It can start with a squint or adjusting an object in focus, but eventually most of us experience some form of vision problems as we age. Often, we assume this is just a normal part of aging, but these five bad habits can cause vision damage.

Not enough shut eye. Just as your body needs a certain amount of hours each night to recuperate, your eyes need rest every night as well. Lack of sleep can cause eyes to become swollen, dry, painful, inflamed and can even cause eye spasms throughout the day. To avoid chronic dry eye and other eye problems, be sure to give your eyes at least five hours of sleep to rest and replenish.

Too much screen time. A problem that can drastically affect your eye health is chronic dry eye. While you probably don't notice, focusing for a long time on a computer screen causes you to blink less which prevents proper lubrication of your eyes. This intense focus can also cause the muscles in your eye to become fatigued, which will lead to eye strain. To protect your eyes from screen fatigue, force yourself to blink more often, take breaks and practice eye exercises to keep eye muscles strong.

Poor eye hygiene. Proper hygiene is not only important to overall health, but to preventing eye disease as well. How many times a day do we rub or wipe something out of our eyes without washing our hands first? Probably more often than we will admit. Improper eye hygiene can not only lead to conjunctivitis, it can lead to severe infections that can result in blindness. To keep your eyes clean and bacteria free, be sure to wash your hands before touching your eyes or contacts, and make sure not to use expired contacts or contact solution.

Smoking. Most people know the damage that smoking can do to your lungs and heart, but little information is given about the damage it can cause to your vision. Smoking causes circulatory problems which can prevent your eyes from getting the appropriate level of oxygen. This can lead to conditions such as cataracts and retinal disease. To reduce your chances of eye disease (and overall health problems) it is important to quit smoking as soon as possible.

Too much sunshine. The damage sun can do to your skin is well known, but many people do not realize that UV rays can do significant damage to your eyes. UV rays cause cellular damage not only to your skin, but to your eyes as well. While your body will normally be able to repair some of this damage, eventually it will fail to keep up. Repeated UV exposure can cause damage to the surface structures of your eye and eventually cause retinal damage. To protect your eyes from sun damage, throw on some shades on those bright sunny days.

Protect your vision by avoiding these bad habits that cause vision damage, and start making your eye health a top priority.