Dr. Harsh Goel

Eye exercises might not necessarily improve eyesight but they help in preventing eye problems and maintaining the correct eyesight level. Eye exercises are usually designed to provide strength to eye muscles, while improving focus, allowing flexible eye movements and helping stimulate the vision centre of the brain.

1. Palming: This exercise is also very simple to perform. All you have to do is cover your eyes with your palms. Once you have done this, just wait and see that there are no bright flashes of light. If you see that there is a bright flash of light, just wait till they go. This is used primarily to distress the eyes.
2. Flexing: This is simply rotating your eyes in circles. Roll your eyes in the clockwise direction for one minute and then roll your eyes in the anticlockwise direction for one minute.
3. Blinking: Your eyes get strained due to long hours of sitting at the computer or television and you tend to blink less. Whenever you blink, your eyes stay in darkness for a few microseconds that help to keep the eyes fresh, while reducing eye strain.
4. Stretching: This is the most common and also one of the easiest to do. It requires you to just look up, hold for two seconds, look down, hold for two seconds and then repeat this procedure for each corner of your eye, which means top-left, top-right, bottom-left and bottom-right corners.
5. Near and far focusing: This exercise helps in strengthening the eye muscles and improves the vision of your eyes.

It involves the following steps:

1. Either sit or stand in a comfortable position for 2-3 minutes
2. Bring your thumb about 10 inches in front of your eyes and try to focus on it
3. Now try focusing on an object that is about 10-20 feet in front of your eyes
4. Try switching between focusing on the other object and your thumb on each deep breath