How to keep your vision fit

"Smile behind the eyes, feel loose and easy. Let yourself be happy in doing your drills." -GARNET MCGAVIN

Many times we have been asked to organise or plot a plan of procedure for people who have no skilled instructor while training their eyes. The following is a daily schedule.

MORNING DRILLS
As you lie in bed coming alive on awakening, your muscles are flaccid, your breathing slow and your heart not worked up to rapid action. Many persons are more tense in their sleeping -than in their waking hours. These drills will loosen tensions, speed circulation and start your day right.

BODY DRILLS
1. Stretch. To loosen tight tendons and muscles cramped from over-heavy sleeping, stretch gently as if elastic, every atom of you in every direction, all the voluntary muscles of the body. No animal willingly leaps from sound sleep into action without, first, a good stretch.
2. Yawn wide like a hippopotamus, dropping your, chin, taking your head away from it and coming back to get it again. This loosens the lungs for deep breathing. There is nothing more effective than a yawn. Watch a dog or baby to perfect your skill.
3. Wiggle like a fish. Visualise the vertebral activity of a fish as it swims through the water. Try to imitate It by wriggling your own spine from the base of the skull skull down to the very last vertebra. Now your body is free.

OABIT DRILLS
These involve the nerves and muscles surrounding the eyes :

1. Brow Wangling: People with strained eyes often the heaviness of the brows and. upper lids to encroach upon the movements of the eyeball, even without realising it, hence causing greater strain. So loosen the facial muscles, particularly those about your Elevate both brows in surprise. Get the weight those heavy brows off the burdened eyes. Holding brow up, pull down the other. Alternate. You find this quite difficult, at first, but a little practice bring success. This divorces the brows from the lid. Some persons actually blink with their entire cads. Do this drill three or four times.

Blinking: With the weight of the brows off the, do ten quick little butterfly blinks, not tight hard where the finger is, as the finger and the face pass other. Now open your eyes and- continue the finger will seem to move toward one ear, toward the other, with gentle rhythmic motion not focus on the finger as it goes by but let your on, directed by your nose, sweep across the ceiling continue this swing at least 20 or 30 times, alternately, then open, until the eyes feel loose and easy and until motion really seems to take place. The eyes in their many-times-per-second shift the day. Remember, the shift is something involuntary that is done by the eyes, not something we do to eyes. You will not feel the shift; if your finger, that is your guarantee that the shift is taking simple as this swings seems, it has been known to P or prevent headaches and can be done to good an stage any time during the day while sitting or ding. Be sure that the head is pivoted directly the spine, It is a twister of the neck, not a neck a relaxer, not an exercise. use it as a first aid tension relaxation) while lying on your back, palm your closed eyes, Ping up your elbows on an extra pillow, so that from your clover and without breaking the flowing line, travel over all the loops in rhythmic succession, the upright and the reclining.

3. Progressive: All of us have stood at the fountain pen counter to try out a penpoint. The usual marks we make are loops, a progressive series of connected such as we used to practise in penmanship. Draw these loops with your crayon-nose. Did you start your series of at the top or the base? Whichever way you did, reverse it and repeat 'another long series.
All this may seem imaginative and far-fetched but it is scientifically sound, because whenever the mind a shape or motion and the body does it, the eyes begin their vibrations and better vision results. These drills loosen any tensions that may be at the base of the skull, the seat of all tension, where the most delicate nerves, the medulla, reside. They act as a mild exercise to these nerves, soothing and relaxing them, and thus improving all the special senses of the body. Whenever in need of relaxation, do a lot-of nose drawing. You can think of other things you would like to write or draw.

THE FINGER SWING
This swing was devised by Dr. Bates as a first step in breaking tension.
As you are still reclining in bed, close your eyes, put your index finger a short distance in front of your nose. Turn your head from side to side on the pillow, imaginary there will be no strain or effort. Indulge in your favourite mental picture or mental drill for five or ten minutes. This will start the eyes on their day's work in a relaxed condition. When a relaxed eye is closed, it automatically assumes a downward position. This is true of relaxed sleeping.

THE ELEPHANT SWING
On arising, do your Elephant Swing zoo times. Be sure to get the feeling that the world is slipping back and forth from side to side. If a sunny window permits you to do this swing in the sunshine, you can give your eyes a sun-bath at the same time.