Does your mood affect your vision?

Can your vision change depending on your mood?

We’ve all heard of ‘seeing red’ when angry, or looking back on past memories ‘through rose-tinted glasses’. How much truth is actually there in those common sayings? Well, interestingly, studies show that your vision can be affected by your mood or mental state! It’s not so much that being angry will actually turn your visual field a shade of red, but more that the quality or sharpness of your vision can be impacted by certain scenarios or feelings. Read on to discover why...

Do you see better when you’re happy?

In a word, yes! This is great news if you find yourself regularly in a chirpy mood. A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience concluded that when people are in a good mood, they tend to take in more information about a photograph. The specific experiment in question showed participants images specially picked to make them feel good, bad or neutral. Afterwards, they were shown photos with a face as the central component, and surroundings visible in the background of the photo, such as a house. The better a mood the participants were in, the more information they absorbed about the photo’s surroundings. Participants who were in a bad mood were more likely to take in information about the face only.

Being grumpy, therefore, has been proven to potentially narrow your view and prevent you from seeing the world as clearly. However, the author of the study, Taylor Schmitz of the University of Toronto, raises valuable a point – taking in a wide range of information isn’t necessarily a positive when it comes to focusing on tasks which require narrow focus, such as operating dangerous machinery or airport screening of passenger baggage. In these scenarios, metaphorical tunnel vision is probably better as it allows you to focus on simply one thing.

How does being stressed impact your vision?

Stress is another emotion which can have huge effects on your sight, mostly because stress manifests itself so physically. Stress is your body’s natural response to any demand that disrupts its normal equilibrium. In terms of effects on your vision, stress can cause:

• Dry eyes
• Eye twitching or spasms (myokymia)
• Blurry vision
• Light sensitivity
• Floaters

Interestingly, your brain responds to stress by dilating your pupils. The evolutionary explanation for this is that it allows you to see any threats more clearly and therefore to respond to them quicker. Vision loss associated with causes that aren’t pathological or structural abnormalities is called conversion disorder. The name is derived from the fact that the emotion, usually anger, fear or stress, are ‘converted’ into vision loss. Professor John Sarno of the NYU School of Medicine theorised that the visual symptoms are ‘physical manifestations of repressed emotions’. Rather than face emotions we may struggle to handle, he believes that we would rather focus on obvious physical symptoms (such as a loss of vision).

Does feeling anxious affect your vision?

It’s estimated that almost 20% of the adult population have some form of anxiety disorder. There are different triggers and manifestations for different people, but it will usually affect your heart rate, breathing and vision. These symptoms evolved to help us tackle any dangers we feel threatened by, but the blurred vision that comes with anxiety might actually be counter-productive in that sense.

When you’re anxious, your body releases adrenaline, a hormone designed to prepare you to fight or flee. Adrenaline increases your heart rate, blood pressure, alertness and the speed with which you respond to threats. However, it can cause blurry vision or tunnel vision as a response to the anxiety. Research also shows that high anxiety levels tend to increase your risk of developing glaucoma and dry eye syndrome. This is likely to be due to added stress on your vascular system during times of high anxiety, which becomes a particular problem if it is experienced regularly over an extended period.

Other possible visual symptoms of anxiety can include:

• Sudden flashes of light
• Light sensitivity
• Eye strain
• Eye floaters

When is blurry vision a cause for concern?

As our moods are temporary, blurred vision that comes with stress or anxiety goes away as your stress levels return to more normal levels. It is usually nothing to worry about, even if it feels disconcerting in the moment. However, if you experience blurry vision accompanied by any of the following symptoms, it is unlikely to be related to your mood:

• Loss of muscle control
• Headache
• Loss of vision
• Slurred speech

In these cases, you should seek medical advice as soon as possible, as it could be a sign of something more serious, such as a stroke.