Eye exercises to improve and restore vision

We perceive the world around us primarily through our eyes. This means that a lot depends on the correct operation of this paired organ of vision. Eyes usually have to work hard during the day, getting rest mainly at night. But with strong strain on the organ of vision, this is not enough. Constant strain and fatigue of the eyes gradually leads to a decrease in visual acuity and the appearance of other ophthalmological pathologies that significantly affect the quality of a person's life. And the way out of this situation is considered to be simple eye exercises to improve vision, which give the eyes the opportunity to rest and recover.

The need for exercises for the organ of vision

What is the human eye? It is one of the most mobile organs, although its movements can sometimes only be recorded by special equipment. The fact is that the eye is constantly in motion, thanks to which we retain the ability to distinguish objects and generally possess the priceless gift of visual perception of the surrounding world.

All eye movement is carried out by 6 muscles. And this is without taking into account the muscles located inside the eyeball and responsible for focusing vision, narrowing and dilating the pupils, etc. It is clear that, like any other muscles, they require constant training to be in good shape, and rest to avoid overexertion and disruptions in the eye.

Let's remember what effect physical exercises have on our body? They stimulate the work of various organs and systems, improve blood circulation and metabolism, relieve stress and improve mood, in other words, they help maintain and strengthen health. And it doesn't matter what organ the exercise complex is intended for, it will in any case lead to positive changes in the body.

Our eyes, which work actively during the day, taking in a lot of information so that it can be subsequently processed by our brain and classified according to its usefulness, also need special training. When vision deteriorates, problems with the perception of visual information begin, academic performance and work capacity deteriorate, nervous tension increases, which can lead to interpersonal conflicts.

And many vision problems usually begin with regular eye fatigue, their constant strain, insufficient motor activity of the eyeball. People engaged in intellectual work, and especially those who, by the nature of their work, have to constantly monitor information on a computer monitor, rarely think about this. And very much in vain. After all, it is their eyes that experience the greatest strain during the day, which means that it is necessary to regularly relieve strain and give the organ of vision a rest.

It is clear that few people can afford to sleep during working hours to give their eyes a rest. Of course, you can sit and just close your eyes, but the effect of such an "exercise" will be small. It will promote rest, but not eye training. Hypodynamia (the same rest) has never added to anyone's health.

Physical exercises come in different directions. Some help the eyes simply relax. Others prepare for special physical loads. Still others train the eye muscles, increase their tone and performance, improve the motor activity of the eyeball, thus expanding the capabilities of the visual organ.

It is important to understand that any eye exercises combined into special complexes are intended to maintain their functionality for a long time, and also, if possible, to correct existing anomalies, and therefore are intended to improve vision.

In addition to specialized groups of exercises, you can do simple exercises for your eyes, consisting of 3-5 motor exercises, the total duration of which will be only 5-10 minutes. Such exercises can be done in the morning after waking up to prepare the eyes for active work, and during the working day, giving the eyes the opportunity to rest and improve performance.

The frequency of eye exercises depends on the amount of work, its nature and the lighting of the workplace. If you have to process a lot of printed information in good lighting, it is recommended to give your eyes active rest every hour worked (5-15 minutes). When working on a computer, the interval between rest breaks is halved - 30 minutes. And if the lighting is also poor, you need to do exercises and give your eyes rest every 20 minutes.

Yes, a lot depends on lighting. Natural light is less tiring for the eyes, but bright sunlight makes them strain more, especially when working with a computer. The same thing happens when working without light. But the soft, weak light of a fluorescent lamp or natural light shining through curtains is best suited for those who spend hours sitting at the monitor.

The situation changes somewhat if a person works with text printed on paper. Here, insufficient lighting leads to eye strain and fatigue. Although bright sunlight falling on paper also does not contribute to relaxation of the visual organ.

The most traumatic for the eyes in terms of excessive fatigue are considered to be daylight lamps, which are often used in office premises and retail outlets. In this case, the eyes get tired much faster, so they need to be given rest more often (at intervals of 15-20 minutes) and regularly, in order to reduce the strain on vision.

As for specialized sets of exercises, the duration of their implementation is determined by the total number of exercises and the duration of each of them. For example, doctors recommend conducting therapeutic and preventive complexes, the purpose of which is not only to preserve but also to correct vision, regularly in courses for a certain period of time. For example, the set of exercises for the eyes to improve vision by Professor Zhdanov, its creator recommends conducting 3 times a day before starting to eat. But the duration of vision correction using this method will depend on the desired results.

Indications

Who will benefit from eye exercises that improve vision? In principle, everyone who cares about their health. After all, the eyes are part of our body, and their health always affects our well-being. It is only important to choose the right set of exercises.

If a person has weakened vision due to heavy strain on the eyes, it is necessary to select a complex that will allow the eyes to relax and rest, as well as restore their functions through active movements. Such exercises, if performed regularly, will help restore vision even better than any glasses. And for preventive purposes, eye exercises will provide an invaluable service, it is not for nothing that in Soviet times, in order to care for children's health, physical education minutes for the organs of vision were mandatory during breaks in primary school. Alas, now this practice has been forgotten, and it is not surprising that "glasses wearers" have become a fairly common category of students in both primary and high school.

It is clear that vision impairment associated with certain diseases will have to be treated comprehensively under the supervision of a doctor. And eye exercises to improve vision will be only one of the methods of treating the pathology. Diseases of an inflammatory or dystrophic nature (the latter are often observed in old age) cannot be cured with the help of eye gymnastics alone. It can help to improve vision somewhat, but is not able to cope with the cause of the disease.

But with such vision pathologies as myopia and hyperopia, eye gymnastics is very useful. In this case, the exercises should have a corrective function. But at the same time, you cannot refuse general exercises that help relax the organ of vision, giving it the opportunity to rest from intense work.

Nearsightedness, scientifically called myopia, is considered one of the vision disorders. A person with such a diagnosis clearly sees objects that are close to him, but everything that lies at a distance seems blurry to him. With farsightedness (hyperopia), the situation changes in the opposite direction, i.e. it is easier for a person to see distant objects that are more than 25-40 cm away from him than those that are under his nose.

Both pathologies can be corrected with the help of special exercises. You just need to be diligent in doing them. It is clear that the result will depend not only on the patient's diligence, but also on the severity of the pathology. Correction with the help of eye exercises is considered effective for mild disorders (up to 3 diopters plus or minus, depending on whether a person has farsightedness or nearsightedness). However, reviews indicate that even with higher diopter values, vision improves if a person regularly does eye exercises, for example, according to the Zhdanov method.

With the help of exercises, special glasses and drug therapy, accommodation disorders can be eliminated, manifested by rapid fatigue and tearfulness of the eyes, loss of image clarity and doubling of objects. There are special exercises that treat strabismus, which is often a consequence of accommodation spasm. There is also a set of exercises that helps restore normal vision in astigmatism, the cause of which can be the same spasm of the eye muscles. In this case, a person sees objects as crooked.

Contraindications

Not all vision pathologies benefit from eye exercises, in other words, even these simple exercises have their own contraindications. For example, after surgery on the organ of vision, there is still a long recovery period (at least six months), when active physical exercise on the eyes is prohibited.

There is also such a pathology as retinal detachment, when it moves away from the vascular membrane. Any active movements lead to increased blood circulation, which is quite dangerous for this pathology, requiring surgical treatment. And only six months after the operation can the issue of eye exercises be raised.

Relative contraindications to gymnastics for the organs of vision are inflammatory eye pathologies, which are usually associated with an infectious factor. And with any infections, increased blood circulation contributes to the spread of pathogenic microorganisms over a larger area, which should not be allowed. And active movements of the eyelids and eyeballs will only contribute to the development of ophthalmological complications.

Undesirable heavy load on the eyes and with increased intraocular pressure. But when the condition stabilizes, simple eye exercises to improve vision will be very useful. The main thing is to observe the measure and not overexert yourself.

A high degree of myopia, when we are talking about 6 or more diopters, is not so much a contraindication as a limitation to heavy loads. But if desired, you can always adjust the number of exercises so that the organ of vision, without overexertion, can receive the help it needs.

Be that as it may, but before you start to take care of your eyes, you first need to have them examined by a doctor. And the specialist will tell you what exercises, in what quantity and for how long you can do in each specific case.

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Description of the exercise

It should be said right away that in addition to the universal set of exercises, which is suitable for absolutely everyone who is not contraindicated for such a load on the eyes, there are many more special techniques that help correct vision in case of various disorders. Some eye exercises in different sets overlap, others are specific, but they are all designed to improve vision.

Universal eye exercises to improve visual acuity

This complex consists of several simple exercises that will be useful for people whose activities are associated with constant eye strain. But it can also be useful for those who, for various reasons, have begun to develop myopia, for example, school-age children for therapeutic and preventive purposes.

Moreover, it is not necessary to perform the entire set of exercises. You can choose individual ones that you like and perform them at a certain time. In other words, eye exercises should be included in your daily routine and made a regular activity.

So, the recommended exercises are:

• "Massage". Close your eyes and think about something pleasant, while massaging the upper and lower eyelids with your fingertips. This must be done correctly, moving toward the outer corner of the eye when massaging the upper eyelid. When massaging the lower eyelid, move in the opposite direction, toward the inner corner.

This is a wonderful relaxation for the eyes and is also beneficial for stimulating blood circulation.

• "Press". Close your eyes and place your index, middle and ring fingers on your eyelids. Press lightly on your eyelid for a couple of seconds and then release your hands. It is recommended to do 5-6 such presses.

The exercise improves blood circulation and tear fluid exchange.

• "Blind Man's Bluff". Let's remember how in childhood, playing the game of the same name, we had to close our eyes tightly so that no one would suspect us of peeping. Let's do the same now, having settled ourselves more comfortably on a chair so as not to lose our balance during the exercise. We close our eyes tightly for literally 4-5 seconds, and then open them for the same amount of time, giving our eyelids a rest.

This exercise can be repeated 5 to 8 times. It helps relieve eye strain, improves eyelid muscle tone, and stimulates blood supply to the eyes.

• "Blinkers". This is even simpler. You need to blink your eyes actively for one minute without getting up from your chair. It is recommended to keep your head straight.

This exercise is a good workout for the eyelids and improves blood circulation in the organs of vision.

• "Farther-closer". The exercise can be done both in a sitting and standing position. First, look at a distant object chosen in advance in front of you for a couple of seconds. Then, moving your gaze closer, focus it on the nail of your index finger for 4-5 seconds. The finger should be opposite your nose at a distance of about 30 cm from it. Rest a little and repeat the exercise at least 7-10 times.
• "In order of turn." Take a pencil and hold it in the same way as the index finger in the previous exercise. Our target is the end of the pencil, we look at it with both eyes for 4-6 seconds. Then, for the same amount of time, close the right eye with the free hand, and look at our target with the left one. After 5 seconds, remove the palm and again examine the pencil with both eyes. Repeat the exercise, closing the left eye. That is, we look at the target with both eyes in turn, then with the left eye, again with both eyes and, finally, with the right eye. Repeat the full cycle 5 times.

This is a great workout for your eye muscles and focusing on an object.

• "Surveillance". Slightly bending one arm at the elbow and raising the index finger up, slowly describe a semicircle in front of you and return the arm to the starting position, without taking your eyes off the tip of the finger. It is recommended to repeat at least 10 times.

The exercise is designed to train the muscles responsible for horizontal eye movement, improves coordination and synchronicity of eye movements.

• "Up and down". An exercise identical to the previous one, only you will have to watch your hand moving from top to bottom and back, thus training the muscles responsible for vertical movements of the paired organ of vision.
• "Crosses". We train the eye muscles to perform complex movements. We raise our eyes to the sky one by one, lower them to the floor, then look to the right and left. The order can be changed periodically, which helps improve coordination. We draw crosses with our eyes 8-10 times.
• "Tic-tac-toe". Again, move your hand to the side and raise your index finger up (the distance from your finger to your eyes should be about 50 cm). Draw a circle in front of you and keep your eyes on your fingertip all the time. Draw the circle alternately in the direction of the arrow and in the opposite direction. Repeat the full cycle of hand movement (2 tic-tac-toes) 5 times.
• "In a circle". The previous exercise can be done without using your hands, simply rotating your eyeballs clockwise and counterclockwise. After that, lower your eyelids and rotate your eyeballs in both directions again.

Both exercises improve the functioning of the vestibular apparatus and train the execution of complex eye movements.

• "In the Dark". Repeat the "Crosses" exercise with your eyes closed. Keep your head still. Repeat 5-6 times.

This is a great workout for your ability to hold static tension.

• "Fixies". An exercise for fixing the gaze. First, look into the distance at a specific object for 5-6 seconds, then move your gaze to the tip of your nose and hold it there for the same 5 seconds. Repeat the exercise 5-7 times.

In this way, we train the ability to fix our gaze on the desired object, even if it is located very close.

• "Search". We perform the exercise standing in the middle of the room, feet shoulder-width apart. First, we lower our head and look at the foot of our right foot, then we lift our head and look at the upper corner of the left side of the room. We repeat the same with the left foot and the right corner of the room.

This is an exercise for coordinating head and eye movements.

• "Distance estimation" is probably the most difficult exercise, requiring certain skills. We stand facing the wall at a distance of 2-3 meters from it. Mentally draw a straight line in front of us, connecting our eyes and the wall and try to determine its middle, and fix our gaze on this imaginary point. Then we mentally divide the closest segment in half again and look at the new middle. We do the same with the closest segment, which is a quarter of our straight line, i.e. fix our gaze on its middle. We repeat everything from the beginning 4 more times.

With the help of this rather complex exercise, we train all the muscles outside and inside the eyeball, and also learn to visually estimate the distance to an object.

If you train regularly (and this is only about 10 minutes), doing eye exercises to improve vision, you can not only prevent the development of myopia, but also significantly improve visual perception and its acuity.

Eye exercises designed to improve vision in case of nearsightedness

Myopia is said to occur when a person brings an object close to his eyes in order to examine it, which is especially noticeable when reading a book. The reason for this behavior is the fact that at a distance of over 40 cm, a myopic person already has difficulty distinguishing small details, and the image of objects becomes blurry.

The cause of myopia may be a disproportionately large size of the eyeball, a change in the shape of the cornea, traumatic damage to the eye, sclerotic changes in the lens, spasm of the eye muscles, which results in failures in the optical system of the organ of vision. Distortion of the image of distant objects may be a consequence of the irregular shape and size of the eyeball or premature refraction of light in the optical system of the eye.

Very often, such a pathology as myopia begins to develop in childhood or adolescence, negatively affecting the child's academic performance. It causes no less problems in adults.

This condition can be corrected with the help of special glasses with concave lenses, but this does not help to completely get rid of the problem. But if the treatment is supported by special exercises that improve the blood supply to the eye tissues, help them relax when overstrained and train the motor muscles, the result will be more encouraging.

So, let's move on directly to the exercises:

• Let's start with an eye massage, gently massaging the eyelids with the index fingers of both hands without pressing hard. The massage is carried out for 1-1.5 minutes and helps the eyes to relax before training.
• Now let's try to do a simple exercise, actively moving your eyes first 10 times up and down, then the same number from side to side.
• Without closing the eyes and rotating only the eyeballs, let's try to draw a circle. It is recommended to alternate eye movements clockwise and counterclockwise.
• The “Blind Man’s Bluff” exercise from the universal complex will also be useful, when you need to alternately close your eyes tightly and open them wide.
• Now we stand one and a half meters from the wall in its center. We begin to move our eyes along the diagonals, mentally drawn on the rectangle of the wall, as if connecting the opposite corners (upper right and lower left, upper left and lower right) with a straight line.
• Don't forget about blinking intensely, but don't close your eyes too tightly.
• Let's try to examine the bridge of our nose, bringing our eyes to it. Do this at least 5 times.
• An excellent training of near and far vision consists of alternately examining from a meter distance a small brightly colored paper circle previously glued to the window glass and objects located behind the glass. That is, the gaze constantly has to focus on the mark on the window, then on distant objects.

When performing the above-described eye exercises to improve vision by restoring normal blood supply to the eyes, you should always remember about full deep breathing, because the goal of the exercises is to improve cellular respiration of the eye tissues.

Now let's move on to training all kinds of muscles of the visual organ:

• We take a pencil (object) with one hand and hold it vertically in front of us at arm's length. We fix our gaze on the pencil and begin to slowly move our hand to the side, without taking our gaze off our object. We follow the object with only our eyes, leaving our head motionless. Having changed our hand, we repeat the exercise, moving our eyes in the other direction.
• We repeat the exercise, following the movement of the pencil not only with our eyes, but also turning our head.
• Look into the distance for a few seconds without straining your eyes. Then raise the pencil to eye level (the distance to the object should not exceed 40 cm) and fix your gaze on it. Now look alternately, first at the pencil, then into the distance.
• We hold the pencil at the same level and distance. We look at it with both eyes for a few seconds, then the same amount of time with the right and left eyes, covering first one eye, then the other with our hand.
• Now we move the pencil in an outstretched hand in front of our eyes in different directions, constantly following it with both eyes.
• We mentally draw the number “8” in front of us and try to trace it with our gaze along the entire line.
• We look forward, opening our eyes wide, then we squint, as if we were looking at an object located in the distance, and finally, relaxing the muscles of the eyelids, we close our eyes.
• We use a pocket version of the vision test chart used in ophthalmology. We turn on good lighting and, holding the chart at arm's length, carefully examine the letters, starting with the largest and gradually moving to the smallest. We hold our gaze on each letter and note to ourselves how clear it seems to us.

Next, close the curtains, turn off the light and light a candle. Take a book with small print and read 3 pages of any work from a distance of 25 cm. The visibility of the font should be such that the text is read with a certain amount of eye strain.

By alternating both exercises, you can achieve improved visual acuity in myopia.

• You can also practice on a full-size table, hanging it at a distance of 3 meters. Gradually, this distance should be increased to 6 meters, trying to clearly see all the letters. There should be no strong eye strain, so make sure there is good lighting and blink often.
• We choose one of the letters from the table and, blinking constantly, look at it, trying to keep its image in our memory. Then we close our eyes and mentally draw a clear picture of the chosen letter in front of us. We periodically open our eyes and try to see an equally clear image on the table. The result should be a mental and real image of a specific letter of equal clarity.
• A good exercise for the eyes with myopia is to look at moving objects from the window of public transport on the way to and from work.

You need to repeat the eye muscle training exercises 3 to 10-12 times, gradually increasing the number of repetitions. You should not overstrain your eyes during the exercises.

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Eye exercises designed to improve vision in farsightedness

Farsightedness is a vision disorder that manifests itself in blurred vision of nearby objects. That is, we observe a situation opposite to myopia. When reading a book, a farsighted person will hold it in an outstretched hand, otherwise the letters will merge.

As in the case of myopia, the correction of the condition is carried out with the help of glasses, but the lenses are bent outward. But such a measure has a weak effect if the eyes are not trained. Moreover, eye exercises to improve vision with farsightedness are practically no different from those with myopia. But there are also special exercises developed by different authors specifically to solve this problem.

Let's see how else you can train your eyes if you are farsighted:

• We write 3 letters on a piece of paper – P, B and O. The letters should be seven and a half centimeters high. Having hung the piece of paper on the wall, we move away from it to a distance where the letters are clearly visible. We focus our gaze on the first letter, then move our gaze to a clean space on the sheet to the right and left of it. Our gaze only slides over the letter, without stopping on it. We repeat the exercise for all 3 letters.

Now we move away to such a distance that the letters are distinguishable, but not clearly enough. We close our eyes and mentally draw a clear image of the letter "P" in front of us and try to see the white fields on both sides of it.

We open our eyes and look at the letter, trying to bring the clarity of the image closer to what we imagined in our mind's eye. We repeat the exercise for all the letters on the sheet.

When moving your gaze from the letter to the white fields, it should create the impression that it is slipping away in the opposite direction from the movement of your gaze.

• Try reading a book, focusing your gaze not on the letters and lines, but on the empty space between them.
• For the exercise, you will need a full-size and a pocket version of the vision test chart (author D.A. Sivtsev). Place the first one in dim lighting conditions and move away from it by 5 meters. Hold the pocket version of the chart in front of you, directing the light at it.

We read the large and small tables in turn. On the large one, we try to distinguish the maximum number of letters. We try to read the pocket version between the lines. In doing so, we need to blink frequently, which will reduce the strain on our eyes.

• We sit down with a pocket version of Sivtsev's table by an open window (you can go outside). We alternate reading the table with observing the surrounding objects.
• This exercise will be a workout not only for the eyes, but also for the back muscles. Stand straight, feet shoulder-width apart, hands on the waist, look straight ahead, without lowering the head. Now slowly turn the body 90 degrees first in one direction, return back, then in the other direction. At the same time, try to look ahead all the time, without being distracted by extraneous movements.
• Imagine that the tip of our nose is a pencil with which we can draw or write anything. Let's try to write the name of a loved one, trying to make the lines smooth and not tearing the "pencil" from the imaginary sheet of paper. In the same way, you can draw a star, any geometric figures, various letters and numbers. It is recommended to do the exercise 5-8 times.
• Hold your hands with your fingers spread out in front of you, but try to focus your gaze not on the fingers themselves, but on the space between them until the image of the fingers becomes blurred. Blink, look into the distance for about a quarter of a minute. Repeat the exercise, focusing your gaze on your fingers. Repeat 5-6 times.

It is very useful for farsightedness to look at a flickering candle flame or moving objects for a long time. Even watching movies and TV series will be a workout for your eyes, but don't forget to give your eyes a rest every half hour.

Since farsightedness is a pathology more typical for older people, which is associated with physiological changes in the body, you need to think about the consequences in advance. Let's consider a set of preventive exercises that will help prevent the development of farsightedness and slightly improve the vision situation after 40 years:

• We read Sivtsev's pocket table or any book in turn in dim light and sufficiently intense lighting. If a person wears glasses, it is necessary to gradually switch to studying without them.
• Cover one eye with your hand so that it does not interfere with the eyelids moving. With the other eye, for half a minute, try to examine the lines on the palm of your free hand, stretching it out to its full length. Close the eye and mentally reproduce the picture you saw in all its details.

Open both eyes and look at the palm of the same hand, brought closer to a distance of 40 cm. Close your eyes again and remember the details. Open your eyes, move your hand to a distance of no more than 15 cm and study your palm again.

Repeat the exercise with the other eye and palm. Finally, you can repeat all the steps, examining the palm with both eyes at the same time.

• This same exercise can be slightly modified by choosing as the object of study not the palm, but a fingerprint drawn on paper.

Such exercises train the eyes to see equally well at different distances from an object and additionally train visual memory.

Eye exercises to improve vision by Professor Zhdanov

Vladimir Georgievich Zhdanov, who developed a popular method of improving vision using special exercises and auto-training, is considered a person far removed from medicine. But his passion for the idea of a healthy lifestyle did not allow him to stand aside from the problems of alcoholism and the high prevalence of vision disorders.

His method is suitable for people with good vision (for preventive purposes) and those who suffer from farsightedness, nearsightedness, astigmatism, and strabismus. Zhdanov's method in the treatment of vision disorders consists of relaxing tense muscles and increasing the tone of weakened ones.

But Professor Zhdanov advises to start any exercises with relaxing the eyes. And our hands, or rather the hands, will help with this. This exercise for relaxing the eye muscles is called palming, and it is accompanied by elements of auto-training.

Why is palming useful for tired and sore eyes? It is not particularly surprising if you remember that when we have any pain, we try to apply our hands to the sore spot. This in some way soothes the pain, or rather, our perception of this sensation, relieves spasms, provides relaxation, and we feel a little better.

Our eyes will feel the same if we close them with our hands (it is not for nothing that we do this if we feel very bad, heavy at heart or overcome by bad thoughts). By closing our eyes with our hands, we thereby calm the nervous system, which is responsible for muscle tension. But to achieve a true relaxation effect, this must be done correctly.

First, warm up your palms by actively rubbing them against each other. Now squeeze your fingers tightly so that your hands take on the shape of a shuttle. Place your hands on top of each other so that only your fingers touch. The fingers of one hand should be perpendicular to the fingers of the other.

We apply the resulting structure to the eyes, making sure that it does not block the nose, but is only attached to it. We try to ensure that the light does not penetrate through closed fingers or other cracks. We hold the head straight, fix the elbows, placing them on a stand (for example, a table). We breathe freely. We keep the eyes closed, the eyelids relaxed.

To relieve excessive stimulation of the optic nerve, imagine an absolutely black surface in front of you. At the same time, begin to tune in to a positive wave: praise your eyes, thank you for having them, imagine how the shape of the eyeball changes so that your vision becomes normal, etc. All this helps you relax as much as possible and relieve accumulated tension.

Before taking your hands away from your eyes, Professor Zhdanov recommends doing simple exercises first: close your eyes tightly, tensing your eyelid muscles, and then relax them (repeat 3-5 times). After you have removed your palms, do not rush to open your eyes. First, shake your head from side to side a little, then lightly blot and rub your eyes with your fists, take a couple of deep breaths in and out, and you can calmly open your beloved eyes.

This eye relaxation exercise should be done regularly, as soon as your eyes start to get tired. If you need to work a lot on the computer or watch a long movie on TV, it is recommended to do the eye muscle relaxation exercise every hour, spending at least 3 minutes.

Professor Zhdanov offers people with visual impairments a set of exercises that help restore tone to weakened eye muscles. Some of them are already familiar to us. These are eye movements to the right and left, up and down, diagonally. Zhdanov recommends repeating each exercise 3 times at first, after which you must actively blink your eyes.

Now let's look at an exercise that we haven't described yet:

• We draw a rectangle with our eyes, carefully tracing each side. First, we “draw” 3 times clockwise, then change the direction to the opposite and repeat the exercise.
• We mentally draw a clock face in front of us, run our eyes over the numbers, stopping only at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o'clock. In this way, we draw an equilateral rhombus.

Now we draw a rhombus, moving counterclockwise. We repeat the exercise in both directions all those 3 times, not forgetting to blink our eyes after each series of rotations.

• We try to draw a snake with our eyes. To do this, we look to the right and start moving our eyes up and down, gradually moving our gaze to the left. At the end, we mentally draw a head and start zigzagging in the opposite direction.
• We draw a bow-tie with our eyes, starting from the lower left corner and carefully drawing vertical and diagonal lines.
• The same principle is used to perform the “Hourglass” exercise, which is a bow placed on the side edge.
• We draw a spiral with our eyes, starting from a point mentally placed opposite the nose, and drawing circles with an ever-increasing diameter.
• We mentally try to wind a piece of rope around a horizontal pipe, moving from right to left and back.
• Now imagine the pipe turned upside down. Starting from the floor, we wind the rope around it with our eyes 5 times and return back in the same way.
• Imagine a translucent ball in front of you - a globe with an equator strip. You need to try to mentally spin it along the equator line with your eyes, i.e. in the horizontal direction, helping yourself with your head and everything on it. Make 6 circles in one direction, then the same number in the other.

Exercises should be performed so that the eyes do not experience much strain. You need to start with a minimum number of repetitions (2-3 times). If even such a load leads to overstraining of the organ of vision, a one- or two-day break is recommended. Gradually increase the number of repetitions, but make sure that the exercises do not cause fatigue.

Professor Zhdanov considers training with a bright light source to be very useful for the eyes, calling it solarization, since ideally the sun should be such a light source. For solarization, you need to face the sun, take a stable position, spread your legs, and close your eyes without straining your eyelids. Now turn your upper body to the right and then to the left, each time leaving the sun to the side, saying to yourself which side the sun should be on.

Even with our eyes closed, we catch sunlight through our eyelids. After turning our eyes more than 20 times, we can see a dozen running sunbeams in the form of bright yellow and reddish dots. This indicates that the retina is activated, while the muscles responsible for the motor activity of the eyeball are relaxed.

Solarization in its pure form is possible only in sunny weather. But what about cloudy days? Zhdanov claims that the source of light for solarization can be not only the sun, but also a lit candle or an electric lamp. As an option, you can even use a gap left between the curtains on the window.

During the procedure, the room should be dark enough (you need to close the curtains or turn off the main light). Now we sit comfortably at a distance of at least a meter from the light source (a crack in the window, a light bulb or a candle) and focus our gaze on it. Blink and begin to turn your head from side to side, without holding your gaze on the flashing luminous point before your eyes. In this case, you do not need to close your eyes. Do not forget to constantly say which side the candle is on. You need to make at least 15 turns of your head in each direction to get the desired result.

Zhdanov strongly recommends finishing solarization with palming. A positive attitude is very important. It will be useful to remember pleasant events from your life during palming, which will lead to relaxation. By the way, exercises with a candle and pleasant memories during palming are recommended for people suffering from strabismus.

Professor Zhdanov believes that the quality of vision depends on the intensity of cerebral blood flow. And here, eye exercises alone are not enough. In this regard, tilting the head in different directions, moving the shoulders up and down, back and forth and in circles, turning the torso, bending to the sides, and active rotational movements of the pelvis will be useful.

Moreover, Zhdanov assigns a large role to auto-training and self-hypnosis. Based on the experiments of G. Shichko, which confirm the great power of words written by a person's hand before going to bed, V.G. Zhdanov recommends writing the same text at night, consisting of 15 motivating phrases. These phrases should be learned over time and written every evening from memory. Such a unique encoding accustoms a person to the correct attitude towards life and his body.

The effect of daily entries can be compared to a placebo recipe. The text contains several phrases that a person uses to convince himself of positive changes in the functioning of the visual organs, that his eyes see better every day. There are phrases designed to convince the patient that a full recovery will definitely come, which means that his life will be happy and healthy. But there are also those that are designed to develop useful habits of blinking frequently, preventing the mucous membrane from drying out and the eyes from getting tired, giving the eyes a rest, doing relaxation exercises (palming).

The day of a person who wants to be healthy should end with writing motivational phrases. That is, after this, it is not advisable to do anything. It is best to lie in bed and practice palming, mentally scrolling through useful phrases.

Another useful recommendation from Professor Zhdanov: water procedures for the eyes using melt water. You can freeze purified, natural or boiled tap water. After the water melts, you need to wash your face with it and splash it into your eyes (without closing them). The procedure should be carried out in the morning and evening before going to bed.

Now here are some fun but effective eye exercises to improve your vision, which nevertheless train all the different eye muscles very well:

• "Funny faces". As children, many of us loved to make faces, both at others and at ourselves, looking in the mirror. If you think that adults shouldn't behave like that, you're very wrong. Grimacing in front of the mirror helps develop and train the facial muscles, including the eye muscles. And this exercise improves your mood better than any antidepressants or chocolate. So grimace to your heart's content when no one is watching.
• "An annoying butterfly." Imagine that a beautiful butterfly has flown into our room and landed on the ceiling. Mentally draw a butterfly on the ceiling, and then imagine how it flies up and moves toward our face. It lands on our eyebrows - look up and look at them for a while. Blink your eyes and seem to chase the butterfly away. It flies back to the ceiling, and we follow its flight with our eyes.

Now we mentally put the butterfly on the wall opposite us, but it flies up and towards our face, landing on our nose. We look at the tip of our nose for a couple of seconds and blink. The butterfly returns to the wall, and we follow it with our eyes.

Finally, we mentally land the butterfly on the floor, but it flies to our upper lip. We look at it again for a couple of seconds and blink. Then we return the butterfly to the floor.

These exercises train different muscle groups, so they can be performed for correctional purposes separately or as a kind of complex. At the same time, they perfectly develop the imagination. The main thing is not to overdo it. The eyes should not be strained for a long time, and such exercises, according to Zhdanov's advice, can be performed no more than 5 times in a row.

• The next exercise is no less positive than the previous ones. Let's remember how you can say "everything is great!" with your hands. Well, of course, by clenching 4 fingers into a fist and raising your thumb up. Make this figure with your fingers and stretch your hand forward so that your thumb points up (it's more comfortable and positive). Blink well, look at the extended finger, and then slowly begin to bring it closer to your nose and back, without taking your eyes off it. Blink again and look into the distance so that your eye muscles can completely relax.
• One of the most difficult exercises is considered to be "Pirate glasses". Its name is associated with the need to wear glasses, one side of the frame of which is covered with dark fabric (or other material). A person needs to wear such glasses for no more than half an hour, after which a short rest and palming are needed. Then the other part of the glasses is closed, and again the person wears them without taking them off for half an hour.

For the exercise, it is better to take a frame without lenses, so that the open eye actively works, strains the muscles. You can take not one, but two frames, then the bandage will not need to be constantly moved.

Professor Zhdanov claims that you can train your eyes not only at home or at work, but also on a walk, watching the movements of birds, animals, people, while waiting for transport, during a trip as a passenger. For example, the exercise with a mark on the window can be modernized by taking a lonely leaf of a tree as a mark on the glass, then the walk will bring twice as much benefit.

Tibetan eye exercises to improve vision

Many people know that our visual organ perceives the green part of the light spectrum best. The wise men of the East associate our eyes with this color. Observing objects that have a green color has a relaxing effect on the eyes, which means that when the visual organ is overstrained, you can give it a rest by simply contemplating the color green.

Tibetan medicine also welcomes eye massage, which can be done with or without hands. It is recommended to use hands to stroke the upper and lower eyelids. And a massage without hands is to rotate the whites of the eyes with the eyelids closed.

Followers of Eastern medicine claim that clear, shiny eyes are an indicator of good health. And you can make your eyes shine with the help of hardening procedures. For example, by lowering your face into a basin of cold melt water. You can first keep your eyes closed, and then try blinking them in the water, making rotational movements, etc. This will improve the blood supply to the organ of vision, which will certainly affect the clarity of your gaze.

And to make your eyes not only shine, but also see well, you can try the following set of eye exercises to improve vision and train muscles:

• We clench both hands into a fist and extend the index finger. Keeping the fingers close to each other, we move our hands to a distance of forty centimeters from the face and hold them at eye level. Now gradually move our hands to the sides, trying to keep both fingers in the field of vision. As soon as the fingers disappear beyond the limits of peripheral vision, we slowly return the hands back.
• Don't lower your hands yet. Look at your fingers, then look at an object located in the distance, look at it for 4-6 seconds and look at your fingers again. Do the exercise 3-5 times.
• Close your eyes and gently press your fingertips on your eyelids exactly 6 times. Now open your eyes and look forward for 6 seconds without blinking. It is recommended to repeat the exercise 3 times.
• We do a similar exercise, but without using our hands. Just close your eyes tightly and immediately open them wide (repeat 6 times), then keep your eyes open for 6 seconds.
• Draw a rhombus with your eyes, starting from the bottom corner. First counterclockwise, rest, looking ahead, and then draw a rhombus clockwise. Repeat 3-4 times.
• As Professor Zhdanov advises, blink actively for two minutes. No need to close your eyes, just open and close them.

We finish the set of exercises by lightly stroking the eyelids with the pads of the fingers. We rest, closing our eyes for up to 5 minutes and thinking about something pleasant.

And a little about the energy practices of Tibetan monks:

• Tears of purification. A candle for a woman or a glass ball for a man are the necessary materials for the first exercise. Place the candle (crystal) on the table in front of you. Sit up straight, your back should be straight, your shoulders straight, and your head should be held straight. Look at the burning candle or crystal until tears appear in your eyes. Now close your eyes and bring them under your eyelids to the space between your eyebrows. You need to sit with your eyes closed for 2 times longer than it took you to contemplate the fire or crystal. The tip of your tongue should be raised to the palate.

It is believed that tears help cleanse the body of harmful substances. And if you do the exercise correctly, you can stop the development of pathological processes in the body.

• Filling with light. Eyes are considered in Tibetan medicine as an accumulator of internal energy, which gives the body beauty, youth and health. It is important to teach your eyes to fill with the light of life.

For this we will need a regular mirror. We approach it, look at our reflection and give ourselves our most sincere smile, trying to make it reflected in our eyes. It is very important that not only the lips smile, but also the eyes.

Now let's try not to smile, just move your lips slightly, as if preparing to smile. At this time, our eyes should begin to radiate energy. We must try to preserve it and increase it, so that the eyes smile even when outwardly you seem absolutely calm.

It is important to hold on to the smile that has begun in the depths of your eyes for as long as possible, trying to feel how the internal energy flows through your veins, rises to your eyes and lights up a special light in them that can disarm enemies and make a person stronger, more self-confident, and happier.

Eye Exercises to Improve Vision in Children

It is no secret that during their school years our children not only receive a lot of useful information, but also noticeably worsen their vision. Unfortunately, vision deterioration in preschool children is becoming no less a common problem. At the same time, myopia, hyperopia, strabismus, astigmatism, amblyopia (when images from different eyes differ, which does not allow to recreate a complete picture of what was seen) can be both congenital and acquired vision defects.

Visual impairment may be observed even in newborns if the mother had health problems during pregnancy and childbirth that affected the development of the baby's visual organs. Early childhood congestion, meningitis and some other infectious pathologies, vitamin A deficiency, unbalanced nutrition - all this can also cause visual impairment. The hereditary factor should not be ruled out either.

It is believed that vision impairments that occur in early childhood should be treated as early as possible, when they are still fairly easy to correct without surgery. Corrective classes with children are based on basic eye exercises to improve vision, which have been written about a lot above.

In most cases, a set of children's gymnastics for the visual organ contains exercises for eye movement in different directions: up, down, to the sides, diagonally, in a circle, etc. Also practiced is bringing the eyes to the nose, drawing with the nose and other useful exercises. Finding such easy exercises is not a problem, it is more difficult to convince a preschool and primary school child to do things that are not interesting to them. Here it is very important to interest the child. And this can only be done by conducting classes in a playful manner.

If you simply ask a child to close his eyes, you will hardly get the expected result, because the child will not be interested. But if you offer a game in which you have to close your eyes "when the sun appears", that is a completely different matter.

How to make a child blink his eyes? Compare the baby's eyes or eyelashes with the wings of a bird, dragonfly, butterfly and ask him to "flap his wings."

To make it interesting for a child to look at his nose, you can ask the little ones to imagine that a ladybug or a moth (or even better, Thumbelina) has landed on their nose. To make a child first look at his nose and then look into the distance, you can ask him to play Pinocchio, whose nose suddenly began to grow.

When you need to ask a child to open his eyes wide, it will be much more interesting for him to do this if an adult suggests depicting, for example, the eyes of a dragonfly.

On the Internet, you can find advice on how to train children's eyes in poetic form. In this case, short children's poems are used, some phrases of which indirectly tell the child what to do. For example, the poem "In the Forest":

The sun is walking in a circle,
(children roll their eyes, as if drawing a circle)
The doe is dozing.
(children close their eyes)
We are walking along the meadow quietly, quietly.
(children open their eyes and wait)
We will walk along the edge of the forest and find a path.
(children need to look down, as if they are looking for this very path)
There is a magpie on top
(children look up to where the magpie should be sitting)
Cleaning its back with its beak. (you can ask the children to look at the back first over one shoulder, then over the other.)

At first, of course, you will have to show the kids what exactly to do after each phrase, but soon the kids will learn the rhyme and the movements, and the lessons will be more fun and active. But to make the lessons even more enjoyable for the kids, they need to be praised for doing the exercises correctly; kids love praise.

We need to try to ensure that activities with children cover almost the entire spectrum of eye movements:

• Exercises for moving the eyeballs up and down and from side to side.
• Exercises for moving the eyes in a circle.
• Exercises for drawing with the eyes (nose) various geometric figures, letters and numbers.
• An exercise in bringing the eyes closer to the nose and looking at distant objects.
• "Blind Man's Bluff" and "Blinker".
• Facial muscle training

Little grimaces really like the exercise when you have to make faces. They will grimace at each other, at the request of an adult, depict various animals and birds, and the muscles of the eyes and face will receive good stimulation.

Most often, such a visual impairment as myopia is diagnosed in childhood. Preventive classes, which should be regularly held in kindergartens and schools, are aimed at preventing this pathology. The preventive course usually includes simple eye exercises that children of a certain age can handle.

The duration of classes for children aged 3-5 years should not exceed 5 minutes. Children in elementary school can be given slightly more complex exercises, but eye exercises should still not last more than 10 minutes. Children over 10 years old can easily master the exercises offered to adults, except for the most difficult ones, and do them consciously without any stimulation.

Classes with children can be held at school during breaks, in an extended day group, at home, during walks. Both teachers or caregivers, as well as active parents (after all, we are talking about the health of their children) can take on the responsibility of doing eye exercises with children to improve their vision. If correction of severe disorders is required, classes are conducted by a medical specialist.

The changes occurring in the body

Any physical exercises and psychological settings used for therapeutic and corrective purposes are aimed at positive changes in the human body. Eye exercises to improve vision are designed to improve the condition of the motor muscles and tissues of the visual organ.

A major role in our ability to visually perceive various objects is played by the coordinated work of all the eye muscles, which have to strain every time we shift our gaze from one object to another and even if we have to focus our gaze on one object for a long time. Long-term work under stress greatly tires the eye muscles. If you do not give them a rest, they get tired, and visual acuity decreases. Regular overstraining of the eyes leads to wear and tear of the muscles, they become flabby, unable to switch in time when we shift our gaze, or to hold the eye in the right position. This is where various visual impairments come from.

To correct the problem of myopia, it is very important to improve the blood supply to the eyes and increase the muscle tone of the visual organ. With farsightedness, gymnastics helps to improve blood circulation in the muscles of the eyes and the cervical spine, trains the oculomotor muscles, improves the ability to focus the gaze. This slows down the destructive age-related changes and is a preventive measure against visual impairment in young people.

It is clear that it is difficult to correct the situation with exercises alone. Our diet plays a major role in the quality work of the visual organ. A lack of vitamin A in the diet, not corrected by pharmaceutical drugs, leads to deterioration of vision even without heavy loads. Therefore, treatment of vision disorders is carried out additionally by correcting the diet, prescribing vitamin complexes and blueberry preparations.

The changes that occur in the body when doing eye exercises affect not only the organ of vision. They help to increase a person's self-esteem, to believe that he will be able to see well, to get rid of hated glasses and to be proud of the sparkle of his eyes.

Classes according to Zhdanov's method are a great way to improve your mood from the very beginning, when you express gratitude to your eyes. Perhaps, this will seem stupid and unworthy to someone. But you just have to try, putting aside pride and prejudices for a while, and you will immediately feel the ease with which you treated everything in childhood. This will help switch attention from the problems that have piled up to your body, which requires care. And this care, it turns out, can be very pleasant.

As for possible complications when doing eye exercises, they occur mainly when a person ignores contraindications to such exercises. For example, starts doing eye exercises without waiting for six months after the operation. This is fraught with suture divergence, bleeding, inflammatory processes and deterioration of vision.

Exercising during acute infectious inflammation of the organ of vision can provoke the spread of infection to the other eye, as well as deep into the body (into the auditory and nasal passages, into the brain). Exercising with increased intraocular pressure can provoke pain in the eyes and rupture of capillaries.

Deterioration can occur even in a relatively healthy person if you regularly overstrain your eyes during exercise. Such gymnastics does not help maintain eye health. During exercise, you need to constantly alternate moments of eye strain and relaxation.

When starting to practice eye exercises to improve vision on a regular basis, some people try to make them as effective as possible right away by increasing the number of repetitions and a large number of exercises. This is fundamentally wrong. It is clear that everyone wants to quickly regain normal vision, but in this case, you should be patient. You need to start with a minimum number of repetitions (from 1 to 3, depending on the complexity of the task), increasing it gradually when the eyes get used to such a load. Otherwise, overstrain and eye pain cannot be avoided. And vitamins and blueberries will help you restore your vision as quickly as possible.