How to Exercise Your Eyes_ 13 Steps (With Pictures) - WikiHow

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How to Exercise Your Eyes

We all know how important it is to keep our bodies fit by doing things like going to the gym, jogging,and swimming. But, did you know that you can exercise your eyes as well? Eye exercising will keepyour eyes healthy and help minimize eyestrain.

Note that these steps are not meant to improve your vision, but rather to maintain your besteyesight level during the day and prevent significant further vision deterioration.

Sit comfortably on a chair. Rub your hands together until they feel warm. Close your eyesand cover them lightly with your cupped palms. Avoid applying pressure to your eyeballs.Your nose should not be covered. Make sure no light rays can enter your eyes though gapsbetween your fingers or the edges of your palms and nose. You may still see other lingeringtraces of colors. Imagine deep blackness and focus on it. Take deep breaths slowly andevenly while thinking of some happy incident, or visualize a distant scene. After you seenothing but blackness, remove your palms from your eyes. Repeat the palming for 3minutes or more.

Steps

How to Exercise Your Eyes: 13 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow http://www.wikihow.com/Exercise-Your-Eyes

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Close your eyes tightly for 3-5 seconds. Open them for 3-5 seconds. Repeat 7 or 8times.

Massage your eyes

Hot and Cold Compress: Soak one towel in hot water, and the other in cold. Take oneand lightly press it to your face, focusing on your eyebrows, closed eyelids, andcheeks. Alternate between the two as desired, making sure to end with a coldcompress.

Full Face Massage: Soak a towel in hot water. Rub your neck, forehead and cheekswith the towel, avoiding the eyes. Then, use your fingertips to gently massage yourforehead and closed eyes.

Eyelid Massage: Close your eyes and massage them with circular movements of yourfingers for 1-2 minutes. Make sure you press very lightly and have washed your handsto avoid damaging your eyes.

Lightly press three fingers of each hand against your upper eyelids. Hold them therefor 1-2 seconds, then release. Repeat 5 times.


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Sit and relax. Roll your eyes clockwise, then counter-clockwise. Repeat 5 times, blinking inbetween each time.

Focus on a distant object (over 150 feet or 50 m away) for 10-15 seconds. Then, slowlyrefocus your eyes on a nearby object (less than 30 feet or 10 m away) without moving yourhead. Focus for again for 10-15 seconds, and go back to the distant object. Do this 5 times.

Try sitting about 6 inches (15 cm) from a window. Make a mark on the glass (ideally asmall red or black sticker) at eye-level. Look through this mark and focus onsomething far away, then adjust your focus to the mark.

Hold a pencil in front of you at arm's length. Move your arm slowly to your nose. Followthe pencil with your eyes until you can't keep it in focus. Repeat 10 times. (Anotherapproach is to tie an object to a hanging light string and swing it to and fro while you try tokeep the dangle in focus.)


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Look in front of you at the opposite wall and pretend that you are writing with youreyes. Don't move your head. This may seem difficult at first, but with a bit of practice it isreally fun. The bigger the letters, the better the effect.

Practice rhythmic movements

Bar Swings: Stand in front of a fence, barred window, or something else with evenlyspaced vertical lines. Focus loosely on a distant object on the other side of the bars.Relax your body and rhythmically transfer your weight from one foot to the other. Keepyour breathing steady and relaxed. Don't forget to blink while performing this exercise.Continue for 2-3 minutes.

Round Swings: Focus on an object in the distance that is close to the ground. Swayas instructed for Bar Swings. Keeping your gaze on the same object, use your


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peripheral vision to observe your surroundings as you sway. Continue for 2-3 minutes.

Head Movements: Close one eye. Slowly form a figure 8 with your head. Repeat forthe other eye. Continue for 2-3 minutes.

Imagine that you are standing in front of a large clock. Look at the middle of the clock.Then look at any hour mark, without turning your head. Look back at the center. Then lookat another hour mark. Do this at least 12 times. You can also do this exercise with your eyesclosed.

Focus on an object in the distance (as far as possible) with a low contrastingbackground. Do this for a few minutes every half hour or so.

Make up and down eye movements, starting from up to down. Do this 8 times. Then dothe side to side eye movement, starting from left to right. Repeat this 8 times. Be sure not toforce your eyes further than they want to go in any particular direction, or you risk makingyour vision worse.


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13 Always finish up either with palming or another eye relaxation technique.

Video


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Blinking will also help prevent tired eyes.

Taking short breaks from staring at a computer monitor to stare out to the distance of atleast 20 feet for 20 seconds also relieves some strain.

Palming is a good method to use whenever your eyes feel strained.

It's more important to do the exercises regularly than to do them for a long time. Even 30-60seconds of eye movement every hour is very helpful. For example, when your computer takesits sweet time to do something, you can try making a few circles with your eyes. Even the firstday you do this, you should notice that your eyes aren't as tired as usual at the end of the day.

Focus on far things regularly.

Do not apply pressure on your eyes.

Doing these exercises when you wear contacts may cause them to suction to your eyeball.They might also move around and possibly become folded and/or dislodged, which can beextremely uncomfortable as well.

Wash your hands before doing these exercises to avoid getting irritants in your eye.

When doing these exercises, make sure that you're not facing anybody, or that they knowyou're doing eye exercises. Otherwise they might think you've gone nuts.

Consult your optometrist (eye doctor) before doing any of these exercises. The last thing youwant to do is add further strain to your eyes, or damage them permanently

There has never been any peer reviewed research demonstrating improvement in visual clarityby exercise. Some people have weakness in the ability to turn their eye in or out. You may haveesotropia (eye naturally turned in) or exotropia (eye naturally turned out). Exercise may helpthese conditions.

PencilWaterEye drops (Eyes may become dry)

Tips

Warnings

Things You'll Need

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http://www.eye-exercises-for-good-vision.com/eye-relaxation-exercises.htmlhttp://www.totemdog.com/eyesiteEye Doctor Trainer - Application for AndroidAnimated eye exercises to improve visionAdditional video for the first two stepsEye Pit Stop - Eye exercises for daily use

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How to Exercise Your Eyes_ 13 Steps (With Pictures) - WikiHow

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