Stressed? Check Your Vision

Want another reason to fear stress.   It could make you go blind.

Really.

A new study has found that psychological stress can cause vision loss.

Persistent psychological stress, which is widely recognized as a consequence of vision loss, is also a major contributor to its development and progression, according to newswise.com. 

"There is clear evidence of a psychosomatic component to vision loss, as stress is an important cause − not just a consequence − of progressive vision loss resulting from diseases such as glaucoma, optic neuropathy, diabetic retinopathy, and age-related macular degeneration," says Prof. Bernhard Sabel, PhD, director of the Institute of Medical Psychology at Magdeburg University, Germany, lead investigator of the study. 

The study is based on a comprehensive analysis of hundreds of published research and clinical reports on the relationship of stress and ophthalmologic diseases. 

“Continuous stress and elevated cortisol levels negatively impact the eye and brain due to autonomic nervous system (sympathetic) imbalance and vascular deregulation,” Prof. Sabel explains, emphasizing that both the eye and the brain are involved in vision loss, a fact that is often overlooked by treating physicians and is not systematically documented in the medical literature.

He notes that of the relatively few scientific reports in the field of psychosomatic ophthalmology available, even fewer explore the relationship of stress, vision loss, and vision restoration. This is rather surprising given that many patients suspect that mental stress had contributed to their vision loss.

“The behavior and words of the treating physician can have far-reaching consequences for the prognosis of vision loss. Many patients are told that the prognosis is poor and that they should be prepared to become blind one day. Even when this is far from certainty and full blindness almost never occurs, the ensuing fear and anxiety are a neurological and psychological double-burden with physiological consequences that often worsen the disease condition,” adds Dr. Muneeb Faiq, PhD, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, and Department of Ophthalmology, NYU Langone Health, New York University School of Medicine, USA, and a co-investigator on the study. Increased intraocular pressure, endothelial dysfunction (Flammer syndrome), and inflammation are some of the consequences of stress causing further damage.

But here's the really good news.

Prof. Sabel has pioneered a holistic treatment approach that combines stress management, patient education, and vision recovery and restoration techniques at the SAVIR-Center for Vision Restoration in Germany.

Adjunct therapies like brain stimulation, relaxation response, vision restoration, anxiety management, and social support counteract stress and induce a relaxation response by rebalancing the autonomic system of reducing sympathetic and activating parasympathetic activity. They have been used successfully in tandem with therapies to increase blood flow to the eye, thereby opening the window of opportunity for vision restoration.

The investigators believe this holistic approach can be used more widely in the clinical management of eye diseases. They advise that stress reduction and relaxation techniques such as meditation, autogenic training, stress management training, and psychotherapy (to learn to cope) can help, possibly even as preventive measures to reduce progression of vision loss.