<p>Did you know that you can exercise your eyes as well? Eye exercises are designed to strengthen your eye muscles, improve focus and eye movements, and stimulate the vision centre of your brain. Here are a few quick and easy exercises that will help you keep your eyes healthy:<br /><br />Palming:</p>.<p> Sit comfortably and rub your hands together to make them warm. Keep the eyes closed and cover them lightly with your cupped palms without any pressure. Place your palms in a way that the eyes are covered properly. Make sure that there are no gaps between fingers. Do deep breathing slowly. Relax like that for 3 to 5 minutes and then uncover the eyes. Repeat this process.<br /><br />Convergence exercise: Hold a pencil in front of you at arm’s length. Move your arm slowly to your nose, and follow the pencil with your eyes until you can't keep it in focus. Repeat 10 times. This will strengthen the eye muscles responsible for convergence.<br /><br />Change of focus: Focus on a distant object for a few seconds and slowly <br />refocus your eyes on a nearby object at an arm’s length. Focus for 20 seconds and go back to the distant object. Do this 5 times. Taking short breaks while working on the computer to stare at a distant object reduces eye strain. <br /><br />However, before doing any of these exercises, it’s important to consult your doctor. Once you get a go ahead, do keep the following points in mind: <br /><br />Don’t do the exercises with your contact lenses on. <br /><br />Do not apply pressure on your eyes.<br /><br />It is more important to do the exercises regularly than to do them for a long time in one go. Do this for at least a few days and you should notice that, when you finish working, your eyes aren’t as tired as usual. So, start your day with relaxed eyes!<br /><em><br />(The author is additional director — medical services, Centre for Sight, Haryana)<br /></em></p>
<p>Did you know that you can exercise your eyes as well? Eye exercises are designed to strengthen your eye muscles, improve focus and eye movements, and stimulate the vision centre of your brain. Here are a few quick and easy exercises that will help you keep your eyes healthy:<br /><br />Palming:</p>.<p> Sit comfortably and rub your hands together to make them warm. Keep the eyes closed and cover them lightly with your cupped palms without any pressure. Place your palms in a way that the eyes are covered properly. Make sure that there are no gaps between fingers. Do deep breathing slowly. Relax like that for 3 to 5 minutes and then uncover the eyes. Repeat this process.<br /><br />Convergence exercise: Hold a pencil in front of you at arm’s length. Move your arm slowly to your nose, and follow the pencil with your eyes until you can't keep it in focus. Repeat 10 times. This will strengthen the eye muscles responsible for convergence.<br /><br />Change of focus: Focus on a distant object for a few seconds and slowly <br />refocus your eyes on a nearby object at an arm’s length. Focus for 20 seconds and go back to the distant object. Do this 5 times. Taking short breaks while working on the computer to stare at a distant object reduces eye strain. <br /><br />However, before doing any of these exercises, it’s important to consult your doctor. Once you get a go ahead, do keep the following points in mind: <br /><br />Don’t do the exercises with your contact lenses on. <br /><br />Do not apply pressure on your eyes.<br /><br />It is more important to do the exercises regularly than to do them for a long time in one go. Do this for at least a few days and you should notice that, when you finish working, your eyes aren’t as tired as usual. So, start your day with relaxed eyes!<br /><em><br />(The author is additional director — medical services, Centre for Sight, Haryana)<br /></em></p>
