Eyes Exercise for Your Healthy Eyes

We all know how important it is to keep our bodies fit by doing things like going to the gym, jogging, and swimming. But, did you know that you can exercise your eyes as well? Eye exercising will keep your eyes healthy and help minimize eyestrain.

1. Sit comfortably on a chair. Rub your hands together until they feel warm. Close your eyes and cover them lightly with your cupped palms. Avoid applying pressure to your eyeballs. Your nose should not be covered. Make sure no light rays can enter your eyes though gaps between your fingers or the edges of your palms and nose. You may still see other lingering traces of colors. Imagine deep blackness and focus on it. Take deep breaths slowly and evenly while thinking of some happy incident, or visualize a distant scene. After you see nothing but blackness, remove your palms from your eyes. Repeat the palming for 3 minutes or more.
2. Close your eyes tightly for 3-5 seconds. Open them for 3-5 seconds. Repeat 7 or 8 times.
3. Lightly press three fingers of each hand against your upper eyelids. Hold them there for 1-2 seconds, then release. Repeat 5 times.
4. Sit and relax. Roll your eyes clockwise, then counter-clockwise. Repeat 5 times, blinking in between each time.
5. Focus on a distant object (over 150 feet or 50 m away) for 10-15 seconds. Then, slowly refocus your eyes on a nearby object (less than 30 feet or 10 m away) without moving your head. Focus for again for 10-15 seconds, and go back to the distant object. Do this 5 times.
6. Hold a pencil in front of you at arm's length. Move your arm slowly to your nose. Follow the pencil with your eyes until you can't keep it in focus. Repeat 10 times. (Another approach is to tie an object to a hanging light string and swing it to and fro while you try to keep the dangle in focus.)
7. Look in front of you at the opposite wall and pretend that you are writing with your eyes. Don't move your head. This may seem difficult at first, but with a bit of practice it is really fun. The bigger the letters, the better the effect.
8. Imagine that you are standing in front of a large clock. Look at the middle of the clock. Then look at any hour mark, without turning your head. Look back at the center. Then look at another hour mark. Do this at least 12 times. You can also do this exercise with your eyes closed.
9. Focus on an object in the distance (as far as possible) with a low contrasting background. Do this for a few minutes every half hour or so.
10. Make up and down eye movements, starting from up to down. Do this 8 times. Then do the side to side eye movement, starting from left to right. Repeat this 8 times. Be sure not to force your eyes further than they want to go in any particular direction, or you risk making your vision worse.
11. Always finish up either with palming or another eye relaxation technique.