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It is said that our eyes are our windows to our soul. Something so precious should be cared for and tended to. Unfortunately, with our busy days and incessant uses of screens (TV, computers, tablets & mobile phones), we don't exactly treat our eyes too well and demand a lot from them - it's no wonder eyeglasses and vision problems are becoming more prevalent.
Spending more than eight hours staring at a screen, day in and day out can lead to taxing of your eyes and eventually lead to eye trouble. There is such a thing referred to as Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) - imagine we even have a name for it - that's how prevalent it is. Several signs of this can include:
There is such a thing as yoga for the eyes. These movements and exercises have been around just as long as yoga, and we all know how beneficial yoga is.
Palming:
What you do here is rub your hands together for 10-20 seconds or as long as it takes to generate heat in your palms and then put your warm palms on your closed eyes and feel the warmth. relax and breath and enjoy the darkness for a few minutes. Repeat as often as you wish. This is also known as cupping.
Rapid blinking:
The whole tenet behind rapid blinking is that it nourishes the eyes while relaxing the muscles and preventing dryness and overstrain. Naturally we should all blink an average of 25 times a minute, but with the advent of all these screens and distractions we unconsciously and inadvertently forget to blink without even knowing, which leads to strain and dryness.
Up/Down movements:
Now that you have warmed up your eyes you can move on to the next exercise which involves looking up and down. Imagine a clock in front of you. While breathing in a relaxed rhythm, look at the 12 and then at the 6 for about a total of 10 times each way. Once you have completed this, do the same but looking left to right.
Eye circles:
Here the concept is the same as the up and down, but you will try to make large circles in a clockwise direction for 10 cycles and then you will move in a counter clockwise direction for another 10 cycles. Try to get 3 full breaths in per cycle.
Focus shift:
Our eyes are not designed to stare at something for a long time. What you will do here is hold your right or left arm up while holding a stick or a pen. At arm's length stare at the object. Slowly bring that object towards your eyes. Do not stare at anything else. The goal here is to focus on the object until it comes so close to your eyes that it looks blurry. Then move it away at arm's length. Repeat this 10 times.
20-20-20 Rule:
This simply entails taking a 20 second break to stare at something 20 feet away for every 20 minutes of work you do.
I hope you enjoyed this. These are great exercises that have been around as long as yoga. I personally use them and notice they relieve lots of tension and stress on the eyes.
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Cheers.
