Written by Marko,
Aging does a lot of not-so-great things to your body, and one of them is the decline of hand-eye coordination.
This, much like everything else, happens slowly. It’s not like you’ll wake up one day and not be able to catch your keys. You probably won’t even notice it’s happening, especially at first. But sooner or later, you’ll find yourself taking a little pause before you pour your coffee.
You’ll type a little slower, regardless of how fast you could do it for most of your life.
This isn’t something to get depressed about. It’s normal, and it happens to everyone.
But that doesn’t mean you need to sit back and let it happen. Loss of hand-eye coordination is something that happens across more than one system in your body, and it actually starts earlier than you think. The silver lining is that you can interrupt this chain.
If you practice and train this ability, it’ll behave like a muscle when you exercise.
Why Hand-Eye Coordination Changes Over Time
Hand-eye coordination sounds like something relatively simple, doesn’t it?
But actually, it’s one of the more complicated things in the human body.
There’s a lot more to it than just seeing clearly or having your hands be steady. This kind of coordination is what happens when several of the systems in your body ‘talk’ to each other, and if any part of that chain slows down even for a little bit, the whole thing doesn’t work as well as it should, and you’ll notice it. And when you know that it all happens in a matter of milliseconds, it gets even more impressive.
What happens when you reach for a glass on the counter? Think about it a bit. First, your eyes have to see where the glass is, including how far away from you it sits. That information then travels to your brain, where it gets interpreted. The brain then figures out what angle and force you need to reach it.
Once it has that figured out, it sends signals down to your arm and hand, which tells them when to fire and how hard to squeeze.
At the same time, your joints and tendons are sending the feedback back up to the brain about where your hand is, which is why you’re able to adjust your movements as you reach for that glass. In the end, the sensory receptors on your fingertips make the final tweaks the moment they make contact with the glass.
This all happens before you can even blink, and every single step needs a different part of your body to work PERFECTLY. Imagine. All this just to grab a glass.
As you age, every part of this system changes a little.
The nerves can’t send the signals as fast as they used to, and the eyes can’t detect contrast and judge the depth as accurately. The time you need to react prolongs for just a fraction of a second, but that fraction is enough for you to notice that something isn’t quite right.
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Muscles get less flexible and weaker, and cognitive processing (the part that happens in the brain) also takes a little longer to do its job.
The interesting thing about all this is that this doesn’t happen on some sort of set schedule for everyone. You could have 2 people of the exact same age who have completely different coordination abilities. It might just be luck up to some point, but for the most part, this difference comes down to lifestyle.
If you stay physically active and pay attention to your health in general, you’ll probably have better coordination than someone whose idea of exercise is watching football on TV. To be clear, you don’t have to punish yourself at the gym every day in order to stay active enough.
A recreational sport such as padel or pickleball will do the trick, and all you need for it are good shoes and a standard Bread & Butter paddle to level up your game.
| Weaker muscles and reduced flexibility in older humans are directly linked to reduced hand-eye coordination. – National Institute of Aging |
But any sport that forces you to activate all your muscles and is very intensive, and requires constant high focus, will do the trick. The thing to remember is that your body adapts to what you ask of it on a regular basis, which means that a lot of these changes related to aging aren’t inevitable.
But if you don’t use your ‘system’ enough, then they’re a lot more likely to happen.
Everyday Habits That Can Speed Up or Slow Down the Decline of Coordination
You could say that a (small) part of how your coordination changes with time has to do with genetics or even luck, but the way you live your life every day impacts it a lot more.
Physical Activity Keeps Neural Pathways Active
You know how a muscle atrophies when you don’t use it?
Well, if it atrophies enough, your body will literally resorb it. But if you exercise, your muscles stay strong, and so do your neural pathways.
Exercise keeps them active; it reinforces the actual lines of communication between the brain and the muscles and makes sure those signals stay fast and clear.
| Daily physical activity benefits neuroplasticity, which helps maintain motor coordination and neural communication pathways. – National Institutes of Health |
When you exercise, your brain works out, too. It constantly sends and receives information about your position, force, and timing. That keeps neural pathways on track. But if you lead a sedentary life, well… You can imagine how things go.
The exact opposite happens, and you don’t want that.
If you sit for too long and don’t move around, those connections get weaker because they’re not being used. Kind of like how a path in the woods gets covered with grass when nobody walks on it.
Any kind of activity will do. Sports, dancing, walking, as long as you’re moving. The most important thing is to be consistent because neural pathways need regular use to stay active.
Vision Is More Important Than Most People Realize
Nobody thinks about vision being something they could train, but in the sense of being a component in the hand-eye coordination, it absolutely is. If the data coming from vision is blurry or incomplete, every other step in the system suffers.
Vision is how the brain gets information on distance, speed, and position, which is how you’re able to make precise movements.
So, what to do about this? The first step is to get your eyes checked regularly, especially as you start to age.
What most people don’t realize here is that changes in prescriptions or early signs of some conditions (e.g., cataracts) could show up years before they’re able to notice that something’s wrong. Environment is a factor here, too.
Having good lighting means that your eyes don’t have to strain too much, plus it becomes easier to judge distance and depth.
Sleep, Stress, and Mental Fatigue Affect How Quickly You React to Speed
If you’re tired or stressed, the brain can’t work as well. That’s a huge problem for coordination because it needs the brain to perform perfectly.
Not getting enough quality sleep is an issue that affects a lot in your body, including your attention span and how quickly you’re able to react. If you’re tired, you might feel clumsy, and that’s not something you’re imagining. It comes from actual neurological delays. Chronic stress works pretty much the same.
| Sleep deprivation impairs cognitive and motor performance in humans. – National Institutes of Health |
It keeps the brain on alert at all times, which messes up focus and fine motor control.
Basically, your brain can’t do everything at once.
So, if it’s occupied with worry or tension, it doesn’t have enough resources for the calculations that precise movements need or for concentration. You can probably notice that your coordination is worse at the end of the day. That’s normal because your brain has gone through a whole day of cognitive load, and now it’s low on energy.
This is why quality sleep is so important.
Eating Well and Drinking Enough Water Helps the Brain Function Efficiently
What you eat and drink affects how well your brain is able to process information and send signals to your body. Even if you’re mildly dehydrated, your cognitive performance will go down a little. In other words, your brain will need more time to figure out the information coming from vision and then coordinate your response to it.
Drink water all throughout the day and remember that being thirsty isn’t a ‘reminder’ to drink water but a sign of dehydration.
| Mild to severe dehydration negatively affects motor and cognitive skills/performance. – National Institutes of Health |
Also, be careful with what you eat. Junk food is okay here and there as a treat, but your nervous system needs a steady supply of nutrients like B vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids, proteins, etc. Your diet should include vegetables, fruits, lean proteins, and healthy fats.
Supplements can help, but they’re not a way for you to cheat on your diet.
Conclusion
Hand-eye coordination isn’t like a bulb that gets dimmer and dimmer until it goes out and there’s nothing to do about that.
You have a say in this. Yes, your vision will change, reaction times get longer, yadda yadda. But you still have some control over how fast that happens.
As you can see, the advice on how to stay healthy and sharp is pretty boring and basic. You’ve heard it a million times – eat well, drink your water, get enough sleep, and exercise regularly. But the reason why you keep hearing it over and over is that it works.
In fact, these are the only things that truly work when it comes to being healthy and keeping your hand-eye coordination on point.
Author Bio
Marko is an adamant and eager content writer with a decade of experience in various niches, with healthcare being one of them. With his way of implementing storytelling, comparisons, and examples into hard-to-grasp topics, Marko’s able to make complex things sound interesting and relatable – key ingredients to make something understandable. As a hobby, Marko enjoys offroading, board games, and spending time with his family and his dog Cezar.
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