Breathe!

There are several ways in which you can take care of your eyes. Of course you can do any sort of eye fitness exercises (but remember that the Bates method is NOT a matter of exercises). But there are a lot of normal activities that support and improve the function of our eyes in a direct or indirect way.

Breathing, and breathing in a deeper way, is a good starting point. Breath brings more energy to your eyes, more blood and oxygen. Therefore, any kind of aerobic activity is welcome. Moreover, many physical activities help to stimulate the body coordination and the sense of your position in space, something that people with eye problems tend to sacrifice. Table tennis and playing ball with your grand children (or with your grand pa, if you have one) will train your eyes to follow fast moving objects (both the ball and your grand children), something that you may unconsciously try to avoid in your normal life (and which is necessary for the well being of your eyes).

Body movement can help you also with shyness, if you suffer from it. What about dancing, for a sample?
Anything that has to do with expression (expressing emotions, particularly) should be welcome, like acting, mime, singing, etc. That will bring sparkles to your eyes, breath and more good things.

But avoid stress! This is the trick: to do things, to come out, and still taking it easy.
The same goes for the use of glasses: experiment being without glasses as often as you can, avoiding stress, of course. That will require a lot of awareness about your anxieties, and a loving care for yourself.

Love!

Loving and caring for yourself, by the way, is something really basical. Get a big mirror and look at yourself in all details. Try new expressions, change your hair style, make up, dresses, etc. Don't worry, you will never become a Narcissus; on the contrary you probably tend to have a derogatory attitude towards yourself: you think bad of your aspect and you don’t want to look at yourself.

So, be brave, get a mirror, get acquainted with yourself, and, if you happen to fall in love with yourself, what’s wrong with that?

Are you interested in visual arts? Picture, sculpture, photography and every other kind of arts are fantastic in helping you to have a more flexible, rich way of looking at things.

You can also see it from this point of view: if you are short sighted all this kind of things may help you to go beyond your narrow borders, overcome your shyness, bring thrill and pleasure into your life.

If you are far sighted, the same things may help you to relax, to escape the too rigidly goal oriented pattern of your life.

Next, fall in love! No matter how old or ugly you feel, or how scared of being wounded by denials, do it! That will help you to dance, sing, look into mirrors, express and breath... all the right things, all at once!

Food & journals

Let's talk now about food.
Yes, if you eat vegetarian, macrobiotic, Mediterranean etc. you have better possibilities. Little fat, little sugar, no meats, lots of vegetables, fruit, whole cereals etc. etc.: you know it already. What you probably don't know is that fasting, if done well, can bring faster changes into your eyes: cataracts are healed, for a sample, old age farsightedness easily reversed etc.. If you ever decide for it, choose a good group, a trainer and a place that you like and make sure that everything is all right, that you don't bring worries with you, to feed on (don’t bring work with you, don’t even bring your husband/ wife/ children etc).

Therapies. Many therapies can be helpful: any kind of massage, like shiatsu, rebalancing, cranio-sacral, foot reflexology, biodinamic etc.is OK; body therapies like bioenergetics, feldenkrais, dance therapy, yoga; sophisticated treatments like MORA, Tomatis, colourpuncture; body oriented psychotherapies like bioenergetics, gestalt, organismic; NLP and Hypnosis; meditations, especially darkness meditation., mandala meditation., and all the dynamic meditation techniques: all these things are great..

A powerful tool you may choose to adopt is this one: collect in a folder or in a note-book everything that come to your mind, memories or dreams or whatever, concerning your eyes and your vision. Add also magazine clippings, pictures, anything that attracts your attention and/ or excite your imagination as long as it is even faintly related to eyes or vision in general. Allow yourself to fantasize and ponder about this material, make hypotheses and write them down, make experiments and write down the results. Your awareness and understanding of the whole thing will grow at a steady rate, specially if you exchange ideas with other people concerned with their eyes. Take it like a hobby, a long term hobby, and it will pay back.

Pinhole glasses

Yes, pinhole glasses could help a lot in changing the way you use your eyes. Particularly when you want to get rid of the habit of Staring. They force your eyes to move from one detail to the next one. Also your head must move a bit: that will help to relieve all those problems with sore necks that you may know too well.

But it takes some patience: in the beginning you may see multiple things or letters. That comes from old habits: you are trying to see through several holes in the same time and to see all of them equally sharp (lack of centralization....). But the more you help your eyes to do tiny movements in order to see, the more that habit (and the multiple vision) will disappear

A conclusion

All these suggestions are not to be taken toooo seriously. They are just a reminder, a help to choose. You can also choose to ignore them, and find your own way. Either ways, you have my blessing. Coming in touch with one's eyes and becoming aware of one's way of seeing is a very individual task that can be pursued in several individually different ways, with absolutely individual choice of time and means.

Still, allow me at least one final advice: be patient and be playful, take it easy!

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