Yoga Exercises For The Eyes

Yoga can be make a huge difference in your eyesight. One beneficial exercise involves bringing your gaze to the horizon. In this exercise, you will strengthen the lens of the eye. To begin, sit in padmasana or any other comfortable seated position. Start out with a straight spine and a deep, yogic breathe, allowing the belly to expand as you inhale and contract as you exhale. You can sit outside in the shade of a tree, where the horizon is in clear view, or you can look out from a window. Find a point on the horizon in the distance. Keep your focus there, until your eyes begin to water. Close your eyes and open them again, finding the same spot to take your gaze. Bring your arm up with the thumb facing up, in a thumbs-up position. Bring that thumb to the point you were gazing, then move it just slightly aside, so that your gaze goes from the tip of your thumb to the point on the horizon. You will feel a sensation of looking near and far, but eventually the thumb will seem t be as far away as the point you are looking toward. Keep changing your gaze every ten seconds or so until you need to rest your eyes. Close them, and take several deep, cleansing breaths, and when you open them again, find that same point on the horizon and repeat the process with the other thumb. You can do this in rounds of three or four on each side, resting the eyes when you need to, but always breathing deep and steady while you practice.

We can also practice inversions like downward facing dog, headstand, handstand and dolphin pose, for example, to increase blood-flow to the eyes and brain. Not only is vision improved in the practice of inversion, but hearing is also improved.

The eyes are important not just so that we can see images, but also to help regulate our circadian rhythms. Both classical rod/cone photoreceptors and a newly identified ocular photopigment melanopsin participate in photo-entrainment of the human clock. As light is transmitted into our eyes, it helps to affect the master oscillator in the brain. By looking into the setting sun, when it is at its lowest point in the sky, we can also help to set our human bioclock to nature’s rhythm. This not only improves vision, but also helps with every endocrine function in the body, helping to regulate mood and give us energy for the next day.

Yoga is a remarkable tool to help improve vision. As Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us, “To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world sparkles with light.” If we can only see the boun