Whether you only wear glasses for reading, just use contact lens to better see the whiteboard, or need your prescription eyewear to see two feet in front of you, forgetting your glasses or contacts at home is a huge bummer, especially when you have a big day of work or school ahead. Luckily though, with a little common sense, a few easy tricks, and an abundance of helpful mobile apps, getting through a low-sight day at the office isn’t nearly as hard as it could be. In fact, with the proper preparation, it can be positively easy. Below are five of the best ways to get through such a day.

Keep a Spare Set at Work

If you can afford it, it never hurts to keep a spare set of glasses or contact lens in your work desk, locker, or car. Many eyewear providers even offer discount deals if you buy more than one set of your prescription at a time. If you can’t afford to buy two high-quality pairs of glasses, then it’s never a bad idea to test out a few of those cheap-o reading glasses that they sell at drug stores. With a little luck, you’ll find a pair that will get you through the day when you’ve left your normal glasses on your bedside table.

 

Pick Up a Cheap Pair at the Drug Store

If you don’t have a spare pair at work, you can still always run down to a nearby drugstore and pick up a cheap pair of reading glasses. Though they’ll likely be of slightly lesser quality than your prescription pair, they will get the job done and help you throughout the day.

 

Try Out One of Several Mobile Apps

The tech explosion in the last few years isn’t all about fun and games â€" it’s also about helping people in their daily lives. No single technology does this better than the variety of mobile apps that are now available on iPhones, Androids, and other smartphones. Perform a quick search in your phone’s app store for something along the lines of “vision improvement,” “forgot my glasses,” or “low-vision apps” and you’re sure to be bombarded with results. A few of the best for those days when you forget or lose your glasses are iMagnify and VisionAssist. They both turn your phone into a high-powered magnifying glass that helps you read fine print and see tiny objects.

 

Make Use of Your Computer’s Vision-Impaired Settings

If you have a computer-heavy job that requires that you stare at a screen all day, spending a day without your glasses can have a real strain on your eyes. However, your computer is loaded with settings for the vision-impaired that you can utilize to your benefit. The most useful of these settings are the ones that increase the size of the text on your screen. In some cases, new computers even come preset with nifty zoom-in functions so seeing something up close is a snap.

 

Improve Your Vision at Home

There’s never anything wrong with taking preventive action at home. And apart from making sure that you remember your glasses, strengthening your vision is the best way to do this. Similar to the ones mentioned above, there are a variety of vision improvements apps available that can help you increase your vision and improve your eyesight. GlassesOff is one of the most progressive among these. It is a scientist-backed brain-training app that helps your brain learn to process blurry images.

Forgetting your glasses before a big day at work or school can seem like the end of the world. But by following the five easy tips discussed above, you’ll find that it really isn’t too hard to power through a day without your trusty prescription eyewear.

Jack Douglas is an app developer with a penchant for vision enhancement apps. He likes sharing his findings on various tech blogs. Learn about ordering prescription lenses online by visiting the Lenstore.

The British have long said, "Keep calm and carry on." But the catchphrase may need an update for health care.

Keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk

The British have long said, "Keep calm and carry on." But the catchphrase may need an update for health care.

Keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk

Restraint and unflappability are just about as British as Big Ben and English Breakfast.

But could that national "stiff upper lip" be keeping the British from getting proper cancer care?

A survey looking at why people in different countries avoid doctors finds that stoicism may be one reason why Britain's cancer survival rates lag behind its neighbors.

In the study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, researchers interviewed 19,079 people over age 50 in the U.K., Canada, Australia and the Scandinavian countries.

By far, the Brits were the most likely to cite embarrassment and not wanting to waste the doctor's time as reasons for not calling the doctor when cancer symptoms cropped up.

"There was such a big difference between the U.K. and other countries that it's very likely to be important," says Dr. Lindsay Forbes, a psychiatrist at King's College London, who led the study. "It's speculative, but it may be because the 'stiff upper lip' is distinctly ingrained in the culture."

Despite having a health care system that's just as good, the British are less likely to survive lung, breast or ovarian cancers than their Scandinavian neighbors â€" especially during the first year after a diagnosis.

Previous studies had hinted at this British reluctance to see a doctor when they suspect a problem. And Lindsey thought that the tendency to "keep calm and carry on" was at play.

So she and her team decided to probe the underlying attitudes in different cultures.

About one-third of the British interviewed admitted that concerns about wasting the doctor's time could cause them to delay visiting the doctor. In contrast, only about 10 percent of the Scandinavians, Australians and Canadians voiced such worries.

"This is an older population who really support the NHS [National Health Service], and they don't want to waste its time," Forbes says. "They think, 'The NHS should be helping young children or people other than me.' "

The British also were most likely to cite both potential embarrassment and fear about what the doctor might discover as reasons for delaying medical attention for serious symptoms.

Lindsey says a stiff upper lip "is not the whole story" behind why Britain's cancer survival rates are relatively low compared to those in other wealthy nations. "But we don't want to wait before we get the whole story before we start tackle this big problem," she tells Shots.

The government has already launched a campaign with posters and TV ads that encourage people to brush aside their stoicism and see a doctor.

Interestingly, the BBC ran a special series last October looking at the history of the British stiff upper lip. With footballers and tennis stars perennially crying on TV, the comedian Ian Hislop concluded that the phenomenon may be disappearing.

"I think that the younger generation may not have such a stiff lip," Forbes agrees. "But for the population most likely to get cancer, it doesn't seem to be going away."