Eye gymnastics in combination with other techniques will not only increase the tone of the muscles of the visual apparatus, but will also help improve vision. It is only important not to forget about daily training and perform the exercises correctly. Before starting gymnastics, you need to visit a qualified ophthalmologist. Your doctor will make a diagnosis and evaluate the quality of your vision. Today, several effective methods of non-surgical vision improvement have been developed, so it is best to entrust the choice of the optimal one to a specialist.
Rules for performing gymnastics
Despite the fact that nowadays there are several proven and used for medical purposes methods of restoring vision with the help of gymnastics, they should be performed using the same rules. Therefore, before choosing one or another recovery method, read the recommendations of ophthalmologists:
- Only gymnastics done regularly will bring benefits. The regime must be followed. Choose an exercise routine for yourself: twice a day, once in the morning or evening, once every few days. Remember that consistency and the absence of omissions are the key to the effectiveness of the complex.
- Be patient when doing the exercises. You shouldn't even start doing gymnastics if you are in a hurry to get somewhere. Then the opposite effect will occur. You risk not straining adequately or, on the contrary, excessively straining the eye muscles and therefore worsening the effect of the gymnastics.
- Do not overdo it. Do not think that the more often you repeat gymnastic exercises, the faster you will feel the healing effect. This is far from the case and with your wasted efforts you will contribute unnecessary strain on the visual apparatus.
- Maintain intervals. You shouldn't start each new exercise as soon as you finish the previous one. Sit for about half a minute with your eyelids closed and only then start doing a new exercise.
- Rest. There is no benefit in doing gymnastics and at the same time constantly sitting in front of the computer day and night. If you decide to take on the task of restoring your vision, be prepared for the fact that you have to approach this process comprehensively, both from the point of view of nutrition and from the point of view of your daily routine.
Palming according to W. G. Bates
Before starting gymnastics, you need to properly prepare for it. Just like in sports, you can't come from home to the gym and immediately put a heavy weight on your chest. The effect will be null and you risk tearing muscles, straining your back or getting a hernia. The same goes for the visual system. It must be properly prepared before moving on to a block of effective and complex exercises.
Ophthalmologists have developed a small complex that allows you to relax your eyes and properly prepare them for the subsequent stress on the muscles during gymnastics. Palming is an essential part of any gymnastics to restore vision.
Palming is a fairly popular and simple exercise for relaxing the muscles of the visual apparatus. This exercise uses both palms. The principle of palming consists of the following steps:
- It is necessary to warm your palms. The best way to do this is to rub them together until they become slightly red and warm.
- Fold your palms so that they touch your inner ribs and are on the same plane.
- Bend your elbows, find a support point (for example, a table or your knees) and close your eyes with your palms so that only the fingers of one hand are above the other.
- Spend 5-7 minutes in this position. If necessary, repeat after some time.
The essence of palming is to cause the so-called "lightning" in the eyes. However, you should not put pressure on the eyeballs.
This simple exercise can improve vision and is effective against myopia and hyperopia. During palming, the heat from the palms affects the facial nerves and eye muscles, relaxing them and providing them with blood flow. Such regular training can even change the angle of the eyeball, that is, you can count on a noticeable positive effect even with strabismus. You just need to squeeze your fingers as tightly as possible so that light does not penetrate through them. It is important that when palming you need to relax as much as possible, take a comfortable and relaxing position.
At the initial stage of palming, you may experience not entirely pleasant sensations in the eye area, pain and a feeling of pressure "from the inside". This is a completely normal condition and after a few exercises the discomfort will disappear.
Exercise no. 1. I'm writing to you…
Despite the fact that the previous exercise relieved tension from the visual apparatus, the muscles did not fully relax. We're going to do it right now. Unfortunately, many people, trying to regenerate their eyes and relax them as much as possible, forget that the neck is also involved in every exercise, since it also needs attention. It is from the neck area that blood flows to our eyes and thus nourishment is provided. We will try to do everything to bring this process back to normal, after numerous violations while working in front of the monitor. To perform gymnastics you will need a chair or mat, as it can be performed in two positions: sitting and lying.
To obtain the right result from gymnastics you need:
- Get into a comfortable lying or sitting position.
- Close your eyes.
- Relax.
- Imagine that there is a pen stuck to the tip of your nose and you urgently need to write a letter.
- Now you can start drawing simple figures or writing whole words, but certainly with your nose, without helping yourself with your hands.
- The neck should also participate in this process.
- First, try writing the entire alphabet.
- Increasing the difficulty, try to reproduce your favorite verse or at least a couple of lines from it.
Exercise no. 2. Look through your fingers
Another exercise can relieve eye strain. Furthermore, its implementation is not limited to a certain pose. You need:
- Bend your elbows.
- Open your fingers.
- Bring your palms to your eyes so that the back of each palm is directly under your eye.
- Now look through your fingers at all the objects in the room.
- The most important thing is not to focus on the fingers themselves; the whole point of the exercise is to see something beyond them.
The exercise can be made more difficult by trying to concentrate on moving objects in the room. Look in different directions, turn without taking your hands away from your face. Perform the exercise about thirty times, spending no more than five seconds on each attempt to see something in the distance. This exercise will seem difficult at first, but over time you will learn to concentrate on individual things without paying attention to your hands.
| Name of the exercise | delivery time | Number of approaches |
|---|---|---|
| Exercise no. 1 | 30 seconds | 3 approaches |
| Exercise no. 2 | No more than 5 seconds | 3 sets of 10 times |
| Heating | 30 seconds | 2 or 3 approaches |
Solarization: the life-giving power of light
Solarization is a set of exercises, the main active factor of which is intense light.
Solarization can be done using:
- Sveta;
- Sun;
- candles;
- electric incandescent lamp.
Solarization in sunlight is considered the most effective, but it is not always possible to use a natural light source. Therefore candles and incandescent lamps can also find useful uses.
Solarization is performed in several stages:
- Take a position relative to the light source so that your face is directly in front of it. The eyes should be closed.
- Without squinting, try to get used to the bright light (your eyes should still be closed). If you feel pain in your eyes, you can cover them with your palms for a short time, then remove them and try again.
- It is necessary to slowly turn your head, first to the right, then to the left, so that the light can exert its influence evenly.
- At the end of the solarization, perform palming.
Sunburn is effective in restoring vision. It improves blood circulation and also promotes rapid regeneration of ocular tissue, especially in the postoperative period.
Improve blood circulation with gymnastics
Often a person loses his vision due to the fact that blood circulation in a certain area is disrupted. It does not reach the necessary muscles and nerves in the required volume, which is why myopia develops and the retina becomes thinner. The best thing you can do without surgery is to try to improve your circulation yourself. Massage movements are best suited for this purpose.
| NO. | Description | delivery time | Number of approaches |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exercise 1 | Using massage movements, move from the bottom of the eyelid of the right eye to the bridge of the nose, then along the superciliary part of the left eye and back to the bridge of the nose. So, it's like you're drawing an infinity sign or glasses | Do the exercise for one minute | The exercise is performed in 2-3 approaches |
| Exercise 2 | Move your eyes left and right, as if moving your pupils along the horizon line. Do it at maximum speed, but so that when performing the exercise there is no pain in the eyes | Within thirty seconds | 2-3 approaches |
| Exercise 3 | Move your eyes up and down, moving your pupils in a vertical line at maximum speed | Within thirty seconds | 2-3 approaches |
| Exercise 4 | Squint your eyes quickly and relax them immediately | Done 10 times | 2-3 approaches |
| Exercise 5 | Place your index finger on the bridge of your nose. Try to put your eyes together as much as possible to see it. | Hold your attention on the finger for two to three seconds. | Five approaches |
| Exercise 6 | He blinks very quickly | Within twenty seconds | Three approaches |
| Exercise 7 | Look out of the window. Designate yourself a specific object in the distance. Place a circle on the glass next to the object. Move your vision from a distant object to a sticker and back again | Within a minute | Three approaches |
After completing such a complex, the muscles of the visual system will tone up, and you will not only get a therapeutic effect after the first exercises performed, but also prevent various eye diseases associated with poor blood circulation.
Fighting myopia with gymnastics
It has been scientifically proven that the most common eye disease is myopia and the reasons are many. High fatigue, constant contact with technical equipment and lack of rest for the eyes take their toll. Someone loses their sight due to bad heredity, while others bring themselves to a sad outcome. But in the meantime there are exercises that can partially restore vision and also serve as a preventive measure against further vision loss.
To perform gymnastics, you need to take a sitting position and relax.
| NO. | Description | delivery time | Number of approaches |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exercise 1 | Close your eyes. Sit up straight. Try to relax and take a deep breath. Without opening your eyes, bend forward and exhale | Run for exactly one minute | Two approaches |
| Exercise 2 | Lean back on the seat. Open your eyes. Tilt your body forward and sharply close your eyes, then open your eyes and return to the starting position | Run for exactly one minute | Two approaches |
| Exercise 3 | While sitting, place your hands on your waist and turn your head first to one side and then to the other so you can see your elbow | Run for exactly one minute | Two approaches |
| Exercise 4 | Start rolling your eyes clockwise, then counterclockwise | Run thirty seconds in one direction and thirty seconds in the other direction. | Three trips |
| Exercise 5 | Stretch your arms. Look at your fingertips. Raise your hands, but keep looking at your fingers. You can't move your head. Once you lose sight of your fingers, drop your hands | Run for exactly one minute | Two approaches |
Movement-based gymnastics
There are several types of basic exercises, from which it is recommended to create individual gymnastics complexes:
- circular eye movements;
- describe geometric shapes with your eyes;
- focus your gaze;
- guidelines (up-down, left-right);
- blink/close your eyes.
Exercises that can be used to prevent and treat myopia include:
| NO. | Exercise | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Focus | You should look into the distance and direct it to the farthest point in sight. Slowly move your gaze to the tip of your nose |
| 2 | Circular movements | Describe a circle with your eyes. Repeat 10 times. Next, perform the exercise in the opposite direction. |
| 3 | Flashing | Blink rapidly for a couple of minutes |
| 4 | Squint while sitting | Close your eyes for a few seconds, repeat several times |
| 5 | Eyelid massage | Close your eyes and massage your eyelids in circular motions with light pressure. |
| 6 | Eye contact | Direct your gaze to the point where your eyebrows grow together, hold for 2-3 seconds, then return to the starting position and repeat |
| 7 | Rotation of the head with shifting of the gaze | You should slowly turn your head to the side, moving your gaze in the same direction. Then, turn your head in a different direction. |
Effective gymnastics for hyperopia:
- Focus on a distant object. Place your finger at a distance of 30-40 cm from your face. Look into the distance, then focus on your finger.
- Read between the lines". Pick up a book, read a few paragraphs of text, then focus on the white space between the lines.
- The head turns. Turn your head to the left, then to the right, always looking forward.
- Observation of moving objects.
After each set of exercises, you need to rest your eyes. You can relax your eye muscles with a light massage or compresses.
Preventive gymnastics
To ensure that visual acuity does not decrease, it is necessary to perform the following exercises from time to time:
- "Draw letters. "You need to use your eyeballs to describe any number of letters of the alphabet. The exercise can be considered completely completed if you managed to describe all 33 letters.
- Open your mouth - close your eyes. At the same time open your mouth, then open your eyes wide. Try opening your mouth and eyes at the same time.
- Blink/close your eyes. It is necessary to alternate frequent blinking with a squint of 3-5 seconds.
- Massage the upper eyelids with light circular movements.
- Moving your gaze up and down.
- Moving your gaze diagonally.
- Pressure. You should close your eyelids and not press too hard on them.
- Look through your fingers. Covering your eyes with your palms, spread your fingers a short distance, look through them for a couple of seconds and squeeze them tightly again.
- Shrinkage. You need to close your eyes, touch the outer corner with your middle finger and pull to the sides. You should feel a slight tension in your muscles.
- Tilt your head down, relaxing your neck muscles and resting your chin on your sternum. Direct your gaze towards the floor. Then slowly tilt your head back, looking up.
Don't underestimate preventative eye exercises. After all, it is the eyes that are constantly exposed to the most harmful factors. Stress, bad habits, lack of vitamins, frequent diseases and an unfavorable environment often become the causes of sudden and rapid loss of vision.
The table below presents three groups of exercises that provide a variety of preventative measures.
| Group of exercises | Initial position | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Exercises to strengthen the eye muscles | When sitting, the head is still | Look first to the right, then to the left, without changing the position of the head |
| Exercises to stimulate circulation and blood flow | Sitting | Alternately closing your eyes |
| Accommodation exercises | standing | Fix your hand with an extended finger at a distance of 30 cm from your face, focus your gaze on it. Without changing focus, slowly move your finger towards your face. When it seems like your finger is double, you need to gently bring it back to the original distance |
For those people who spend a lot of time at the computer, working with documents and small print, preventive gymnastics is simply necessary.
Morning eye exercises
Doing physical activity in the morning allows the body to wake up quickly, tones the muscles and gives you a good mood for the whole day. How about morning eye exercises? The resulting sensations are no less pleasant.
Morning exercises can be performed in several steps:
- Remaining in a horizontal position, stretch out by relaxing the neck muscles.
- Several times, synchronously, he opens his mouth and eyes wide.
- Perform several squints, lasting 3-5 seconds.
- So blink frequently, but not very quickly.
- Close your eyelids and use your nose to describe any figure in the air. You can "write" words, letters or "draw" this way. The duration of this exercise is on average 2-3 minutes. The images that arise during such an exercise cause the brain to "wake up" faster and get back to work.
- Raise and lower your eyebrows several times. Sometimes frowning, sometimes surprised.
- Lying on your back, perform palming.
- Turn your head from side to side for 2-3 minutes. This relieves tension from the upper spine, which is especially important if you end up sleeping in an awkward position.
In total, eye exercises in the morning will not take much time, but they will produce a noticeable positive effect: after 1-2 weeks, visual acuity will noticeably improve, the number of headaches will decrease, and there will be no signs of fatigue the face.
Evening eye exercises
In the evening, gymnastics is mainly necessary to relax the muscles of the visual apparatus from the daytime tension. Therefore, here palming will be combined to a greater extent with exercises aimed at combating myopia and retinal diseases:
- Lie down for a while with your eyes closed.
- Without opening your eyes, rotate your pupils clockwise and counterclockwise.
- Open your left and right eyes alternately.
- Look at an object located two or three meters away from you. Move your gaze to a more distant object. Then back to the next one.
- If possible, hang a table with letters, as in an ophthalmologist's office. Every evening, he looks at the letters, studying their contours. Remember how much you saw initially, how much a week later, and so on.
- Finally, use your fingertips to pull on your eyelids, pulling the skin away from your eye. Do this at the bottom, top and sides for a minute.
Get into the habit of sleeping with a special medical patch over your eye. It allows you to sleep well and your eyes will not react painfully to the morning sunlight sneaking into your room.
Tibetan gymnastics
There are many techniques that include various sets of eye exercises aimed at correcting vision, preventing cataracts, and treating many diseases associated with the eyes. Tibetan gymnastics is one of the most common and effective. It includes the following exercises:
- Peripheral vision training. With your arms stretched out in front of you, place your two index fingers in front of your eyes at a distance of 35-40 cm, joining them together. Without changing your gaze, slowly spread your arms with your fingers extended at the sides. The goal is to look straight ahead but see your fingers in your peripheral vision. Then put your fingers together again in front of you.
- Pressure. Lightly and quickly press your fingers to your closed eyeballs, then open your eyes and try not to blink for about 5-6 seconds.
- Square. Describe the square with your eyes: look down - left - up - right. Then repeat in the opposite direction: look up - right - down - left.
- Flashes frequently for about a minute.
- Light eyelid massage. Close your eyelids and, with light massaging movements, move from the inner corner of the eye outward along the upper eyelid, then along the lower one.
Each Tibetan gymnastics exercise should be performed for at least one minute or at least 10-15 repetitions.
Yoga for your eyes
Many people find yoga to be a treasure trove of health benefits. Fans of this, more a lifestyle than a sport, are increasingly numerous, year after year, and this is justified. But not many know that yoga exists not only for the body, but also for the eyes. Such exercises will help you keep your vision in excellent condition if performed systematically until old age.
All you have to do is assume a comfortable position while sitting on the floor and straighten your back well. Relax and think about something pleasant. Begin a series of exercises with a light warm-up, trying to direct your gaze from side to side, trying not to move your neck and head.
Now that you've moved around a bit, you can start the exercises on your own.
- Exercise no. 1
Get even and regular breathing. Try to direct your gaze to the space between the eyebrows, thus practically connecting the pupils in the area of \u200b\u200bthe bridge of the nose. Of course you won't succeed the first time, but with systematic repetition of the exercise you will achieve success. You need to hold your pupils in place for at least two seconds, gradually increasing the delay time again and again. This exercise should be repeated ten times, after each approach giving the eyes a few seconds to rest.
- Exercise no. 2
Give your pupils a short break after the first exercise, blink, close your eyelids for a while and open them gently. As soon as you feel that the tension has eased, get ready for a new exercise. Your position remains the same. The eyes should be wide open and breathing should be regular. Place your finger on the tip of your nose and try to see it with both eyes. Therefore, the pupils will meet again on the bridge of the nose, but the gaze will already be directed downwards, unlike the previous exercise. Repeat ten times, giving your eyes a little rest in the meantime.
- Exercise no. 3
Now try looking to the right with both eyes, trying to look as far as possible, but without turning your body and head. Then look to the left. Now let's repeat the same thing looking up and down. The exercise should not be easy for you: the further you move your pupils apart, looking in one direction, the faster you will get the desired effect from the complex.
- Exercise no. 4
However, maintaining a uniform posture and observing regular breathing, proceed to the next phase. Look down without lowering your head. Then start moving one pupil clockwise. Once you reach the point where you started the exercise, start moving counterclockwise. Then start creating a circle from above. Perform the exercise in twenty sets, ten each for the upper and lower eye positions. Try to slowly form a circle with your students, trying to see as much as possible from each side.
- Exercise no. 5
Now you need to relax your eye muscles again so that they stop being tense and feel a surge of strength. To do this, close your eyes, think of something good and, observing your breathing evenly, rest for a couple of minutes.
This completes the yoga complex. Many ophthalmologists advise their patients to perform such exercises not only to maintain eye health, but also to experience the therapeutic effect.
According to the practice of doctors, daily yoga classes in the morning and evening help strengthen muscles, relieve stress and generally improve retinal health. This means that you can try to recover the lost units without the help of surgeons.
It is not necessary to take a series of classes, because creating a gymnastics program for yourself is not that difficult. It can include exercises, massage and exercises that relieve fatigue.