They say that the more you study, the better you will do in life. But that theory gets slammed by the results of a recent study by researchers from Bristol and Cardiff Universities. They have found out that studying for hours on end might be good for your test results but not so much for your personal health.
For the study, the vision of 68,000 British men and women was tested by Professor Jez Guggenheim and some of his coworkers at the School of Optometry and Vision. During this study, they discovered something really interesting. According to these researchers studying might have a huge impact on our eyesight. The study showed that people who had studied more suffered from short-sightedness more often than people who left school at the tender age of sixteen and didn’t go to college or university. The results proved that the longer a person goes to school the worse the eye problems get.
“Our study provides strong evidence that the length of time spent in education is a causal risk factor for myopia,” said Professor Guggenheim.
Short-sightedness (also known as myopia) has been one of the world’s biggest causes of the many visual disabilities that people have nowadays. It’s a big problem and more and more people (currently about 1.4 billion) suffer from it, as the rates are skyrocketing worldwide. At this pace, it’s expected that by 2050 half of the world’s population will be suffering from short-sightedness and nearly 10% of them will have extreme cases of myopia, which increases the chances of developing complete blindness.
So as much as you want to ace your test, keep in mind what the flipside of your straight A’s could mean. Make sure to take a break from those books regularly (preferably outdoors in natural light), to reduce the risks of becoming blind early in life.