Most of us take our vision for granted especially in our teens, most of us probably never gave our eyesight a thought until we got dust or some particle stuck in it.
You know we spend a lot of time looking after our bodies, worrying about our weight, exercising, eating well, getting plenty of sleep etc. What we often neglect is the health of our eyes. Believe it or not we need to exercise our eyes as well as eat food that is nutritional to our eyes and of course get that much-needed sleep to rest them.
I have spoken often of my Yoga teacher Elsa who was 90 years of age. Elsa told us that at 45 years of age, when she started to do Yoga, she wore glasses. Now, well then, (as I have not seen her for about 10 years, she may have passed away by now) at the age of 90 she had excellent eyesight and was still driving her car. This meant that she would have had to pass a rather ridged eye test before they would allow anyone of that age to get behind the wheel.
Elsa did eye exercises almost every day and of course taught us to do them at our Yoga classes. I have to admit, I do not do these exercises as often as I should and after reading an article about our eyes and how we can improve them it has made me realize how I need to get back into the routine of doing these exercises everyday.
It does not take more than a few minutes of your time and you can do them anywhere. You can do them in the bus or train, on the way to work. (You may get a few strange looks but there is always a few strange people on the public transport, they will just think you are one of them), you can do it just before you get out of bed in the morning or when you are going to bed in the evening. Anytime!!
I recommend that you consider doing the following exercises. They are simple but very effective and could not only preserve your eyesight but save you a lot of money.
Here They are: Three eye workouts
1. Imagine you have a clock directly in front of you. Move your eyes from 12 to 6 (up and down). From 3 to 9 (side to side). From 11 to 5 and 7 to 2 (Diagonally). The next exercise is to follow the numbers from 1 to 12 and back (Circle, clockwise and anticlockwise)
2. Hold your thumb 15cm from your nose. Use your eyes to focus on the tip of your thumb. Take one or two deep breaths and exhale slowly. Then focus on any object approximately three meters away. Take another one or two deep breaths and slowly exhale. Repeat the above steps 10 to 20 times.
3 Rub your palms together, cup the warmed palms over (not on) closed eyes and allow no light to enter. Experience total darkness for 20 to 30 seconds and blink several times also. Take long slow deep breaths. Be sure to relax the eyes, face, brow and jaw. Do not squeeze the eyelid shut.
If you take the time to do these eye exercises, the expense of Optometrists fee’s and glasses may be not an issue for you. You will not have the inconvenience of not being able to read the small print at the restaurant which can be a pain in the A…. and you will be able to thread a needle. All those things we take for granted when our eyesight is in top form.
Remember – If you don’t do different nothing will change
