Our eyes are among the most important organs of our body; without the eye we will never be able to see the colors and beauty of the things around us. It helps us see things and helps us on our way when we´re walking, driving, etc. As it helps us go through our everyday activities, we should take care of our eyes. Proper eye care is needed to maintain the health of our eye as visual level depends on the condition of the eye. And because we are using our eyes everyday until we sleep, they sometimes went through a lot of strains and stress which if not properly attended to may result to eye diseases like glaucoma. Eye exercises are among the most advisable proper care measures for tired and strained eyes; this too is the cheaper preventive measure for your eyes get your eyes checked in Singapore.
Since our eyes always went through strains from working, either at the office, at home or at factories and farms; we should consider the value of eye exercises as a great help. Like body exercises, eye exercises help us maintain a healthy profile; only, we are doing it for our eyes. And in this modern period, where information technology is prevailing, we tend to use much of our eyes. The eyes takes a lot of beating when we tend to read, stare at computer monitors and other work that needs near-point reading or staring; hence, our eyes needs eye exercises and some times of rest. And if you´re planning to use your eyes longer, be sure to take care of them and have some eye exercises done than merely watching TV and sitting in front of computers after work.
At present, there are lots of eye exercises established and being advised by most eye doctors to improve eyesight. Taking “eye breaks” is an eye exercises you can do even at work. When you feel eye strains or stress, look into the distance and focus on many different targets. There is also 20-20 rule which involves relaxing your eyes for 20 seconds after every 20 minutes of working. This is particularly beneficial for people whose job required them to working on computers or laptops everyday for prolonged hours.
3D images viewing is another eye exercises you can do both at work and at home. Just look for sites on the internet that offers parallel 3D viewing. How does 3D viewing help you? This eye exercises helps relax the muscles of the eyes just like staring at the distance. It is an eye exercise too that is in a form of aerobic and calisthenics for the intraocular eye muscles; and can help your eyes have an increased dynamic flexibility of the visual system.
Following is a complete eyes exercise program to strengthen & naturally improve your eyesight. It takes approx 10 to 20 minutes only, to perform without any equipment whatsoever. You can do it anywhere and any time. You have to do it once per day at least.
Exercise 1: Pretend the tip of your nose is a pencil. Close your eyes and start to draw an imaginary “8” that is lying on its side. Let your eyes move or roll in their sockets when you draw the imaginary number eight. Relax and do this exercise for 5 minutes. This exercise serves as a warm up for other eye exercises and helps to relax the eyes.Exercise 2: Keep your head as still as possible, but move your eyes up and down 6 times (up and down counts as one time), using the least amount of effort as possible. This is another relaxation exercise, and the 6 movements should be repeated 3 times with a pause in between each set of 6 movements.
Exercise 3: Again, keeping your head still and relaxed, move your eyes sideways this time. Move them from side to side with the least amount of effort as possible. This exercise is a repeat of the previous exercise of moving your eyes up and down; 6 movements of left to right each, repeated 3 times, with a quick pause in between each set of 6 repetitions.
Exercise 4: Roll your eyes gently in a circular clockwise direction, and then roll them anti-clockwise next. Do this with the least amount of effort or strain, and repeat the process for a total of 4-6 times. For example, clockwise, anti-clockwise, clockwise, anti-clockwise, clockwise, anti-clockwise, for a total of 6 rolls. Rest a moment, and repeat this eye rolling for another 2 times for a total of 3 sets.
Exercise 5: This is one of the most popular eye exercises, even known among many members of the public, and perhaps you might have known a variation of this exercise too. Hold up your index finger in front of your eyes at about arms length and then draw it towards your eyes, keeping your focus on your fingerprints until it is so close that your index finger starts to blur. Now adjust the distance of your index finger to a distance of just prior to it blurring. This should be about 4-8 inches from your eyes, in most cases of myopia.
Now, look away from your finger to any distant object about 10 or more feet away, like a painting or a doorknob. Return your gaze to your index finger held in front of you, and repeat this for 10 times, with a pause of a few seconds, and continuing again the set of 10 for another 3 times. Do this exercise fairly rapidly and as frequently as possible, daily. This exercise helps your eyes to adjust and focus at different distances.
A variation of this exercise which can be combined with the one above is to move your index finger towards your eyes as close as possible, to the point it becomes completely blurred, all the while keeping your sight on it, and then slowly moving it away from your eyes until it is too far way to be seen clearly and becomes blurred as well.
Aside from these, there are still many eye exercises and techniques to naturally improve eyesight. The See Clearly Method, for example, includes several eye exercises that helps maintain your eyes´ fitness. This method includes eye exercises like “clock rotation’, “tromboning’, scanning chart exercise and the acupressure exercise. The “clock rotation’ eye exercises are one of the new visual habits encouraged by See Clearly Method. In these eye exercises, you tend to imagine a giant clock and move your eyes from the center of the hour positions and back again. This eye exercises help improve control of the extraocular muscles. This too stimulates the flow of the nutrients around the eyeballs. Tromboning, on the other hand, are eye exercises that needs you to hold a small object at arm´s length and move the object in to touch the tip of your nose. After that, you have to exhale and move the object back out.
Another eye exercise to improve vision of the See Clearly Method is the Scanning Chart exercise, where you position the chart just into your blur zone then makes you jump from dot to dot; you will need music or exercise video for this. The acupressure is an eye exercises that needs you to apply firm pressure to specific points surrounding the eyeball. You have to then press for a second and then release. This eye exercises is a massage procedure for the muscles surrounding your eye. Other simple eye exercises that you can do at work or at home, when you feel that your eyes is a little tired or strained is looking at greens. You may look at trees and plants, green places like lawns, mountains, or green objects. This will give rest and relaxing effect on your tired eyes.
Note: Like almost every single natural and traditional method, See Clearly Method too got lots of negative press and opinions from professionals. The creators of the method even have to shut down their program after a lawsuit. But you must know that this program was developed by optometrists, psychologist and a nuclear chemist. Of course the See Clear Method is not a replacement of eye surgery or glasses as it takes time to see the results and you cannot improve eyesight in a week with it, whereas with the glasses or surgery you can see the results almost immediately. However, in theory, all the exercises mentioned in the method was indeed focused on the root cause of vision issues. But again you don’t have to buy anything. You can get almost all the exercises mentioned in the program on internet for free now.
Useful Tips to Aid & Strengthen Your Eyes – How To Make Your Eyesight Better
There are many other things you can do to help improve your vision or strengthen your eyes. Adopting a holistic approach to tackling eyesight issues is the best recourse, because all parts of the body are related to each other. When you realize this, it’s not that hard to understand why for instance, changing your diet and nutrition is crucial towards improving your eyesight.
Looking at greenery is one of the seemingly unorthodox methods out there, but it may help to calm down your disposition, albeit in a subconscious way. The wavelength of green light seems to have certain healing properties, and it may be beneficial to take some time out amongst natural greenery whenever possible. Green symbolizes health, healing, and balance in alternative healing circles.
Sunlight also has natural healing powers which can be helpful for regaining your powers of vision. One exercise you can perform is to gaze at the sun with your eyes closed. Gaze at the sun with closed eyes and move your head from side to side to make sure all parts of the eyes get equal exposure to the sunlight. Practice this several times a day if possible, 5-10 minutes each time, and you should find your eyes strengthening.
Just don’t forget to keep your eyes closed, and not to wear glasses when doing this. As a side note, sungazing is practiced by certain people (who are convinced that sunlight has a lot of benefits), and you can find more info on sungazing if you look it up.
Reflexology is also beneficial to blood circulation and may benefit the eyes. Poor blood circulation to the eyes is an important contributory factor behind eye problems like myopia. Reflexology helps to stimulate blood circulation to any particular organ by stimulating the zone that corresponds to the organ located in the hands and feet.
Another thing you can do to tone up your eyes is to run them under cold water. You can do this whenever your eyes feel tired. Splash cold water onto your eyes or open a tap and let the water run over them, while keeping them closed, of course. Do this for a few minutes, several times a day. The cold water acts to reinvigorate your eyes.
Palming The Eyes – The Most Talked About Eye Exercise to Improve Vision
How to correct eyesight naturally is sought through many methods. One popular method is palming of the eyes.It is recommended by practitioners of natural vision improvement. It is also one of the core methods espoused by the Bates Method. This is a simple and easy to do procedure that involves cupping your eyes with your hands and letting them rest for a while, several times a day. I also do it if my eyes feel tired, and it really works.
The principle behind this is that palming relaxes the eyes and eases eyestrain. Another big reason that is not stated because it falls under pseudo science (but if you do that is great), is that there is a strong emanation of energy from our hands that if directed upon the eyes, exerts a healing effect.
Regarding the emanations from the hands, Kirlian photography[1] has always shown that all living things emit an electromagnetic aura which is the “life force” of the living thing in question. So in humans, palming is one good way to immerse the eyes in your own energy field and provide them with an energy boost.
Palming the eyes can be done by simply covering both eyes with both hands; the left hand covering the left eye and the right hand covering the right eye. You can do this in any position, either sitting down or lying in bed. The important thing when doing this, is you’re comfortable and not straining anything. Make sure both your eyes are completely covered but do not press on them, and leave your nose free.
You can listen to relaxing music or binaural beats[2] while doing palming. The key is to be as relaxed as possible. Palming should ideally be done 10-30 minutes a day, several times a day or whenever you feel your eyes tiring. You will find palming helps to rejuvenate your eyes whenever they feel strained, and if practiced for a significant period of time (along with incorporating all the other eye improvement methods) may well result in measurable improvements to your myopia.
There are other popular methods for how to correct eyesight. For example you may try gazing out at the horizon several times per day to be effective. Not only is the sight of a landscape in the distance aesthetically pleasing, it also relaxes the eyes and increases one’s range of focus.
Imagination and visualization may also play a very important part in vision, because when we see something, it is actually our mind interpreting the imagery for us. Is it easier to pick out something in the distance when we know for sure what it is? Obviously, the answer is yes. Therefore, daily visualization exercises should be able to do a lot of good for our vision, because it trains the brain and eyes to synchronize like they should, again.
A simple exercise which can be carried out frequently is to read a book without wearing glasses and combining visualization into the process. Look at a sentence on a page in the book at the maximum distance you are able to accommodate, without squinting or straining.
Remember not to wear any glasses when doing this. Look at a word from a sentence and concentrate on it. Then close your eyes and imagine th word getting sharper and sharper while the rest of the other words get really blur. Then open your eyes and look at the word, close your eyes and then repeat the visualization process. Do this for at least 5 minutes, and you will soon find the word is indeed getting sharper and clearer than the other words.
Visualizing like this improves your central fixation and focusing. Spectacles only serve to make the central portion of the retina work, and over time, weaken the central area of the retina, but this exercise serves to strengthen that part again.
This exercise can definitely be combined with proper reading of a book, for a few hours a day. During your reading, remember to blink frequently, and lift your gaze to look at a distant object and then back to the page. Reading and visualizing, if carried out properly, are some of the best exercises for improving your vision.
Diet for Healthy Vision – Foods That Help Eyesight
Good vision and good health go hand in hand. People who are of a weak disposition often have weak eyesight as well. As we know, good health is largely a result of diet. In a few cases, just a change of diet has resulted in significant improvements to vision defects like myopia. So knowing that, what can we can follow to ensure we have a diet for healthy vision?
Raw, organic food is best. Raw foodists have very good reasons to trumpet the health benefits of raw food; raw food has been cited as a possible answer to the various ills that beset humanity, ranging from cancer to diabetes, to heart disease. In this regard, it is likely that a daily diet of raw, organic food can make a difference in improving a condition like myopia and strengthen eyesight in general.
The rationale behind this is that our food has largely gotten unhealthier over the past couple of hundred years due to increased processing, increased additives, declining soil fertility, increased chemicals in food and water, and the introduction of GMO foods in recent years. All these have impacted human health in many, many ways. When the health is impacted, the eyesight almost always gets affected too.
Raw, organic vegetables and fruits are an obvious necessity; they contain lots of phytochemicals, enzymes, and vitamins which are needed for proper functioning of the body and the eyes. Carrots, kale, spinach, Brussels sprouts, and zucchini are just some of the vegetables loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals in their natural form which are greatly beneficial for the eye.
Vegetables lose much of their enzymes and vitamins through cooking and food preparation, which is why if you can get eat them in an organic, raw state, it would be the most ideal situation by far.
Lutein and Beta Carotene
Special mention must be made for lutein and beta carotene. Lutein is a yellow caratenoid somewhat like beta carotene, which is concentrated in the macular region of the eye. A 6 year study by The National Eye Institute of Maryland found that lutein helped protect against macular degeneration leading to blindness, in the elderly[3]. Lutein is found in green leafy vegetables like kale and spinach.
Beta carotene is the precursor of vitamin A and is needed for proper functioning of night and color vision. As you would probably know, carrots are one of the best sources of beta carotene, and daily raw carrot juice is one of the best things you can take for your eyes.
Zeaxanthin and Astaxanthin
Another two carotenoids worth mentioning in a diet for healthy vision are zeaxanthin and astaxanthin. Zeaxanthin is another carotenoid found concentrated in the central part of the macular. It is most common in green, leafy vegetables and also found in goji berries.
Astaxanthin is a carotenoid that is said to be among the strongest antioxidants in the world, and is found in microalgae, shellfish, and deep sea fish. It gives them their characteristic coloring and health wise, astaxanthin helps support eye health and has good anti aging properties.
What to Avoid or Cut Down
Red meat, cakes, soft drinks, coffee, tea, sweets, ice cream, white bread, and fast food are just a few of the foods or liquids that either should be cut down or avoided altogether. Oily and fried food are others that if consumed in excess, lead to all manner of health problems.
Herbs That are Beneficial For Vision
There are some herbs that are beneficial for the eyes that are worth taking. These herbs normally increase blood flow to the eyes, or strengthen the existing capillaries in and around the eyes. Herbs should be viewed as playing more of a preventative role, rather than a cure role.
Bilberry
Bilberry is one of the most popular herbs that many believe to be beneficial to the eyes. It is believed to aid in night vision and help prevent cataracts. It contains a lot of anti oxidizing pigments which have an anti cancer effect and protect cells from damage.
Bilberry is a good source of anthocyanins (anti oxidant flavanols), pigments which are good for the cardiovascular system.
Gingko Biloba and Gotu Kola
Gingko biloba and gotu kola are known for their benefits of strengthening the walls of capillaries and improving blood circulation throughout the body. As noted, healthy blood circulation to the eye area is vital for the proper functioning of the eyes. Also, stronger capillary walls are less liable to bruise or rupture, thus reducing the potential for injuries to the eyes caused by physical exertion or high blood pressure.
Goji Berries
Goji berries have been found to be helpful in preventing macular degeneration because they contain a lot of zeaxanthin, which is concentrated in the macular region of the eye. Zeaxanthin is believed to be the major caratenoid that plays a protective role in the macular. While not a cure for macular degeneration, goji berries could likely slow down the onset of this crippling affliction, of which there is no cure (for the dry form).
The subject of diet for healthy vision is a vast one indeed and beyond the scope of this article. Use your intuition and judgment, combined with smart research, to work out a dietary regiment that works for you. What you need to bear in mind is that food plays such an important role in health (and therefore eye health) that it really pays to change your meals and dietary habits if you truly want good health and good vision.
While we cannot guarantee that your vision will improve drastically after practicing and following through the exercises listed here and changing your diet , it is our hope some of you will find your vision improving after a period of diligent and consistent practice, and maybe you would then be able to cast off your glasses or at least to lower your eye power. Being able to see the world clearly again without the aid of glasses can be the most liberating experience in the world, and is well worth any sacrifice or effort you put in to that end.
References & Citations:
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/eye-institute/strong-vision-optical/healthy-eyes.aspx
http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/5-truths-about-protecting-your-eyes
https://nei.nih.gov/
https://www.cdc.gov/visionhealth/home/index.html
https://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/conditions/vision_and_eye_health/types_of_vision_problems.htm
https://medlineplus.gov/glaucoma.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705341/
https://www.aapos.org/terms/conditions/22
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/dietary-factors/phytochemicals/carotenoids