Tag Archives: eyesight

Yoga Exercises for Improving Eyesight

green eyeI have been a yoga practitioner for over twenty years and yoga practitioners attach special importance to eye exercises, for two reasons. Many eye problems in later life are due to a loss of tone in the eye muscles. These muscles become rigid, and this loss of elasticity reduces the ability of the lens of the eye to focus at different distances. It also causes the eyesight to become weaker. These exercises tone the eye muscles up and keep them elastic.

If you already have eye problems when you begin these exercises, you will find your eyesight improving after a few months. Any eye tension present will tend to produce a general feeling of tension, due to the eye’s connection to the brain via the optic nerve. What happens is that eye tension produces an increase in the nerve impulses in the eye muscles. This increase in nerve impulses travels along the optic nerve and bombards the brain, causing a general feeling of tension and anxiety. The eye exercises will reduce tension in the eye muscles, as well as reduce general tension.

Posture: When doing the eye exercises keep your eyes open and don’t move your head, unless the instructions say otherwise. Start by checking on your posture. Is your spine erect? Body relaxed? Head straight? That is how you should always remain while doing eye exercises. The whole body must be motionless; nothing must move except the eyes.

Up and down Raise your eyes and find a small point that you can see clearly without straining, without frowning, without becoming tense and, of course, without moving your head. While doing this exercise look at this point each time you raise your eyes. Next, lower your eyes to find a small point on the floor which you can see clearly when glancing down. Look at it each time you lower your eyes. Breathing should be normal. Move your eyes upwards as far as you can, and then downwards as far as you can. Repeat four more times. Blink quickly a few times 1 to relax the eye muscles.

Right and left Now do the same using points to your right and to your left, at eye level. Keep your raised fingers or two pencils on each side as guides and adjust them so that you can see them clearly when moving the eyes to the right and to the left, but without straining. Keeping the fingers at eye level, and moving only the eyes, look to the right at your chosen point, then to the left. Repeat four times. Blink several times, then close your eyes and rest.

On point Choose a point you can see from the right corner of your eyes when you raise them, and another that you can see from the left corner of your eyes when you lower them, half closing the lids. Check your posture: spine erect, head straight and motionless. Look at your chosen point in right corner up, then to the one in left corner down. Repeat four times. Blink several times. Close the eyes and rest. Now do the same exercise in reverse. That is, first look to the left corner up, then to the right corner down. Repeat four times. Blink several times. Close the eyes and rest.

Rolling This exercise should not be done until three or four days after you have begun eye exercises given here. Slowly roll your eyes first clockwise, then counterclockwise as follows: Lower your eyes and look at the floor, then slowly move the eyes to the left, higher and higher until you see the ceiling. Now continue circling to the right, lower and lower down, until you see the floor again. Do this slowly, making a full-vision circle. Blink, close your eyes and rest. Then repeat the same action counterclockwise. Do this five times then blink the eyes for at least five seconds. Tip: When rolling the eyes, make as large a circle as possible, so that you feet a little strain as you do the exercise. This stretches the eye muscles to the maximum extent, giving better results.

Changing vision This is a changing-vision exercise. While doing it you alternately shift your vision from close to distant points several times. Use your finger (or a pencil), and hold it under the tip of your nose. Then start moving it away, without raising it, until you have fixed it at the closest possible distance where you can see it clearly without any blur. Then raise your eyes a little, look straight into the distance and there find a small point which you can also see very clearly. Now look at the closer point-the pencil or your finger tip then shift to the farther point in the distance. Repeat several times, blink, close your eyes and squeeze them tight.

Contraction Close your eyes as tightly as you possibly can. Really squeeze the eyes, so the eye muscles contract. Hold this contraction for three seconds, and then let go quickly. Tip: This exercise causes a deep relaxation of the eye muscles, and is especially beneficial after the slight strain caused by the eye exercises. Blink the eyes a few times.

Palming Use your hands so that your palms cup your eyes. This technique to improve and strengthen vision is called palming. You don’t need to put any pressure on. Make it so that your eyes can blink if you want them to. Rub your hands together before you do this to help generate some energy and just let your hands warm your eyes. This really helps heal and nourish them, and takes out any tension in your eyes.

Related post found in this blog:Tips and exercises for improving eyesight

Tips and exercises for improving eyesight

In  April I received a priceless package.  In it were two pairs of eyeglasses which have improved my vision considerably.  I have been wearing one pair of glasses all of the time. The other is strictly for working in front of the computer. All was well until I took a fall and since then I have been preoccupied with my vision again, as well as other concussion symptoms.

I’ve been doing some research on eyesight and vision and I have been doing some eye exercises that I would like to share with readers.  First, I’d like to invite you to try these tests and puzzles to see how good your eyesight really is.

Can you see clearly? Try your eye at these puzzles and quizzes.

Which habits can harm your vision? Learn about them by taking this quiz.

Tips and Exercises for Improving Eyesight

Keep your home and office cool
Turn down the heat in your house and your office. Heat dries out the air, which, in turn, dries out your eyes. In the winter, you might also try adding some humidity with a humidifier or even bunching a lot of plants together in the room in which you spend the most time.

Monitor Your Monitor
Move your computer screen to just below eye level. Your eyes will close slightly when you’re staring at the computer, minimizing fluid evaporation and the risk of dry eye syndrome, says John Sheppard, M.D., who directs the ophthalmology residency program at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia.

Changing Focus, Room Lighting
When indoors you should remain aware of the need for frequent change of focus. While reading, look up from the page at regular intervals say at the end of each long paragraph or each page and, just for a second, consciously focus on some distant object. While viewing television or a computer monitor, keep a light on in the room and frequently look away from the screen, take a moment to focus hard, whether on an object nearer or farther away, then relax your eyes and return to your viewing.

Trace writing with your eyes
Always keep your eyes moving. Trace the edges of objects- run over lines with your eyes- vertical lines, horizontal lines, while blinking. This will bring out the image. Scan round the edges of your computer screen, this document- your ceiling. Do this all the time. Go out into nature and do this. This is like the magnetic lasso tool on adobe photoshop or a similar program- where you follow around the edges of objects. This will bring out the contrast and the brightness and help you to see well. This works especially well with writing. Do it with writing all the time!

Swinging
This is a very effective way to break the habit of staring. Rotate your body from left to right and back. Eyes, torso and head move together. Turning mostly around your waist. Don’t look at anything as you swing. Let your eyes go, let your consciousness stay in front of you while you turn.

Blinking and Breathing
Practice giving half a dozen rapid and very light blinks, shut the eyes lightly for the space of two whole breaths, and repeat four times. This little routine, practiced regularly, twice or more a day, will, especially if followed by a brief spell of palming (warm your palms and gently cup them over your closed eyes), will help to establish the correct tone in the muscles of the eyelids and develop better habits of blinking. No more than a few seconds should pass between one blink and the next. As a very rough guide, between two and four blinks in each period of ten seconds is about right.

Sunning
Remember you have to get outside once everyday in the nature to exercise and improve your eyesight. It’s important to keep your eyes moving all the time. Go for a walk and observe closely what’s going on around you. Then find a quiet place to sit.

Sunning consists simply of taking sunshine on the closed lids. Face the sun, eyes closed. Allow the warmth of the sun to penetrate deeply into your eyes and forehead. In a relaxed manner gently turn your head from side to side. Keep breathing. Feel the position of the sun. In this way the retina is accustomed to progressively brighter light, until the stage is reached where the eye can function efficiently over the entire range of normally encountered light intensities. The warmth of the sun and the therapeutic properties of its rays also have a profound and beneficial effect on the health of the eyes and on the ability to relax them.

Wear Sunglasses
Wear sunglasses whenever you leave the house. When researchers examined the relationship between exposure to sunlight and cataracts or ARMD in Chesapeake Bay fishermen, they found that fishermen who protected their eyes from the harsh glare of the sun and its damaging UV rays were significantly less likely to develop these conditions than those who went bare-eyed. Wear the sunglasses even when it’s not sunny out, because they protect your eyes from the drying effects of wind. Wear a broad-brimmed hat along with your sunglasses. A wide-brimmed hat or cap will block roughly 50 per cent of the UV radiation and reduce the UV radiation that may enter your eyes from above or around glasses.

Car Precautions
Aim your car vents at your feet—not your eyes. Dry, air-conditioned air will suck the moisture out of eyes like a sponge. Aim the vents in your car away from your eyes, or wear sunglasses as a shield. Dry eyes can be more than an inconvenience; serious dryness can lead to corneal abrasions and even blindness if left untreated.

Seeing in the dark
Your eyes actually use different cells to see in the dark than when its light. So you must learn to see two times, once in the day and once at night. If you want to improve your night vision, here’s a technique. At first you will only see lots of blurry lights. Here’s what you do. When the lights are on in a car, learn to see the dashboard properly and then you will be training your eyes to be able to see in the dark. For example trace around the numbers on the speedometer while blinking.

References:
Improve Your Eyesight: A Guide to the Bates Method for Better Eyesight without Glasses by Jonathan Barnes, Souvenir Press.
10 Tips to Improve Your Sight
Discussion question: Do you have any eyesight improvement tips to share?