Eye-Body
Connection
by Meir Schneider, et.al.
Eyes are a
very special part of the body, composed in part of tissue identical to brain tissue and
very closely linked to the brain in many functions. Nevertheless, the eyes are connected
with the rest of the body by way of blood vessels, nerves and muscles. They simultaneously
affect the rest of the body and are affected by it.
Vision
problems are very frequently accompanied by specific patterns of muscle tension and
weakness. As with other types of physical problems, it is very difficult to say with
accuracy, This tension created that problem or That problem may have caused this
tension. This tends to get one involved in an unsolvable, chicken-or-egg type of
discussion. Does a person have a tight neck because of myopia, or vice versa? It is not
always possible to say. We have seen, however, that the two things always go together.
Massage of the whole face
influences the circulation around the eyes.
Without even looking at the body of a
nearsighted person, one can predict confidently that he or she will have pronounced
tension in the forehead, jaw, neck, shoulders, upper arms and lower back, and often the
calves as well. Relaxing these areas will often produce an immediate improvement in
vision, and doing vision exercises will often help these areas to relax. We have found
that a combination of vision exercises, bodywork and body-relaxation exercises is far more
effective than simply doing vision exercises alone.
Reducing Body Tension
Eyestrain and upper-body tension are
closely related. Strenuous use of the eyes can set up patterns of tension in the neck,
shoulders, arms and other areas. Conversely, muscular tension in these areas can adversely
affect the eyes by decreasing circulation to the head, causing a sense of exhaustion in
both the eyes and the mind. Anyone whose job involves sitting at a desk, bent over their
work, may experience this type of tension and exhaustion as a regular part of the job.
This position, in which most of us spend from six to eight hours of every workday, creates
strain in the back and neck, and tension in the shoulders and arms. Shoulder rotations are
wonderful for releasing shoulder and upper-back tension since they work directly on the
shoulder muscles.
One of the reasons people become so
fatigued at work is the tendency to work without stopping for anything but food, coffee or
a cigarette. We become so engrossed in our work that we can completely ignore our physical
discomfort until we get home.
People often feel pressured to work
straight through because of a deadline or a backlog of work. The irony of this is that
when we do take a few minutes for a break to rest, stretch, relax a genuine breathing
space we find ourselves able to accomplish more than we can when we are
perpetually driven to exhaustion.
Some employers are recognizing this and
are providing their workers with a place to rest, even to lie down for a few minutes every
so often. Even when Maureen worked at a cannery, the workers were given five minutes every
hour to go outside on the dock, and she would use the time for sunning or for shoulder
rotations or spine stretches. No one thought this was strange; everyone knew that the work
made them stiff and uncomfortable. There is more awareness nowadays that the same can be
true of sedentary jobs, particularly if they involve computers. There is a whole science
called ergonomics, which is devoted to designing workspaces which won't cripple the
workers. Those of us who work at home, however, as well as those of us who do not have
enlightened employers, have to look out for our own physical welfare during work.
It's All Connected
To understand the eye-body relationship,
we need to experience it kinesthetically. What does seeing feel like? Most of the time we
are not aware of it; we feel the effects of seeing only after the fact, in the form of
eyestrain, eye fatigue, neck tension and other related problems. It is possible, however,
to learn to feel immediately when we strain our eyes or the muscles surrounding them, and
to stop ourselves from doing so.
A good place to begin is with the muscles
closest to the eyes and most directly affected by seeing the facial muscles. For
many years we have been teaching our vision-improvement students to massage their faces,
with particular attention to several specific places which seem to have an especially good
effect on vision. We have just recently discovered that these are the same points used by
the Chinese in acupressure massage for the same purpose. We are not sure whether
this validates their method or ours probably both. In any case, we highly recommend
facial massage, particularly as a preparation for palming. One of the most important
functions of palming is, in fact, relaxation of the muscles around the eyes.
Try This Exercise:
Massage of the
whole face influences the circulation around the eyes. Rub your hands together until they
are warm, and then massage your face with your fingertips, gently at first, and then more
firmly as your muscles also begin to warm up. The pressure at first should be just firm
enough to let you feel whether a spot is tense or painful, but not hard enough to make
pain worse. Spend at least a couple of minutes on each separate area, noticing how your
touch feels and what effect it has. You may feel a deep tension or pain, a superficial
tightness, a pleasant sense of release, or numbness, which is also a sensation.
Begin with the jaw. Massage the whole
area from the point of the chin outward along the jawbone, in front of and behind the
ears. You can open and close your jaws while doing this, to help stretch and relax the
strong jaw muscles. This may make you feel like yawning, so yawn as much as you want
it is very relaxing for your face.
Now work up from the bridge of the nose
outward along the cheekbones toward the temples. From the bridge of the nose, work out
along the eyebrows, massaging above, below and directly on the brow. Spend a little extra
time on the point between the eyebrows; this area gathers a lot of tension from the act of
seeing. Then massage in long firm strokes across the forehead and, very gently, with small
circular motions, in the temple area. Stroke lightly from the temples up into your scalp,
imagining that you are drawing tension away from your eyes.
After ten minutes or so of massage, your
face will be glowing and tingling from the increased blood flow. Besides increasing your
kinesthetic sense of your eyes, these exercises strengthen the tissues around the eyes.
Move both eyes simultaneously in small
circles. If you need to, you can hold up a finger before your eyes and move it in a
circle, allowing the eye to follow it, but first see if you can move the eyes in rotation
without this aid. Touch your forehead above the eyes with your fingertips. Can you feel
the muscles moving? They don't need to. Try to relax them, and practice this exercise
until you can do it without working the forehead muscles. You may simply need to make your
circles smaller; in fact, see how small you can make them. Close your eyes and visualize
them moving in circles, freely, with no effort. It may help to picture a wheel rolling, or
a record on a turntable, or something else that turns smoothly and easily. With your eyes
open, rotate them again, and this time imagine that only the pupils are rotating.
Now close your eyes and move them in
rotation under the closed lids. This may be more difficult, since the movement is so much
more limited. Touch your eyeballs lightly as you do this, to feel the movement. Notice
whether you tense the rest of your face during this motion; if you do, try not to. You
will find it much easier to do this exercise with your eyes open after this. (Ed. Note:
In the book, there are a variety of exercises listed to alleviate tension with regard to
the eye-body connection which are not listed here.)
Working on your vision demands a high
level of awareness, and it will be enormously helpful to you if you begin your vision work
in a state of attunement with your body.
This
article was
excerpted from
"The Handbook of
Self-Healing"
by Meir Schneider
Info/order this book
More
books
by this author.
More
books on
vision improvement.
About The
Author
Meir Schneider healed himself of blindness through eye exercise and
movement therapy. His unique approach to healing is to empower the individual. Maureen
Larkin healed herself from sight impairment through therapy with Meir. Dror Schneider is a
self-healing practitioner and educator, as well as Meir's wife. The couple have two
children who also have sight impairments and, through their unique healing procedure, are
healing their sight as well. The above was excerpted with permission from the book,
"The Handbook Of Self-Healing", by Meir Schneider and Maureen Larkin with Dror
Schneider, ?1994, published by Penguin Press, Arkana Books, 175 Hudson St., New York, NY
10014.
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