I have been busy working on a new look for the website. I spent a lot of time programming to get things working correctly. With a week and a half of long hours, I can feel the my eyesight getting weaker and blurrier. I fell back into one bad habit that I wanted to break. I worked long and hard to get the task done, and I compromised my eyesight to do it. It would have been better if I had looked away every few minutes and focused on something far away. In my haste to get it done, I forgot to take care of my eyes. It’s so easy to fall back into our old routines. I have been exercising my eyes for over a year, but somehow, I didn’t follow the few simple new habits that I was practicing.

Good habits I want when I’m working:

• every ten minutes, I scan the room and trace some patterns
• every half hour, I would close my eyes and massage around the eyes
• every hour, I would take a break and relax my eyes, maybe look out the window

It’s such a simple thing to do, but I didn’t do it. Maybe, I haven’t worked hard enough to form this habit. I’ll try harder to break this bad habit replacing it with this new habit.

Eye exercises (my nickname for it is – Eyercise) help increase circulation in our eyes, tone our eye muscles, and improve focusing ability. They help us become aware of any discomfort or strain in our eyes so we can change any bad habits when using them. They are great for helping us maintain our eye health and sight for a lifetime.

It’s important to practice the exercises if we want to improve our eyesight. To get started, you may want to learn a few exercises and practice them regularly. Once you’re used to doing them, then learn more exercises. You may want to read the articles in the Eyesight category for tips and advices.

These are the exercises that I normally do.

Physical Eyercise

Eyercise – Side to Side
Eyercise - Move eyes to strengthen eye muscles	1. Keep your head still 2. Look up and down. Each up and down count as one repetition. Do it 10 times. 3. Look left and right, 10 times 4. Look diagonally up left and diagonally down right, 10 times 5. Look diagonally up right and diagonally down left, 10 times
Notes and Tips: this is not a race; it’s about stretching and strengthening the eye muscles, so relax and do it slowly.

Eyercise – Around the world
Eyercise - Roll eyes to strengthen eye muscles	1. Keep your head still 2. Look up and slowly roll your eyes clockwise, do it 5 or 10 times 3. Change direction (counter-clockwise), do it 5 or 10 times
Notes and Tips: Don’t over-strain your eyes, look as far to the edges as you comfortably can without feeling like you are straining the eyes. If you feel dizzy, stop and look at something far away. You may want to try again later. After a few sessions, you won’t feel dizzy anymore. Try not to tense your face muscles as you do the exercise, just comfortably rotate your eyes.

Eyercise – Near to Far
Eyercise - Focus at different distances	1. Keep your head still 2. Hold your thumb 6-8 inches in front of your nose 3. Look at your thumb nail then look at something far away across the room. Do it 10 times. Alternative exercise: 1. Pick 5 objects at different distances 2. Look at the nearest object, and work your way back to the farthest object. Do it 10 times.
Notes and Tips: It’s OK if the object looks blurry, we are doing a physical exercise

Eyercise – Tracing Patterns
Eyercise - Tile walls are good for tracing	Eyercise - Possible pattern to trace
1. You can use anything in the room or within view. 2. Without moving your head, trace the lines, shapes, or patterns that you see. Remember to trace to the edges of your vision.
Notes and Tips: Have fun tracing, and randomly trace in any direction and order. The idea is to move the eyes.

Eye Focusing Exercise

Eyercise – Fusion Download and print this fusion chart. It is a chart with columns of words and dots of varying sizes. The objective is to train our eyes to focus better.
Eyercise - fuse two dot to make a third	Converge 1. Hold the chart 12 inches in front of you. We will start with the two dots about one third down the page. 2. Hold your thumb half way between your eyes and the chart. The thumb nail should be slightly under the two dot in the page so that you can see the dots unobstructed. 3. Focus on the thumb. 4. While still focusing on the thumb, notice the dot in the back; it should changed into three or four dots. 5. If you see four, move the thumb slightly forward or backward until you see three dots. 6. Try removing the thumb while maintaining the three dots. 7. Move the chart around will maintaining the three dots. Diverge 1. Touch the chart to your nose with the dot in front of each eye. You should see one dot. We are using the two dots about one third down the page. 2. Slowly move the chart backwards. You should see three dots. 3. Maintain the three dots as you slowly move the paper 12 inches away from you. can you see the difference between converging and diverging?
Notes and Tips: Some people may get dizzy doing this exercise. You may not need to practice this exercise if you have perfect vision.

Massages

Eyercise – Massages
Eyercise - Massage eyes to improve circulation	Eyercise - Use thumb and first knuckle to massage 1. Use your middle finger and thumb. Press lightly and release the edge of the eyes closest to the nose (the point is shown with a red dot in the picture). Do it 10 times. 2. Use your index finger and thumb for this massage. Curl the index finger and use the first knuckle to massage. The thumb is placed on the side of the face for support. 3. Massage the top of the eye brows starting at the center and moving outwards. Do it 5 times 4. Massage under the eye, along the bony eye socket starting at the center and moving outwards. Do it 5 times 5. Massage downward along the nose and around the check bone. Do it 5 times
Notes and Tips: When massaging under the eyes, press along the bony socket of the eye, don’t press on the eyes.

Eyercise – Palming
Eyercise - Palm the eyes to relax them	1. Rub your hands together until it’s hot. 2. Cup your hands, and place the palms over your closed eyes with the fingers crossing over the forehead. 3. Take deep breaths, feel the warmth of the hands, and clear your mind. 4. Keep in this position as long as you can.
Notes and Tips: Sit on a pillow on the floor and place your arm on a coffee table for support If you have to think, think of happy thoughts

Starting to do the eye exercises is easy, especially when we are excited to see the results. Enthusiasm, however, does not last. I managed to do the eye exercises for about three weeks before getting distracted by something else.

I was inspired one day as I walked away from my car. After ten steps from the car, I stopped and asked myself, “did I lock the car?” I walked back to check and I had locked it without realizing. This habit was so ingrained in my mind that I didn’t need to think about doing it. I had an Aha! moment. I need to transform the exercise into a habit. When it’s a part of my daily routine, I don’t need to allocate time to do the exercise and more importantly, I will do the exercise without having to think about it.

What did I do?

I started doing the eye exercises when I was waiting for something or wasting time. I did the exercise:

• as I was on the toilet
• as I stopped at a traffic light
• as I was working
• as I was reading
• as I was watching TV

by making the exercise a part of my daily routines, it became a habit. I’m always doing the exercises so I didn’t worry about finding time to do it. This helps me to improve my eyesight without it turning into a chore.

I downloaded and read a book on curing imperfect eyesight; the concept seem devilishly simple, and I vowed to improve my eyesight. I printed out an eye chart to test my sight; I practiced the exercises; I saw and felt improvements. Three weeks later, my enthusiasm disappeared, deadlines took over, and the exercise vanished (as if by magic) from my mind. Okay, it may be just a tiny bit more difficult than I thought!

A year later, I found the book again as I was cleaning my hard drive. The concepts flashed back in my mind, and I vowed again to improve my eyesight. This time I have clever plan. I’m going to continue researching on how to my eyesight, continue to add and revise my understanding, and continue to write about my progress.

The book I downloaded was called The Cure of Imperfect Sight by Treatment Without Glasses by William H. Bates, M.D.

I found three important points in this book:

1. We can improve our eyesight

It never occurred to me that I can improve my eyesight. My optometrist had always been interested in how well I can see so he prescribe the right pair of glasses or a comfortable pair of contacts. He never hinted the possibility of improving my eyesight. He had a business to run, so it’s understandable that he helps as many people find the right pair of glasses as he can.

2. Strain is the cause of our eye problems

Strain is difficult to feel. When I’m stressed I tense my legs, back, shoulders, neck or face; I can’t feel that I’m straining. It’s just the way the body behaves when I do things. Isn’t it? Habits developed from years of repetition becomes natural. When tension becomes natural, it’s very hard to tell whether it’s tense or not. Strain will lead to pain or problems in the future. If I have difficulty feeling physical strain, how can I tell if my mind strains to see?

3. Eye exercises can improve our eyesight

To improve our eyesight, knowledge and exercises are important. Ideas must lead to action, otherwise it’s just thoughts that doesn’t serve any purpose. The exercises Dr. Bates shared help us recognize the strain. Once recognized, we can learn to relax them. Doesn’t this sound so innocently simple.

I want to be free of my glasses! You should join me! One day we’ll have the pleasure of smashing our glasses together. At the very least, we get weaker prescription glasses and smash the old thick ones!