Do You Need To Improve Your Night Vision?

by SonjaHelga on Thursday, October 11th, 2007 | Comments Off

I know this one for sure because I did the program and my night vision has improved tremendously

Feature: Why Does My Vision Get Worse at Night?

If you need a nightlight to find your way to the kitchen for a midnight snack, or have difficulty seeing while driving in the evening, you may be suffering from a condition known as night blindness.

People with night blindness see poorly in darkness or dim light but normally when adequate amounts of light are present. The condition is not the nighttime equivalent of true blindness-nonetheless, those who have it know how limiting its effects can be.

Seeing in the dark

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It is estimated that most individuals take about 20 minutes to see adequately in the dark. This time allows your eyes to adjust from the brightness of daylight or indoor lights. As the light dims, your pupils dilate (grow larger) to take in more light.

However, a dilated pupil reduces your ability to change your focus between near and far objects, so that, for instance, while driving you may be “blinded” by streetlights and oncoming headlights. Just as it takes a while for your eyes to adjust when you enter a dark room, it also takes time for your eyes to adjust when a headlight appears. If you focus on the headlights, your pupils will constrict to block out the light.

Then, once the headlights have passed, your eyes will take time to readjust to the dark, making it difficult to see the road. In heavy traffic, your pupils may never adjust, as your gaze must constantly alternate between light and dark.

Eye of the Tiger

Human beings are not like tigers, or housecats for that matter, whose eyes are superbly well adapted to seeing in the dark. One reason is that cats have more rods than cones in their retinas, unlike humans, making kitty night and motion vision superior. (Rods are the receptors that the eye uses for nighttime viewing and sudden movement. Cones are used
during the daytime and process color information.)

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You have already learned through the Rebuild Your Vision program that focusing up close is not natural to your eyes. As the human eye was not developed to spend all day focusing on computers, books, television, etc., doing so causes near-point stress, which contributes
to the weakening of your vision.

Similarly, human vision is naturally poorer at night, when our hunter-gatherer ancestors were, presumably, sleeping (and perhaps guarding against tiger attacks). This is why the military developed night-vision goggles and scopes for soldiers. That said, if you are having great difficulty seeing in the dark, you are most likely experiencing night blindness.

Causes of night blindness

One of the most common causes of night blindness is deterioration due to age. In the natural aging process, the eye lens becomes less clear and grows cloudy over time, making it difficult to see in dim light.

Another general cause is uncorrected myopia, or nearsightedness. Even with vision correction, nearsighted people may find their nearsightedness is exacerbated when their pupils dilate at night.

In some cases, night blindness is a symptom of a serious underlying condition, such as retinitis pigmentosa, which is inherited. This degenerative retinal disorder causes the retina’s rod cells-which, as we mentioned above, distinguish light from dark-to deteriorate and eventually stop functioning. Night blindness is often the first symptom of a cataract, as well. Early cataract development increases glare and decreases the amount of light reaching the back of the eye.

A feast for the eyes

Night blindness may also be caused by a Vitamin A deficiency. Supplements of that vitamin are often recommended for those with poor night vision, along with a diet emphasizing Vitamin A-rich foods, such as sweet potatoes, carrots, mangoes, spinach and cantaloupe.

Bilberry is also thought to improve night vision. A close relative of the blueberry, bilberry is high in a certain type of bioflavonoid that speeds the regeneration of rhodopsin, the purple pigment used by the eyes’ rods. British air force pilots in World War II ate bilberry jam to improve their night vision during evening sorties.