Seeing is a very high-priority survival skill for your brain. Four out of twelve cranial nerves are exclusively devoted to vision – that’s a third of the entire real estate! If you are reading this right now, you use your eyes a lot! And because of the eyes’ interconnection with many other brain areas, their function is intimately interwoven with neck movement, balance, pain or the absence thereof, and essentially almost every bodily function. What’s cool about this is that improving all of the eyes’ abilities, not just seeing clearly, can have long-lasting positive benefits and improve well-being. The ability to relax the eyes is one of those skills that can have repercussions throughout the body and brain, even the gut. So how do we do that?
One way is to relax your eyes using Dr. Bates’ palming technique. Back in 1916, physician Dr.William Bates coined the phrase, “palming” for an eye relaxation technique that he taught his patients. This technique can ease eye strain, and we’ve seen in ZHealth that it can beneficially affect everything from joint mobility to neck tension and beyond. Here’s how you do it:
First and foremost, do not put any pressure on your eyes as you do this! Sit just away from a table, hinging forward from the hips and resting your elbows on the table. Keep your spine – including the back of the neck – long, rather than hunching over.
Once you’ve created a good setup for yourself, cover your hands over your eyes, letting the fingers cross. Keeping your hands relaxed, open your eyes and adjust your hands so that you eliminate as much light as possible. Keep that spine long, and allow your breath to flow! Now close your eyes. Notice whether you “see” darkness, or something else. Sometimes people see flashing lights, starbursts, all sorts of things. The goal is to let that neural firing ease up so that we perceive darkness. Lengthening the exhale (see prior blog) can help this process. Stay as long as you like. When you remove your hands from over your eyes, give yourself a moment to blink and adjust to the light. Now look around and notice whether perhaps the world looks a little brighter, and notice your mood. That’s it!
In ZHealth applied Neurology (see ZHealth page for more info), we can assess every input such as this to find out whether it’s something that benefits our nervous system or not. You can contact me to find out more about how to do this assessing for yourself. For now, use your mood and any change in seeing as guides.
The content above does not constitute medical advice. All exercise, therapy, diet, supplement and health practices should be cleared through your health/medical professional.
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