Choose your spectacles carefully!

Need to buy a pair of spectacles and are confused because of the many shapes, sizes, colours and materials available?
Here’s what you should look at so that you end up with a pair of glasses that enhance the quality of your vision, meet your individual prescription needs and complement your face.
Lenses
While most people choose the frames first, it is important to remember that lenses are critical in ensuring the quality of vision. If you choose the frames first you may end up with lenses that don’t fit right or miss out on features that enhance comfort and eye protection. Lens designs and lens enhancements to consider include:
• Single Vision, Bi-focal/Multi-focal or Progressive Lenses.
• High-Index Lenses.
• Polycarbonate Lenses.
• Trivex™ Lens Material.
• Anti-reflective (AR) Coatings.
• Photo chromic Lenses.
• Tinted Lenses.
• Polarized Lenses.

Lifestyle
It is important to let your doctor and optician know the kind of lifestyle you lead so that he can help you make the right choice. Working in front of the computer for long hours requires the eye to constantly focus on a short distance. This can cause a significant amount of eye strain and eye fatigue. The individual's vision, type of work, distance from the computer and lighting in the work area are important factors to consider while choosing the lenses.

If you spend lot of time outdoors, your eyes need UV protection just like your skin does. Plastic photochromic lenses that block 100 per cent of UV and provide protection from glare are a good bet. These lenses go from clear indoors to comfortably dark in the presence of UV light and they can be worn indoors as well as outdoors. If you are actively engaged in contact sport activities the lenses you choose would need to be strong and shatter proof so that minimal injury is caused to the eye.

Polycarbonate photochromic lenses are ideal as they are shatter proof and provide protection.
Buying prescription spectacles can be tricky today considering the overwhelming number of choices the market offers. Here’s some help protection from UV radiation and glare. Driving requires lenses that protect the wearer from glare. Polarized lenses offer protection from glare during the day but are not recommended for night driving. In this situation anti-reflective treatment on the lenses is highly effective in minimising the effects of glare from oncoming traffic. There are polarized photochromic lenses available in the market today, that are designed to address the task of driving during day time.
Frames
Depending on your prescription, certain type of frames may be more or less optimal. For example, if you have a strong ("high-minus") prescription, your lenses might look better in a smaller frame.