" or dark color is just for light sensitivity not UV.

4. UV protection for eyes is crucial on reflective surfaces like water, glacier and snow. UV rays reflected off of these surfaces significantly increase exposure to UV. If you are on snow covered mountains, sailing, fishing, mountain glaciers be sure to wear UV protection for your eyes.

Tips & Warnings

• Some of the UV damage that can occur to the eye are pre-mature wrinkles on eyelids, inflammation on the white of the eye, inflammation on cornea, UV induced cataract and damage to retina.
• Fair skinned and light eye colored (blue, hazel, green) people are more susceptible to UV damage than darker pigmented people with brown eyes.