Top 5 Eye Yoga Exercises To Improve Your Eyesight Now!

Many a false step was made by standing still

~ Fortune cookie

Eye yoga exercises had existed for centuries and helped many people regain back their natural eyesight.

They are easy to do and can be done anywhere and anytime.

It helps us to use our eyes to their fullest capability which is not allowed in our current way of life.

In the older days, our ancestors get to see a horizon of blue sky and unlimited peripheral vision.

Today, we are towered by high rise buildings and offices and we live in small spaces further limiting our chances to use our distance vision.

We spent most of our time doing close up work and staring at the 15 inch computer which limits our eye movement and creates a lot of near-point stress.

These yoga for eye exercises aim to return our eyes to its natural state.

Eye exercises also let you learn how to maintain optimal eye health such as avoiding eye strain and excessive near-point stress; and keeping the eye moist.

These are probably the biggest factor in causing bad eyesight.

This article shares with you 5 popular eye yoga exercises which you can do now.

A typical set of eye exercises routine maybe something like this. It will give you a feel of how an eye exercise program will be like.

I will recommend that you find a comfortable sitting position (either a chair with good padding or cross legged on a thick yoga mat) and do these exercises in a room without distraction.

Try not to use corrective lens during all these exercises.

Enjoy.

Exercise One: Stretching

Warm up is important for all sort of exercises.

By increasing circulation to the eyes, it helps reduce your risk of the aches and pains that may come with exercise.

Before we start the eye exercises, we have to stretch our eye extraocular muscles first.

Instructions for warm up are listed below.

Keep your head stationary throughout the exercise.

We are working on the eyes here. Not our body. ^_^

1. Look straight ahead and look all the way up 
2. Count 2 seconds, then look all the way down.
3. Count 2 seconds. Then look to the extreme left.
4. Repeat and look to the extreme right.
5. Now you have to move your eyes to the four diagonal corners. (you may feel tight stretches in your eyes which is a good thing)
6. Begin with looking to the extreme top-left corner, bottom-right, top-right and end with bottom-left for one whole cycle.
7. Repeat the cycle for one minute. Remember to maintain your head stationary. (For maximum effect, run Limp Bizkit's "Rollin" as background music)

Exercise Two: Flexing

This eye yoga exercise aims to improve your eyes flexibility. You can either do it with eyes open or close.

In the beginning, get a friend to check whether you are doing it properly will help a lot.

1. Relax and look up.
2. Rotate your eyes in clockwise direction.
3. Take it slow, make sure you reach all the corners.
4. You can visualize a flying ball circling around your face.
5. Do this for one minute and change to anti-clockwise direction

Exercise Three: Focus Switching (One of my personal favorite)

Accommodation (the process of eyes changing focus) is probably the most often performed function of the eyes.

When people depend on glasses, their eyes become lazy which eventually leads to weakening in accommodation ability and their eye muscles.

This eye yoga exercise rectifies that.

1. Hold something with small letters (for example a book or newspaper) at your reading distance.
2. Cover one of your eyes with your hand (for comfort use a eye patch)
3. Keep the covered eye open to avoid fatigue
4. Trace the shape of any small letter for two to three seconds
5. Look up from the book and find something that is at least 20 feet away. (Preferably another letter which you can see)
6. Trace its shape for another two to three seconds (Do not attempt to squint. Just relax your eyes)
7. Repeat steps 4 to 6.
8. Once five minutes is up, cover the other eye and repeat the whole cycle for five minutes again

You can improvise this exercise everywhere you go.

Instead of a book, you can use your wristwatch and a distance clock (trace the numbers).

Your thumb and a distance car. It is all up to your creativity. Do it as often as possible.

Exercise Four: Deep Blink

This yoga for eye exercise is designed to improve your ability to accommodate and the acuity of your distance vision.

It is also a relaxation technique.

To do this eye exercise, you will need a blank wall, a comfortable chair and some large letters (you can cut them from newspaper headline or cardboard container).

1. Stick the large letters to the wall and gradually move back until the letters start to blur. Position the chair at that point.
2. Sit on the chair in a relaxed posture and close your eyes. Take a deep breath, and release it out slowly. Repeat this a few times until you feel relaxed
3. Take a deep breath and hold it. Clench your fists, and tighten the muscles in your whole body - eyes, face, head, chest, neck, arms, leg and stomach. Keep your muscles tightened for about five seconds.
4. At the end of the five seconds, simultaneously exhale quickly through your mouth, release all the tension of your body and snap your eyes wide open. Look at the letters and they should become clear for a few seconds.
5. Breath slowly and maintain a relaxed glaze at the letters (blink is necessary).
6. Look at it for a second or two till it becomes blur again.
7. Repeat steps 3 to 6 for two minutes. You will be surprised how far you are able to go if you do this everyday.

Exercise Five: Palming

Now we need to relax the muscles that have been worked.

Palming is a great cool down (relaxation) exercise. 

According to Robert Abel, author of The Eye Care Revolution, our photoreceptors break down and are reconstructed every minute.

“The eye desperately needs darkness to recover from the constant stress of light,” he says. “And the simplest way to break eye stress is to take a deep breath, cover your eyes, and relax.”

Personally I like to do palming frequently throughout the day so that my eyes can get adequate rest. 

Remember to find a chair and a table so that you can place your arms on.

1. Rub your hands together to create a warm sensation
2. Close your eyes and cover both of your eyes with the hands. Do not press your hands against your eyes. Your eyes should be in the cup of your palm
3. Imagine yourself looking into the dark and if you see flashes of light, ignore it as it will eventually go away
4. Hold this position for one minute or as long as you wish

Final Words

So try out these 5 eye yoga exercises and see the results for yourself.

They are fun and can be done anytime of the day to improve your eyesight naturally.

For best result, try doing them when your eyes are still fresh.

I do mine the moment I wake up everyday to avoid not doing them due to cumbersome activities that may pile up as the day goes by.

For maximum relaxation, consider massaging some acupressure points for 5 mins daily.They are very effective in relieving the built up stress caused by prolonged hours of close up work.

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Andrewson

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