Deep relaxation of the eyes, and proper contraction of the pupils in the dark, will lead to more relaxation in normal life and can help us to maintain good vision for life.
The Power of Breath
When you practice blinking, one of the automatic reflexes is slow, deep breathing. The slower your breathing is, the more relaxed you are.
The best way to breathe is slowly in and out through the nose. When you breathe, you want to feel your abdomen expanding when you inhale and shrinking when you exhale. You want to feel your ribs and chest expanding when you breathe in and shrinking when you breathe out. Proper breathing encourages a sense of calmness and relaxation in which blinking and looking at details become easy and natural from moment to moment.
When you breathe, you feel warmth in your hands and feet. You also feel balanced throughout your whole body. When you breathe deeply, light becomes easy for you to absorb.
So let your abdomen and your ribs expand, but also feel your back expanding with each inhalation and shrinking with each exhalation. When we look with ease from detail to detail while blinking with ease, breathing slowly and deeply, and when we become adjusted to strong light, our vision comes alive.
Loosen Your Neck
You can loosen your neck in many different ways. One is simply to look into the distance while you stand erect. Do not let your head move forward. When you’re standing erect, there is a ligament that holds your neck straight, just like there is a ligament that holds your lens flat when you look far into a distance. This is a wonderful position for the body.
Since the normal tendency for most people is to bend forward, the neck usually becomes tight. From time to time, stand erect and look far into the distance, and you will maintain a soft neck that will not need any treatment; this will also bring more and more blood flow into your head. Using this technique, you will prevent many problems that relate to poor blood flow to the head.
Now, sit in your room on the floor with your back against the wall, with a small pillow that creates an arch in the middle of your back. Put your head against the wall and rotate your head from side to side. As you do this, stretch your neck. Breathe deeply and slowly. Tap with your fingertips on your neck, all the way from the base of your skull to your shoulder, back and forth.
Figure 2.22. Tap with your fingertips on your neck, all the way from the base of your skull to your shoulder, back and forth.
Now, for a brief moment, put your hand on the side of your chin and stretch your neck even farther to the left side; then stretch farther to the right side, while tapping up and down your neck to loosen the muscles. Do not continuously push your head. You will then find that the neck is stretching, and when you move the head from side to side, you’ll find that it moves slightly better.
You do not need to do this exercise for more than ten minutes per day. Even so, it will be very valuable in preparing your body for other exercises in this book, because more blood to your head means less pressure in your eyes. And the pressure in your eyes, if abnormal, can cause problems. More blood to your head also means that you have refreshed eyes, and refreshed eyes tend to respond much better to these eye exercises.
More blood to the head has all the benefits I’ve mentioned and a great many more. It has absolutely no side effects, will make you feel refreshed, and will help you to be alert. It will help you to do what you want, while seeing at ease and seeing well. You will find that moving your eyes from side to side becomes much easier for you when more blood flows to your head, all that can only happen with a loose neck.
Another wonderful relaxation exercise is to lie on your back with your knees bent and your hands to your sides. Now roll from side to side. Your hand will push you to roll to the opposite side. Push with your left hand, and you roll to the right. Push with your right hand, and you roll to the left. Do this about a hundred times every day before meals, for several months, and it will help your neck while increasing the blood flow to your head.
Another wonderful exercise is to sit up, interlace your fingers, stretch your arms out in front of you, and rotate them in a complete circle, in their entire range of motion, whatever that is for you. Visualize that your fingertips are leading the motion. The full movement of the arms loosens up your shoulders. Also, rotate your wrists. The looser your wrists are, the looser your shoulders become.
For the past 150 years, we’ve had the tendency to not lift our arms all the way. Nowadays, many men and women wear jackets that restrict the movements of their arms. That stiff look of immobile shoulders has been around for too long!
Figure 2.23. Interlace your fingers, stretch your arms out In front of you, and rotate them in a complete circle in both directions.
Our ancestors used to climb trees and lifted their arms upward on a regular basis. We don’t, and we’re paying a very dear price for it, because not lifting our arms restricts blood flow to the hands, head, and eyes. These days, our fingers are very stiff. We write, we type, we drive, and we constantly contract our fingers. Musicians, sign language interpreters, and massage therapists like me tend to contract their fingers even more. We don’t balance this movement with enough extension. Many workplace injuries and arthritic conditions happen because of stiffness in the wrist and fingers.
Interlace your fingers and point your palms outward while moving your arms in a rotating motion in both directions. This position helps you to stretch your hands and prevents lots of other problems. If you feel a nice stretch in your forearm, you have done your job. I remember a woman who took my class and had such poor circulation in her hands that they looked green. When she practiced stretching her hands and wrists, and moving her shoulders in a rotating motion, however, they became pink.
Figure 2.24. Now point your palms outward while moving your shoulders in a rotating motion in both directions. Circle your arms up.
Stretch Your Eye Muscles
Here’s a wonderful way to stretch your external eye muscles and relax your neck: tape a long strip of nose-width paper from your forehead to your chin and throw a ball from hand to hand, back and forth.
A student of mine named Melissa was in a terrible accident in which a pick-up truck ran over her body and head and broke many of her skull bones. Consequently, she was subjected to more than twenty surgeries on her face. One of the surgeries was on her deep orbit, and the recovery from it was very difficult. She developed extreme double vision and neck pain. When we put the small, medium, and large pieces of paper between her eyes, she saw well peripherally but saw double below and above those papers; her neck kept hurting as well. When we placed the big piece of paper from her forehead to her chin and she threw the balls from hand to hand, her neck stopped hurting, at first temporarily, then long-term.
This practice of putting a long piece of paper from forehead to chin has become known as the Melissa exercise. You simply tape a piece of paper to your forehead, then tape the bottom of the paper to your chin, and do exercises while wearing this paper. It may not immediately feel as much of a neck relief to you as it did to Melissa, because your eyes may not see double and you may not experience that extreme difference. Nevertheless, it may feel like a great relief for you from the strain of one eye that controls the other; this relief immediately leads to better vision for more than 60 percent of the people who do this exercise.