Eye reactions to different programs of the psyche, and what you need to know in everyday life

The eye is controlled by the brain through a system of nerves. What happens in the lower levels of our psyche (reflexively) determines how the eye will move. But signals can come from different layers with different priorities: for example, when you sit at a computer, there are three priorities: “close monitoring mode” (from a biological point of view, you hunt, and you can't blink), “normal eye moisturizing mode” and “ visual field cleaning mode. "

The main program of the psyche is hunting. Therefore, when you focus at one distance from the eye, a very ancient mechanism is activated, ensuring the continuity of the visual flow. It is more important than moisturizing the eyes, so the eye dries - but on a hunt it is uncritical. When it becomes uncomfortable, the vision deteriorates, and the “reflex reflex” triggers, that is, another part of the brain sends a command to flash, so that it does not get worse.

Thus, you blink for a different reason, not like in ordinary life - and this happens much less often.
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Below I want to talk about quite common, but not always obvious things for my patients. And also about where the various recommendations come from. I am an oculist, today I will try to talk about innervation of the eye and tear replacement. In the research direction, we work with eyes in intensive care, with severe systemic diseases of the body (including children), plus I just take it as a doctor.

The normal blink rate is about once every 3-4 seconds. These are natural movements, you do not even notice them. These movements smear the tear on the eye, and thus make its surface more smooth and protected. If you do not blink for a long time, or if you blink with a dry eye only according to the reflex of discomfort - “clearing the field of view”, then even this can happen:

Epithelial filaments on the anterior surface of the cornea, characteristic of "filamentous" keratitis.

These vertical stripes in the photo are traces of corneal epithelium damage in CVD. The free end of such a filament is displaced along the cornea during blinking and irritates the eye, which is accompanied by photophobia, tearing, and a desire to close the eyes, as a rule, without marked inflammatory changes. On the site of the loose threads, erosive areas of the cornea are formed. The result can be disastrous both in terms of the patient's perspectives (if a complicated operation is not performed, there will always be blurred vision), and in terms of finding the causes of such damage. In fact, this is a severe or terminal stage of CVD, which means a serious pathology somewhere else in the body. But this is a rare case, usually, of course, we are talking about discomfort, burning in the eyes or tears in the corners of the eyes after 6-8 hours of work at the computer.

Actually, to bring down the hunting mode, and you need to get up from the computer. Theoretically, systems with two screens at different distances can help, progressive lenses of different types (so that the focal length is constantly changing), plus there are Japanese glasses that gradually darken and brighten when they blink - they allow you to start the reflex of forced blinking by shading the visual field more often. But they did not receive wide distribution, and even samples for research were not received by us. In general, it is better to get up. My recommendation is to go and take a couple of sips of water at least. Make such a habit, and it will be much easier for the eyes.

The same hunting mode is included in the drivers.

Another very old reflex is tears from stress. Everything is very interesting here. In a non-standard situation, an animal turns on one of two systems of reflexes - the “hit or run” reaction (this is the official name) or the “hide and think” reaction (this is unofficial). The first one releases hormones like adrenaline and norepinephrine into the bloodstream, briefly increases muscle tone, redirects the bloodstream to maintain the motor system, briefly increases the immune response - all in order to fight and win or escape, and then survive after bites or anything else happens. Redness under stress is part of this complex. The second set of reactions implies minimization of activity and redirection of priorities to sensory systems, to the brain to think about a situation (if it is sufficiently developed in a species), and so on. Endurance increases, the blood flow is often removed from the outer parts. When we fade under stress - this is it. They say that some Roman commander selected evil reddening fighters for the first line, and those who turn pale, who needed to hold out for the remainder of the battle, after they killed each other in the first rows, put them behind them.

After these complexes of reactions there will be time to cry. This is the very reaction to stress that protects the eyes. Our ancestors, after any bad situation, had to protect the main organs. The eyes are an important organ (80% of the information about the environment we get from it), and although they are duplicated, losing even 1 of them is not very profitable. It was more profitable to have a small body, increasing their protection. This is a tear gland, where a reserve of fluid is produced for basic protection - abundant washing of the eye. As a rule, it is a universal response to a variety of damage in the wild. If he didn't help, then little else would help.

We have this reaction remained. And iron too. There is a frequent myth - it’s about the fact that maybe it’s worth laying a bow next to it. Like, peeling and crying is useful. No, even with severe dystrophy, such moisture will not help much. The fact is that a tear accumulates in the tear gland by the body for this type of reaction. The normal tear film is secreted by other glands (mainly meibomian). It is used to lubricate the eyes and create a protective and optical layer. Here is a colleague tells more. That is, crying and the usual moisturizing of the eye are different things. That is why the test of tear products without anesthetic is far from always indicative: we do not know how much the patient has isolated because of the pain in the eye from the dough strip and how much fluid came from other glands.

The third important thing is to adapt to discomfort. Our body is flexibly adjusted to the environmental conditions. If you develop sensitivity to pain during the hand-to-hand training session (“fill in” the main zones), physiological changes will occur in terms of muscle gain or skin build-up, and the brain will learn how to filter the pain signal, reducing its value from these nerves. The same thing happens with the eyes.

In practice, this means that if you often wear contact lenses, sensitivity is lost both on the nervous network (less data comes from the eye) and on filtration in the brain (less importance is given to discomfort). The result - you can wear grains of sand in the eye or not feel something falling into the eye, and so on. Blocking the pain signal (the internal information system of the body) rarely leads to something good.

The second consequence: if you are on tear replacement therapy and often use drops, the body can reorganize and begin to produce less of its tears. Because she is already taken from somewhere. The threshold is somewhere at the level of 20 applications per day for two months (research was not conducted, this is my accumulated data without detailed verification). At 6–7 applications per day, they almost certainly do not react.

At the same time, if you are constantly in a humid environment (for example, a humidifier is working), no such adaptation processes will start, and the production of tears will not decrease. But if you are in the dry (air conditioner or fan heater in the room, chemical laboratory, chemical production, car, plane, not your native dry region) - in a few months you will get used to the discomfort.

That is why, after several years of work at the computer, my eyes hurt less. It is not they who stop hurting, but the value of the signal is underestimated. Remember your first days - and consider that the eyes give information in the same way, it is just filtered. I can not recommend you as a doctor a medical device without examination, but some of my patients did the following: they took Blefarogel 1 and applied it on the eyelids for several days according to the instructions. If it became easier, they understood that something must be done with their eyes further.

Clear symptoms that you need to go to a normal oculist (better not to the district clinic, they often even have no contrast for the tear film tests — not that level of funding) —this is dry eye, or burning in the eyes, or tears at the end of the working day in corners of the eyes (even once). Blushing eyes once - immediately ran to the doctor. It accumulates and does not end very well. My patients often make the mistake of going to the pharmacy to complain. A good pharmacist asks a couple of questions and gives a tear replacement or moisturizing drops - this does not solve the problem, but removes the symptoms, and natural regeneration processes that can "stretch out" the beginning CVG (dry eye syndrome) are turned on. More often, they give a vasoconstrictor to remove redness — it is used only for cosmetic purposes, and the result is only aggravated. The correct strategy is to clean the ducts of the meibomian glands (anti-inflammatory and moisturizing), but this has to be resolved with the doctor. Because the reason is usually not in the eyes, but somewhere in the psyche or background diseases. Another frequent reason is a significant change in hormonal levels (applies to women at a certain age and adolescents aged 14–15).

Well, the last thing I would like to tell you today is about operations and resuscitation. The human eye when the loss of consciousness "turns off", that is, the nervous control signal disappears. When we sleep, we, of course, do not blink, but a tear is created, and the eye moves widely, so that it smears well enough. But when we lose consciousness, this does not happen. This applies to anesthesia - for surgeries of more than two hours, it is recommended to apply gel or wet eye patches. This concerns resuscitation - there patients stay for a long time with their eyes half open, just with their eyes open or with their eyes closed, but drying. With injuries to the eye or brain, everything is much more complicated there, and a very good moisture system is needed. The same applies to medical coma and a number of other conditions.

Everything that I have said above is very approximate, and the mechanisms are in fact much more complicated. If you are interested in understanding how the eye works, I can tell you a lot about innervation and control, plus continue with completely everyday things like the influence of carpets on your eyesight and various underestimated everyday hazards to the eyes.