If you spend at least several hours a day looking at a computer screen, you may be suffering from eye fatigue. Symptoms of eye fatigue include:
- sore, tired , burning, itching eyes
- watery, dry eyes
- headache
You could have these symptoms for other reasons, and so you want to check with your medical doctor to rule out other causes. Nevertheless, given that a majority of people who work in front of computer monitor on a daily basis, scientist have studied an herb called bilberry to help reduce eye fatigue. In a 12 week study, a standardized bilberry extract was found to relieve eye fatigue. Eye fatigue occurs when the ciliary muscle is strained. The ciliary muscle is involved in adjusting the lens to allow it to focus. When one is staring at a computer , the ciliary muscle is under constant tension and eventually this results in the aforementioned eye fatigue symptoms. In an ideal world, the obvious solution to this eye fatigue is to reduce the time spent looking at computer screens or stop completely. However, this is not always possible. An herbal option such as taking bilberry may help. Anthocyanins, a type of antioxidant found in the bilberries, have a high affinity for the eyes. It is believed that these anthocyanin compounds can reduce the tension in the ciliary muscles and thus potentially contribute to reduce eye fatigue. So you might be asking what about blueberries? Yes, blueberries have anthocyanin compounds , but bilberries have 4 times the amount of anthocyanin compounds. Bilberries are also know as wild blueberries and are specific to Northern Europe. You can not grow them in USA. You can buy European bilberries, but they do cost approximately $13.00 per pound Your best best is to find a bilberry extract supplement.m
