Poor nutrition, inadequate water and lack of eye-movement exercise can cause a weakening of the eye-sight.
Environmental hazards like formaldehyde, which is found in compacted chip-wood for floors, will cause your eye-sight to deteriorate quite rapidly if you are daily exposed to the toxin. If you live in a house which has a particle board floor, then over time, your eye-sight will deteriorate, your memory will suffer, and you will probably become depressed with all of this as well.
However, provided you are not constantly being exposed to poisons, then these following ideas will help you to improve your eye-sight.
Of course, daily general exercise such as swimming, walking, cycling, or yoga, will help the general health, and your chosen daily exercise will help your eye-sight too, because this will get that blood circulating. A healthy flow of blood has the effect of better nourishing the eyes with the fluid, proteins, minerals and vitamins which they need for their healthy functioning.
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Exercise also helps to keep the blood clean by working the abdominal muscles: this aids the removal of effete matter from the intestines, so that the blood which reaches your eyes will be free of harmful toxins.
But more about the eye-movement exercises: Much improvement in eye-sight can be observed (excuse the pun) when such simple exercises as the ones out-lined here are done on a daily basis. They really are so dreadfully easy to do, and can take almost no time at all if you practice them whilst travelling on a bus, or whilst watching a bit of T.V. Don’t do them while sitting in your car, though, as you may become so absorbed in your exercises that you fail to see that green light.
Many of us city dwellers who have desk jobs, or who pore over books or computers all day long, or mozie around the house once the children have flown the coup, do not use our eye muscles, or the change of focus mechanism, anything like half as much as what we should. Our eyes become lazy, as we get used to working within the same frame of focus for much of the day.
Extreme vertical or horizontal movements of the eyes are made redundant as we fix our gaze on our screens, with something like a short 15 degree angle only being all that is necessary to catch sight of the keyboard, and this at more or less the same distance as the screen from the eyes, which means that the eyes have to do very little re-focussing. Our heads become kind of frozen into a forward-leaning posture when we are thus stuck at a desk or a piano or a television, which does not give us much of a range of distances and angles for the eyes to explore.
Now there is a definite relationship between the movement of the eyes and the nasal and sinus passages:
When the eyes become lazy, the nerves and muscles which prompt the sinuses into releasing mucous become lazy too. The result is sinus trouble – a congestion in the nasal area, which directly affects the nerves of the eyes and your vision. Weak eye-sight is often the direct result of sinus congestion.
You can test this theory for yourself by doing a few rounds of these yoga breathing eye exercises. You will notice that the sinus passages will release fluid as you do these exercises. You should keep up the practice for several minutes, with variations, until the sinus passages are cleared of mucous. The muscles and nerves of the eyes will thus be toned up, especially if you practice the exercises on a daily basis, and this will have the effect of strengthening your eye-sight.
CIRCULAR MOTION OF THE EYES: You can do this exercise either sitting or standing. Do not strain the eyes by pushing them too hard initially. Begin by looking straight ahead. You do not move the head for this exercise, but rather make the eyes do all the work. Look up as far as you can to the ceiling. Slowly bring the eyes down in a circular motion, stretching out the angle to the side as far as you can to catch sight of the objects to the side of you. Keep moving the eyes slowly until you are looking downwards as far as you can to the floor. Keep the head erect – eyes do the work. Come upwards to the left side slowly, again, reaching out as far as you can with the eye movement so that you see all objects as far to the left as you can. Keep moving slowly upwards. This is one round. Do three rounds, then reverse the direction to do three anti-clockwise movements.
PALM THE EYES To give the eyes a little rest, rub the palms of the hands vigorously together. Put your warmed hands over the closed eyes for a minute. Breathe evenly and deeply, imagining the vital force from your hands going directly into the eyes to strengthen and heal them.
VERTICAL EYE MOVEMENTS Now slowly look upwards. Stretch upward with the eyes as much as you, can without straining, or course. Breathe in as you reach upwards with the eye movement, breathe out as you slowly draw the eyes down to the floor. Breathe in as you raise the eyes to the ceiling. Do three rounds.
HORIZONTAL MOVEMENTS. Moving the eyes slowly, again whilst keeping the head still, look to the far right. Bring the eyes back to the center and then slowly move the gaze to the far left, trying to focus on something each time. Come back to the center. Repeat three times. Coordinating the breathing with the exercise gives more power to the exercise. Breathe in as you look to the side, and out as you return the gaze to the center.
HEAD ROLLS. This exercise stimulates the blood flow to the brain and to the eyes. It also helps the flow of chi down the spine. Simply drop the head forward onto the chest. Breathing in slowly, slowly move the head towards the right shoulder. Keep moving slowly upwards, rolling the head gently backwards, over the top of the spine, and over to the left shoulder. Your lungs should be full of air now. Slowly begin dropping the head down from the left shoulder as you breathe out. Keep moving down until the head touches the chest. Repeat three times, then reverse the direction.
HEAD DROPS Now, breathing out, drop the head sideways onto the right shoulder. Breathing in, lift the head back up to the erect position. Do three times. Drop to the chest as you breathe out, lift up as you breathe in. Repeat three times. Drop the head the same way to the left shoulder, slowly, three times. Drop the head backwards as far as is comfortable. Bring to the erect position and repeat slowly twice more.
DIAGONALS Next, look up to the very top right corner of your field of vision. Bring the focus downwards to the centre so that you are looking straight ahead. Keep moving the eyes in a diagonal direction until they are looking down at the left hand corner. Come back slowly to the centre and continue up towards the top right hand corner. Repeat until you have done three rounds. Repeat the whole exercise beginning at the top left hand corner. It is, again, more beneficial if you can coordinate the breathing with these exercises. Breathe in as you look up, and breathe out as you draw the eyes to the floor. Keep the breathing fluid and steady, with fluid and steady eye movements accompanying the breathing.
ACUPUNCTURE given to relieve sinus congestion will very often have the effect of sharpening your focus and improving short and long focussed vision. Visit a registered acupuncturist to get advice on this. Alternatively, you could do self-acupressure to help the situation. See our post on acupressure for the eyes.