When you are tired, chances are that your eyes are tired as well. This exhaustion does affect your sight and hinders your ability to carry out tasks that are usually second nature. Take note of this to keep you and your family safe!

Although fatigue itself may not have an effect on or harm your eyes, your tiredness may present potentially dangerous circumstances to you and your family because you will not be functioning optimally and through yawns and tears of exhaustion, you will not be able to see as you should.

In some cases this tiredness is not only physical exhaustion of your body but also eye fatigue, which has been characterized as a eye condition where one suffers from eye weakness, eye irritation, and poor accommodation. Other symptoms may include sensitivity to glare, poor depth perception, and other negative visual symptoms such as floaters. In addition to a host of others causes, it’s well been proven that if you spend a long time using a computer or watching television, your eyes can become tired and your vision blurred.

If you have a refractive error such as long sightedness or astigmatism, during the day you may be able to compensate for these, but when your eyes are tired, and you are tired, your vision can go blurry. In addition, if you have been around heaters and air conditioners all day your eyes may be very dry and sore and coupled with your physical exhaustion. You may also start see blurred images rather than the crisp and clear ones that you are used to.

Possibly the most dangerous task that being tired has an effect on is driving.

It’s been proven that a high percentage of car crashes, especially on high speed roads, are usually caused as a result of driver fatigue and the driver’s resulting inability to see as clearly as he should. Just remember, more than 90% of the information needed to drive comes from our eyes and so, the second our eyes are not operating at "full steam," our ability to drive safely is severely hindered.

There is absolutely no excuse for dozing off or letting your eyes rest while you’re in control in the driver’s seat. If you feel that you really need to relax your eyes, pull off into a gas station or onto the side of the road and allow your eyes to rest for a while. You can even get out and walk around a little bit - just to break the fatigue. You may also want to carry eye drops with you as these have also been proven to help clear up ones vision. You could also try to open the windows and turn up the volume of your radio. If you can, before embarking on your journey, have two cups of coffee - not decaffeinated, or have a 10-15 minute power nap. Both the latter are only temporary relief against tiredness but they may at least get you to your destination safely.

Eyes may also be rendered unsafe for driving if they are tired because of allergies, eyestrain, pink eye, excessive crying, pollution, exposure to bright light or glare, or eye strain. Do not drive if you are suffering from any of these listed symptoms or ailments.

Lastly, whether tired or not, you cannot drive if your eyes are not considered strong enough for the task.

Any driver who thinks their eyesight does not meet the legal requirements should be immediately off to their eye care practitioner for an eye examination. Should their eyeglasses prescription have changed, they should immediately order glasses that fit this new prescription and refrain from driving at all until their new glasses are available.