5 Great Workouts For Your Eyes
Exercising and strengthening your eye muscles will help your eyes not get strained, tired or sore as often as poorly developed eye muscles. This is especially beneficial if you spend a lot of time in front of your computer every day. Here are a few ways you can easily strength your eye muscles.
Pace Yourself
With all of the eye exercises listed below, remember that it is important to pace yourself. Just like if you were working out your other muscles, you don't want to do too much all at once. Start out by doing a couple repetitions each day and slowly increase the number of repetitions that you complete. Don't strain your eyes by doing too much, too fast.
If any of these exercises make your eyes hurt, take a break and slow down your eye workout pace.
Eyebrow Focus
The first strengthening exercise is the eyebrow focus. Look upward and focus each eye on the middle of your eyebrow. Hold your eyes there for about three seconds, then relax and close your eyes for three seconds.
Repeat this exercise ten times in order to complete one set of this exercise.
Cross Eyed Nose
For this exercise, you are going to cross your eyes and focus your gaze on the tip of your nose. Try to hold your eyes there as long as you comfortably can. When it becomes uncomfortable or you lose your focus, close your eyes and let them relax for a couple of seconds.
A complete set when starting out only involves two to three repetitions of this exercise. You can increase the repetitions per set as your eye muscle strength increases.
Eye Squeeze
This exercise is relatively simple. Close your eyes and squeeze them as tightly as possible, then open your eyes.
Repeat this exercise 12 times in order to complete a full set.
Slow Eye Roll
Rolling your eyes can actually strengthen them. Start by looking straight ahead with your eyes; keep your head straight and in the same position throughout this exercise. Then, look up as far as you can with your eyes without moving your head. Then, look as far right as you possibly can without moving your head. Complete the circle by looking down and then to the left as far as you can while keeping your head in the same position.
Once you complete one circle, do another circle, this time working your eyes from left to right instead of right to left.
When you have completed a circle in both directions you have completed one repetition, and when you have completed five repetitions you have completed one set.
Quick Eye Roll
For this exercise, you are just going to roll your eyes quickly in a complete circle. Do not try to look as far as you can like you did with the previous exercise. Just roll your eyes in a circle in one direction as quickly as possible, then switch directions.
As with the slow eye roll, one repetition is completed when you roll your eyes in a circle both counterclockwise and clockwise, and a set is five repetitions.
If your eyes often feel strained or tired, what you really need are stronger eye muscles. Dedicate a few minutes of each day towards completing the eye exercises above. Slowly, you should be able to increase the strength of your eye muscles and reduce the amount of time your eyes feel tired or strained.
For further assistance, contact a local optometrist, such as one from Village Eye Centre.