Do Sunglasses Protect Your Eyes? How to Keep Your Vision Safe

Keeping your eyes protected from the sun’s harmful UV rays is crucial to your long-term eye and vision health. Sunglasses don’t just make it comfortable to see in bright environments, they actively protect your eyes from a huge range of common threats. This article outlines how the sun can damage your eyes, why it’s important to keep them protected, and how you can do so with regular annual eye exams and healthy habits.

Why Eye Health Should Be a Priority

Our eyesight is often considered our primary sense, so we must look after our long-term vision health. There are lots of things in the modern world that can damage our eyes, such as:

• UV radiation from sunlight
• Blue light from screens such as phones, TVs, and monitors
• Natural aging
• Lifestyle, health, and occupation hazards, including:
  • Smoking
  • Alcohol
  • Poor diet
  • Diabetes
  • High blood pressure
  • Stress
  • Exposure to dust, dirt, and debris

Fortunately, there are plenty of things we can do to help minimize the effects of these factors, including eating well, getting plenty of exercise, and having yearly eye exams.

However, by far the easiest is to wear sunglasses every day. We’ve written about Why People Wear Sunglasses before, but eye protection is one of the main reasons.

Do Sunglasses Protect Your Eyes? The Role of UV Protection

UV rays can harm your eyes in many ways, leading to a range of short- and long-term conditions, such as:

Wearing sunglasses is one of the best ways to protect your eyes from harmful UV rays, even in the winter and on cloudy days. In cities, UV rays can reflect off of concrete, windows, buildings and even grass, so full coverage is essential.

Not all lenses are created equal, and cheap sunglasses lenses may still let through the sun’s harmful rays. Make sure yours have a UV400 rating for full protection. You might also see some lenses that are polarized, which can be slightly different. But what are polarized lenses?

Polarized lenses are designed to block horizontal light and reduce glare from surfaces like snow, water and roads, whereas UV protection helps prevent eye damage.

So you might be asking, do polarized sunglasses protect your eyes? The answer is mostly yes. Almost all modern polarized lenses also have UV400 protection and are among the best protective sunglasses you can buy for most situations.

Choosing the Best Sunglasses for Eye Protection

When you’re looking for the best sunglasses for eye protection, there are several features you need to consider. As we’ve already discussed, any sunglasses you choose need to offer 100% UVA and UVB protection, so look for lenses that are UV400 certified. Our UV Protection Sunglasses Guide explains it in more detail, but remember, just because they have dark lenses, it doesn’t necessarily mean that sunglasses offer full UV protection!

But what about the polarized vs non-polarized decision? As long as they have UV400 certification, both will protect your eyes from UV, but polarized lenses are a great choice if you spend a lot of time driving, in snowy environments, near beaches or rivers, or just want maximum glare reduction. For everyday use, non-polarized lenses are perfectly fine to protect your eyes.

Whichever lens type you decide on, make sure the lenses themselves are made from polycarbonate with scratch-resistant coatings. These are the best sunglasses for eye protection as they’re shatterproof and durable enough for all-day or active wear, and they can be put in bags and pockets, etc., without getting damaged.

It’s even more important to wear protective sunglasses every day if you have sensitive eyes, have had laser eye surgery, or spend a lot of time outdoors. UV rays can still harm your eyes on cloudy days - and the damage builds up over time.

The Importance of an Annual Eye Exam

Wearing good UV protection sunglasses every day is essential, but it may not be enough to fully protect your eyes. This is where a yearly eye exam or test comes in, even if your vision is 20/20.

The importance of an eye check-up can’t be overstated. Even if you don’t need glasses, various eye problems and damage can happen in the background, and catching them early gives you the best chance of avoiding long-term issues.

Cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, corneal damage, and various eye cancers can be detected before you notice them. An annual eye exam can also detect the early signs of other conditions such as diabetes, tumors, MS, hypertension, thyroid eye disease, and many more.

Even if you wear sunglasses every day and have perfect vision, that doesn’t always mean your eyes are completely healthy. Everybody should get regular eye exams, especially if any of the following apply:

When to Replace Your Sunglass Lenses for Maximum Protection

Unfortunately, sunglasses and lenses don’t last forever - even with perfect care. Eventually, you’ll need to replace them to ensure they offer the best levels of eye protection. If your lenses are scratched, cloudy, the coating is peeling off, or they were of low-quality to begin with, replacing them is both simple and affordable.

If the frames themselves are still in good condition, replacement lenses will bring new life to them. We stock a wide range of new lenses with full UV protection for all major brands, including Ray-Ban, Oakley, Maui Jim, and many more.

Shop today and make sure your eyes are fully protected.