Points to remember before starting the exercises: -

• Find as quiet a space as possible.
• Ideally the area should have subdued lighting or shade so try to avoid  strong  sunlight or intense artificial light
• Sit in a comfortable chair or on the floor but it is important to keep your back and neck straight – good posture is a must.
• Breath deeply, steadily and easily.
• Consciously relax your body, limb by limb if you find it easier, but not forgetting to keep the back and neck in line.
• Be positive and focus your mind on the good results you are going to get but avoid feeling stressed by concentrating too hard.
• Many find that soft chill out music puts them in the right frame of mind.
• An MP3 player is ideal for the job.

During the exercises

• Maintain your body position.
• Continue to breathe deeply and regularly
• Stick to your planned schedule of exercises. They need last no more than three to four minutes.
• Do not be tempted to increase the time on a whim. If you feel you will benefit from a longer time and your eye muscles are not tiring just increase by thirty seconds and stay with that for a few days before deciding whether you want to increase the time again.
• Blink rapidly between exercises.
• When you finish stand up and have a good stretch.

After the Exercises

• Keep to your eye exercise schedule. There are no hard and fast rules but if you can regularly find a few minutes every two or three hours during the working day to exercise the eyes this will be more beneficial than a once in the morning and once at bedtime routine.

• This is important. If you are working at a computer take a break every hour at least and do a short routine of palming and rapid blinking.

• Blinking is an important function in maintaining eye health so try to remember to blink often throughout the day, particularly if working for long periods on a computer or other close intensive work and also look away and refocus on a distant object every few minutes.

There are seven points around the perimeter of each eye socket, one or more of which can be stimulated with the finger tips for a few seconds at any time of the day or night.

The Chinese believe that this will help to smooth the flow of energy and clear any blockages and so benefits the eyes.

1. Point one is at the inside corner between the eye and nose.
2. Point two is the inside end of the eyebrows above the inside corner of the eye.
3. Point three is half way along the eyebrow directly above the center of the eyeball.
4. Point four is at the end of the eyebrow.
5. Point five where the bone meets the outside edge of the eye socket.
6. Point six is half way between the outside corner and the mid point of the eye socket.
7. Point seven is on the edge of the socket below the middle of the eyeball.

Be gentle when massaging these points with your finger tips and only spend a few seconds on each. Most people can feel an immediate benefit when stimulating these acupressure points but this may only be because the blood flow to the area has been increased, whatever the reason the result is well worth a few moments of your time.

We believe that these exercises will help to keep your eyes clear and sparkling and delay the onset of age lines around the eye area. We do not know whether eye exercises will help improve vision impairment or delay the onset of age related vision problems but we can but hope.