25 Fascinating Eye Facts for National Eye Exam Month

This month marks the 25th anniversary of National Eye Exam Month. Begun in 1989 by Sears Optical, the month serves as a yearly reminder to schedule your eye exam. Vision deterioration takes place on a long-term scale, so it’s difficult to notice when your eyesight changes on just a day-to-day basis. Whether you wear glasses, contacts, have received LASIK, or have perfect vision, you owe it to yourself to schedule your exam once a year. Most eye-related disorders, when detected early, are entirely reversible.

To celebrate anniversary of the holiday, take a look below at 25 fascinating eye facts.

1. The average blink lasts 1/10th of a second.
2. The average person blinks 12 times a minute.
3. Babies are famous for their crying, but don’t produce tears until 4-13 weeks old.
4. 80% of eye problems worldwide are either avoidable or curable.
5. Over 95% of all animals on the planet have some type of even the most simple eye.
6. Eye color changes depending upon light conditions refracting through it.
7. Every eye contains over 107 million cells that are all light sensitive.
8. If you wear glasses that flip your vision upside down, your brain realizes and corrects your vision.
9. You blink more often when you’re talking than when you’re reading.
10. Over 99% of adults between 43 and 50 need reading glasses.
11. The eye’s lens is quicker than any camera’s.
12. Diabetes is often first detected during an eye exam.
13. Your eyes don’t see anything, your brain does. Your brain translates the light into images.
14. Every human eye has a small blind spot.
15. Eyes heal quickly. It takes less than 48 hours for the eye to heal its own corneal scratch.
16. The world’s most common eye color is brown. The least common is blue.
17. Eyelashes have an average lifespan of five months.
18. A shark cornea is used in cornea replacement surgery when another human’s isn’t available. It’s most similar in the animal kingdom.
19. The cornea is the only tissue in the human body that doesn’t contain blood vessels.
20. Reading in dim lighting doesn’t hurt your eyes, but may tire them quickly.
21. A fingerprint has 40 unique characteristics. An iris has 256.
22. An owl can see a moving mouse over 150 feet away.
23. Research has found that a tie tied too tightly can increase the prevalence of glaucoma in men.
24. In the average lifespan, an eye will see over 24 million unique images.
25. Only 1/6 of the human eye is exposed.

This National Eye Exam Month, schedule your LASIK consultation and get rid of your glasses and contacts for good!