Eye Exercises for Nearsightedness

September 29, 2018

Nearsightedness or myopia is a condition that many people will experience during their lifetime. The inability to focus on objects far away is sometimes a result of the natural aging process of your body which weakens your eye muscles. But, it can also be spurred by excessive screen time and not exercising your eye muscles regularly.

According to recent studies, almost half the world’s population will be myopic by 2050. That’s a lot of people! Luckily, nearsightedness can be rectified with a number of different methods.

The most common methods are glasses and contact lenses and in some cases people even resort to eye surgery to fix the problem. However, a lot of people dismiss the idea of doing eye exercises for nearsightedness!

Remember that your eyes are a muscle and that muscles need to be worked regularly to stay in good condition. Your eyes can really benefit from doing some regular exercises. The vision drills explained in this article can be done in the comfort of your own home and will really help to improve your vision.

Just How Helpful Can Eye Exercises for Nearsightedness Be?

There are many different causes of myopia and, if it’s caused by visual fatigue, eye exercises can be very helpful for you. If myopia is either genetic or heredity, eye exercises are going to be less effective. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that exercises won’t have any benefit for your vision.

Eye exercises can help in a few different ways:

• Increase eye function and help you focus better
• Reduce eyestrain
• Reduce sensitivity to light
• Increase or strengthen your eyes
• Help with other aspects of vision such as hand-eye coordination, depth perception, peripheral vision, etc.

Are Eye Exercises Guaranteed?

When myopia is caused or heavily influenced by genetics and not visual fatigue, the exercises won’t be completely effective. But they can help in other instances as outlined above and, in some cases, they can also help slow down the effects of myopia over time.

Your lifestyle will also play a big role in the effectiveness of exercises. If you continue to have poor visual habits, like looking at a computer screen for prolonged periods with no breaks, then the effectiveness will also be reduced.

Moreover, the amount of nutrients you are getting in your diet might also cause a diminished effect on your vision. Your eyes, just like any other part of your body will really benefit from a healthy lifestyle where you get the right amount of vitamins and minerals in your diet. If you are not getting these vitamins and minerals, then your eyesight will deteriorate much faster.

Eye Exercises for Nearsightedness

Here is a range of different exercises to combat nearsightedness. Make sure that you do these tasks every day to get the maximum benefit from them. And don’t forget, you want to complete each exercise fully before moving on to the next and you’ll also want to ensure that you can complete the entire eye regime without being interrupted.

Eye-Finger Exercise

This exercise will help you to focus on objects that are far away from you. You’ll need to stand in the middle of the room and keep your back straight. Face a picture on the wall and hold your index finger a couple of inches away from your nose. Focus on your fingertip and ensure that your eyes are fully focused before moving on to the next step.

Now you should quickly move your vision to the picture of the wall. At first the image will be distorted. Keep looking until your eyes have correctly focused on the picture. As you get better at it, increase the distance between yourself and the image.

Focus Exercise

For this exercise you’ll need to be sitting down and you will also need a pencil. Hold the pencil about six inches away from the tip of your nose. Don’t stare at the pencil, instead quickly glance at it and then change your vision to an object which is on the opposite side of the room. Do this for a few seconds and then go back to the pencil for a few seconds.

Repeat this process 10 times and do it every day. As your eyesight starts to get better, start focusing on objects that are further away from you.

Another Pencil Exercise

Here you’ll again need to be sitting down. This time, hold the pencil away from your eyes until it gets to the point where it starts to double in your vision. Hold it just before this point. Imagine that there is a transparent tic-tac-toe board just in front of you.

Now move the pencil and touch each of the imaginary squares and bring the pencil back to the original position. As you’re moving the pencil, make sure that you track its movement with your eyes.

Again, perform this exercise at least once a day and you should start to notice a gradual improvement in your vision.

Room Scanning

Find a comfortable chair to sit in and make sure that you sit somewhere where there are a lot of objects to look at. Maybe this could be in your living room or your garden. Now start at one side and slowly scan everything in the room. Look at each object in great detail, make sure that you outline the entire object, then move on to the next one.

For this exercise to work, you will want to look at things in a slow and steady motion. This will help you to focus on things that are both close to your and far away from you.

Benefits of Eye Exercises

If you stick to these exercises you should start to notice the benefits quite quickly. If you want to further improve you vision, you can add more eye exercises to your repertoire. Also, it’s a good idea to start taking vision-enhancing vitamins to further improve your nearsightedness.