Your doctor prescribes doing eye exercises to help you improve your eye health. Eye exercises can bring several benefits. They can help your eyes focus properly on a subject, strengthen your eye muscles, make eye movements easier, reduce eye strain, and increase your range of vision.
Similar to repairing any other body part, your eyes can be repaired too through exercise. Do not worry; we are not talking about your eyelids lifting weights here. Rather, the two basic elements you need in eye exercises are focus and consistency. Take a look at 10 easy exercises described below that will help you improve your overall eye health.
- Focus Pocus. The first eye exercise we have for you is quite easy and helps your focus. Simply hold your thumb about a foot away from you and focus on it for 20 seconds. Then shift your focus on any object behind your thumb away from you for 20 seconds. Repeat shifting focus 3-4 times.
- 20-20-20 Play. This one is to relieve eye strain, especially for people who stare at screens for long periods of time. The exercise is easy. Simply look at something 20 feet away from you for 20 seconds every 20 minutes.
- Fit in the Dark. This eye exercise helps with eye movements and your retina’s range of motion. Close your eyes and move them in all four directions. Keep doing this at a normal speed for 15-20 seconds. Repeat 3-4x taking 15 seconds break in between.
- Pencil Push-Ups. This one is for healing cross-eyes and bad focus. Hold a pencil in front of your eyes around a foot away. Focus on it and bring it closer between your eyes. You’ll notice the image of the pencil splitting into two. Once it does, take it back again to make it a single image. Keep your focus on it throughout the process and repeat 20-25x.
- Advanced Focus Pocus. The advanced version of focus pocus helps your eye focus more. All you have to do is hold your finger a few inches away from you. Keep your focus locked on it. Take the finger away slowly. Now look away into the distance. After 5 seconds, bring your focus back on the pencil and repeat this 10x.
- Blink Break. If your eyes begin to get dry when you're staring at a screen, you'll start blinking more often, and your eyes will squinch. Try blinking at a normal rate to solve this problem.
- Figure Eight. Draw figure 8 with your eyes in front of you. Do it slowly and after 10 times change your direction.
- Eye-Explore. With your eyes open, look right and left as much as you can without turning your head. Then do the same with up and down. Repeat this several times.
- Palm Play. When you feel like your eyes need a break, put your palms on them and stare straight into the deep dark abyss. Do this for 30 seconds, and you'll notice the hues changing. This exercise acts as a restart button for your eyes.
- Warm Palm Play. This is a variant of the above-mentioned palm play. Simply warm up your palms by blowing on them or rubbing them together. Place them on your closed eyes and feel the warmth absorb into your eyelids for 30-40 seconds. This will relax your eyes and freshen them up.
Those were some of the best eye exercises that are easy to do and help improve your eye health. We hope you find these methods helpful in relieving your eyes.