Serenity Gaze
Have you ever seen a rabbit with eyeglasses? Grandma would always exclaim, as she handed me a glass of carrot juice every morning before I took off for elementary school. So for years, I lived with the notion that rabbits were the epitome of perfect vision, to discover later, this was just grandma’s trick to give me that vitamin “A” shot. Yes, rabbits pride themselves on their farsightedness, when they need to detect a pray, but fail the test when it comes to frontal vision. Unlike rabbits, our human eyes are set differently and are meant to function centrally, peripherally and distantly. With age we tend to gradually lose the flexibility and tone of the eye muscles. As a result, the muscles get locked into habitual patterns and lose their ability to focus at different distances. As a kid I could scrutinize a fly in the distance in seconds, but now catch myself staring at the tiny font of my facial cream, trying to figure out the contents. I attribute my deteriorating vision mostly to how much time I’ve stared at the computer screen over my life. With the rise of technology, our eyes are often being overworked. In fact, most of vision deterioration is caused by looking at things directly in front of us. When we’re staring at things right in front of our faces for prolonged periods of time, our eyes get strained and fatigued. When we’re working in the same narrow range of focus, the muscles surrounding our eyes have to work harder and the muscle tone decreases over time.Eye exercises can help maintain or improve vision and eye-brain coordination. What’s more, when practiced regularly eye exercises help you reawaken deep brain capacities that have been lost over time. Essentially, “eye” yoga stretches the eye muscles to increase their flexibility, relaxation, ability and stamina. Subtly, impaired visual perception means suppressed intuition. While insight may be the ultimate purpose of eye asanas, vision improvement is also an important benefit. Surprisingly, it’s not the muscle stretching and contracting that seems to have the greatest effect. Relaxation appears to be the single most important element of eye health. Actually, the correlation between eyes and mind has a profound physiological basis. Vision occupies about 40 percent of the brain’s capacity; that’s why we close our eyes to relax and fall asleep. And four of our 12 cranial nerves are dedicated exclusively to vision, while two other nerves are vision-related. Contrast this with the cardiac and digestive functions, which require just one cranial nerve to control both.
The most essential yogic eye “savers” are palming, eyeball rotations, and vision shifting. All of these eyeball movements provide balance for people who do work up close, like students who spend a lot of their time reading or working at computers. Indeed, these brief exercises compensate for overdevelopment of the muscles we use to look at near objects. Surprisingly enough, the palming part of the routine provides more than a pleasant respite. Because our photoreceptors break down and are reconstructed every minute, the eye desperately needs darkness to recover from the constant stress of light. The simplest way to break eye stress is to take a deep breath, cover your eyes, and relax. Along with palming, yoga in general benefits the eyes by relieving tension. Simple asanas like Down Dog and other forward bends or inversions bring circulation to the face, neck, and shoulders, which need to be energized and relaxed for improved vision. So even if you have not been doing asanas specifically for your eyes, your overall yoga practice is helping your vision. In addition, shifting focal points counteracts this stiffness by exercising the organ through its full range, much as we work complementary muscle groups in asana practice. By training the eyes to focus on the ajna chakra (the “third eye,” located between and just above the eyebrows) we train our mind to turn inward. On a more prosaic level, close-range focus exercises can forestall the need for reading glasses. Other focus exercises in Yoga also include staring at a candle (Trataka) or gazing at a single object, without blinking, until your eyes begin to tear. This exercise is traditionally believed to remove any disease from the eyes by perfectly aligning inner and outer focus, and directing a soft insightful gaze at the world.With benefits ranging from better vision to increased concentration and spiritual insight, these eye asanas will enhance your yoga practice. Along with a healthy diet and regular exercise, they will help protect your vision from the stresses of light, tension, and environmental toxins. On a side note, try to move your computer screen right below eye level. This will cause your eyes to close slightly and minimize fluid evaporation while staying at the computer for long hours. Also, turn down the heat in your house. When it’s too hot in an improperly ventilated room, the air becomes dry, and so do our eyes. By turning down the heat, we can save some of the strain on our eyes. Honor the bunnies’ diet and stuff yourself with carrots and spinach. The large amounts of vitamin A and beta-carotene will keep your eyes in shape. And don’t forget to take your eyes of the ipod, iphone, ipad and “igod- knows-what” and simply blink…In the “blink of an eye” …the world was created!
If you have the good fortune of excellent vision, and don’t want to lose it—or, like me, you hope to improve your fuzzy eyesightthis “Serenity Gaze” practice might offer a solution.
The most essential yogic eye “savers” are palming, eyeball rotations, and vision shifting. All of these eyeball movements provide balance for people who do work up close, like students who spend a lot of their time reading or working at computers. Indeed, these brief exercises compensate for overdevelopment of the muscles we use to look at near objects. Surprisingly enough, the palming part of the routine provides more than a pleasant respite. Because our photoreceptors break down and are reconstructed every minute, the eye desperately needs darkness to recover from the constant stress of light. The simplest way to break eye stress is to take a deep breath, cover your eyes, and relax. Along with palming, yoga in general benefits the eyes by relieving tension. Simple asanas like Down Dog and other forward bends or inversions bring circulation to the face, neck, and shoulders, which need to be energized and relaxed for improved vision. So even if you have not been doing asanas specifically for your eyes, your overall yoga practice is helping your vision. In addition, shifting focal points counteracts this stiffness by exercising the organ through its full range, much as we work complementary muscle groups in asana practice. By training the eyes to focus on the ajna chakra (the “third eye,” located between and just above the eyebrows) we train our mind to turn inward. On a more prosaic level, close-range focus exercises can forestall the need for reading glasses. Other focus exercises in Yoga also include staring at a candle (Trataka) or gazing at a single object, without blinking, until your eyes begin to tear. This exercise is traditionally believed to remove any disease from the eyes by perfectly aligning inner and outer focus, and directing a soft insightful gaze at the world.With benefits ranging from better vision to increased concentration and spiritual insight, these eye asanas will enhance your yoga practice. Along with a healthy diet and regular exercise, they will help protect your vision from the stresses of light, tension, and environmental toxins. On a side note, try to move your computer screen right below eye level. This will cause your eyes to close slightly and minimize fluid evaporation while staying at the computer for long hours. Also, turn down the heat in your house. When it’s too hot in an improperly ventilated room, the air becomes dry, and so do our eyes. By turning down the heat, we can save some of the strain on our eyes. Honor the bunnies’ diet and stuff yourself with carrots and spinach. The large amounts of vitamin A and beta-carotene will keep your eyes in shape. And don’t forget to take your eyes of the ipod, iphone, ipad and “igod- knows-what” and simply blink…In the “blink of an eye” …the world was created!
If you have the good fortune of excellent vision, and don’t want to lose it—or, like me, you hope to improve your fuzzy eyesightthis “Serenity Gaze” practice might offer a solution.
Yogea practice for maintaining healthy vision Serenity Gaze
This Yogea eye saving practice will help maintain a healthy vision, bring overall focus and promote glandular secretion. The first set starts with brisk tensing and relaxing of the eye muscles to tone and release any strain in the eye zone. Eye rotations and vision shifting are introduced next to train the eye to switch from central to peripheral and then from distant to frontal vision. Simultaneous eye and tongue circles promote the secretion of hormones of the pituitary and thyroid glands and boost the functions of the central nervous, peripheral, lymphatic and immune systems. A series of “tiger breaths” performed by sticking the tongue out while gazing at the mid-brow, help stimulate the thyroid and parathyroid glands and aid digestion and optimal food absorption. Various, sense withdrawal exercises are practiced to shut the sensory perception down and spark intuition and immediate insight. Finally, a gentle palming technique blankets the eyes with “prana” and provides a deserved rest before new exposure to light.
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