3. Neck Stretches

The Idea: Straining to see can lead to tension in the neck and upper back. Tension in the neck and upper back can lead to problems in one's vision, causing the eyes to strain. These stresses on the eyes and the neck feed each other in a vicious cycle. This cycle can be broken by relaxing the neck muscles. Three exercises are given below.

Set Up: These exercises can be done sitting on the floor, in a chair, or standing. You can do them as part of an eye exercise routine or in a public place—such as sitting on a train or while waiting in line. You can even do them right now.

A. Neck Side Stretch

• Step 1: With your left arm at your side, reach down through the arm, stretching the fingers and sliding the shoulder blade down the back. If seated, you can vary this by gripping the edge of the chair or, by placing the left hand, palm-down, under the left sit bone, fingers pointed to the right.

• Step 2: Relax your head to the right, lengthening the muscles on the left side of the neck. Relax your right shoulder away from the ear.

• Step 3: Reach your right hand up and over the head, wrapping the fingers across your left temple. Take care not to yank on your head—the right arm is just adding a little weight to the head to increase the stretch.

• Step 4: Hold this pose for 5 deep breaths. Shift the gaze of the eyes to the right to intensify the stretch.

• Step 5: Slide the right hand to the right cheek, pushing the head back up to center with the palm.

• Step 6: Repeats Steps 1-5 on the other side.

B. Neck Diagonal Stretch

• Step 1: Bring the arms behind the back, hands down by hips.

• Step 2: Grab the left wrist with the right hand, pulling the left arm down.

• Step 3: Turn the head 45º to the right, then let the chin drop to the chest.

• Step 4: Hold this pose for 5 deep breaths. Shift the gaze of the eyes to the right to intensify the stretch.

• Step 5: Tilt the head back up and bring it back to center, releasing the arms.

• Step 6: Repeats Steps 1-5 on the other side.

C. Neck Down Stretch

• Step 1: Interlace your fingers behind your head.

• Step 2: Inhale, lifting the chest, lengthening the spine up.

• Step 3: Keeping the spine erect, exhale the chin to the chest.

• Step 4: Use the hands to gently lengthen the neck out, taking care not to yank the head down—the arms just add a little weight to the head to increase the stretch.

• Step 5: Hold this pose for 5 deep breaths.

• Step 6: Slide the palms around to the forehead. Use the hands to help the head back up.

Testimonial: I developed neck problems at the age of 7. I suffered from occasional muscle spasms along the right side of my neck that knocked me out of commission for 2 days at a time. I would wake up in so much pain that I could not get out of bed. After practicing these neck stretches regularly, the spasms and the pain vanished.

More Info: The above stretches came from a mix of sources...

• A chiropractor named Rehana Hamid taught me the original neck stretches that freed me from chronic neck pain. Her office is located in Narberth, PA.

• Ana Forrest developed her own yoga style that pays special attention to the neck by helping it stretch while avoiding strain. Ana has released some DVDs and a 10-CD set with a comprehensive book.

• I'll be posting more exercises for the neck and back in the coming weeks!

2. Reading

The Idea: Myopia (nearsightedness) has been linked with literate cultures.¹ The more we read, the greater the tendency for us to become myopic. This doesn’t need to be—many of us read a lot without harming our vision. There are things that we can all do make reading a more relaxing experience for the eyes.

How To:

• When reading a book, look up from the page once every 2 minutes. You can do this when turning the page. Look around the room. If the room has windows, look outside into the distance as well.

• While working at the computer, look away from the screen every 2 minutes—in fact, do this right now. Look around the room and out the window. Take breaks from sitting at the computer every 20 minutes, getting up and doing something else before sitting back down. (I just took a break from writing these words to go and make some tea!)

• Sit up straight while reading, relaxing the neck, shoulders, and eyes. Avoid collapsing the abdomen and lower back. Breathe deeply. Are you breathing as you read this?

Testimonial: I had this tech-savvy friend who'd graduated from M.I.T. and worked with computers all day long. He set his computer to sound a little chime every 2 minutes as a signal for him to look away from his screen. Every 20 minutes another alert signaled him to get up and walk around his desk, maybe going and grabbing a snack, getting a drink of water, having a conversation with a co-worker, etc. He spent many hours a day in front of a computer screen, yet maintained his eyesight.

More Info

• ¹ Thomas R. Quackenbush’s textbook Relearning to See (North Atlantic Books, 1997) has an entire chapter on reading.
• Quackenbush references much of the work done by Dr. William H. Bates, quoting entire pages from Bates’ seminal work Better Eyesight Without Glasses (Jove/HBJ Books, 1978).

• Meir Schneider recommends these practices in his audiobook, Meir Schneider’s Miracle Eyesight Method (published by Sounds True, 1996). Here’s a video of Schneider discussing this and some other aspects of developing relaxed vision habits:

• There's a lot more on developing better vision habits around reading. I'll by including more in a future post.

1. Sunning

The Idea: Photophobia (literally “fear of light”) is the eyes’ inability to deal with bright light and fluctuations in lighting (like going from a brightly lit space to a dark space or vice-versa). While mainstream western optometry recommends the aversionary tactics of "avoiding sunlight, closing the eyes, wearing dark glasses, or darkening the room" as temporary home remedies to photophobia, a more holistic method of self-healing is described here based on building up tolerance to sunlight rather than evading it.

Set Up: As the name implies, Sunning is best done using the sun, though a flood lamp or bright incandescent bulb can also be used.

How To:
• Step 1: Stand in a spot directly facing the sun, preferably in mid-morning of late afternoon when the sun is not too high in the sky, (this s to avoid neck strain). If using an electric light, place the lamp about 5 feet in front of you with the bulb a few inches above the height of the eyes.

• Step 2: Close the eyes and look at the sun. You will see sunlight in both eyes. Keeping the eyes closed, shift your weight to your left foot and swing your head gently to the left so that sunlight is visible only in the right eye. Next, shift your weight to your right foot, coming back though center, and then swinging your head gently to the right so that sunlight is visible only in the left eye. Keep moving the head slowly from side to side with the weight of the body, breathing deeply and relaxing facial muscles, shoulders, and the rest of the body. Do this for 2 to 10 minutes.

• Step 3: Turn around, facing away from the sun. Look around. What do you see?

• Step 4: Repeat Steps 1 through 3. Do you see things differently after Sunning a second time?

What’s Going On: Several things are happening through the practice of Sunning.

• First, as the head moves from side to side, the pupils are taking turns dilating and contracting. This regulates the shape of the pupils and exercises the eyes’ ability to do adjust to light and darkness.

• Second, the cone cells in the retina are also stimulated, sharpening central vision, day vision and color vision.

• Third, the sun’s heat warms the muscles and blood vessels around the eyes. This improves the flow of oxygen to the eyes, as well as the ability of the eye muscles to regulate eye movement and focal abilities.

Testimonial: I suffered from intense photophobia for over a decade and wore dark glasses most of the time—outside during the day, whether the sun was out or not, and even inside if a space was brightly lit. One summer I threw away my sunglasses and went on a cross-country trip where I practiced a battery of eye exercises called “The Bates Method,” Sunning being my favorite. Each time I Sunned I noticed an immediate temporary improvement in my vision with a gradual lasting improvement with regular practice. After two months I didn’t need my sunglasses anymore and other aspects of my vision had also improved.

More Info:

• Many people who practice and teach Sunning cite Dr. William H. Bates as its originator, though humans and other animals have used the sun both intentionally and instinctually long before Bates’ recommendation of “closed-eyelids sunning” in the 1920s.

• Meir Schneider’s Miracle Eyesight Method audiobook (published by Sounds True, 1996) gives an excellent follow-along tutorial on Sunning.

• Thomas R. Quackenbush’s paraphrasal of Bates is also a good one in his textbook Relearning to See (North Atlantic Books, 1997, pp. 229-231), appearing alongside his brief description of syntonics, or “healing with light.”

• I first learned Sunning from an awesome natural vision therapist named Rosemary Gordon. If you're ever in New England, pay her a visit!

31 Eyes: A Month of Exercises for You to Try

Every January a bunch of people resign themselves to do something fun and creative every day for a month. Many of these things take shape as artworks, songs, videos or public stunts that may or may not involve dental floss, piggyback rides and taking liberties with other people's lips. Many venture onto a more personal track of meditative journaling or New-Year's-resolution-inspired physical fitness regimens.

In past years I've made 31 little comic books, taken 31 photos of myself trying to touch my toes, documented 31 vegan recipes and card games, divulged 31 secret crushes, penned 31 letters to my grandma, recorded 31 dreams or analyzed the dreams of 31 other dreamers. All of these efforts proved fun for me and at least a few more people, yet I always felt that there was some self-indulgence in them—like if I were to put 31 little bursts of creativity out into the world, they ought to be helping humanity in a bigger, better way than just saying, "Your anxiety about gentrification is manifested as a technicolor giraffe."

This year I wrestled with what to do. Writing, laying out, photocopying and collating a Zine-A-Day seemed a little daunting. Authoring-the-Great-American-Novel-A-Day ranked up there with Flogging-A-Dead-Horse-A-Day as far as scruples were concerned. And I decided to save Yoga-Pose-In-Public-A-Day for some year when I'm in a land where January=summer.

Then this idea smacked me upside the head: I've been practicing Natural Vision Therapy techniques for more than a decade, spurred on by a degenerative retinal disease that I inherited from my pops. These "eye exercises" (though many are simply good habits for relaxing the eyes, the brain, and the rest of the body) have helped me stabilize and improve my vision.

A lot of friends have approached me wanting to know more about this work, and I've given people personal tutorials. There are books on the subject, but many of them are dense tomes filled with polysyllabic medical terminology, ranty nutjob discourse, and woo-woo new age flair that some folks find a tad daunting. My job has been, for the past decade, to decipher the lingo, visit all sorts of quacky opto-docs, and wade through decathlons of woo to get to the nitty-gritty of the work—the stuff we can all do to stop eyesight for getting worse, maybe even makingit better.

And so, dear reader, I'll be posting something that you can do every day to better your vision during the month of January (and yeah, there is this irony of putting on this stab-you-in-the-retina place called the Internet). Come February, these tidbits will be compiled into a publication available at the Philadelphia Fun-A-Day exhibition. Beyond that, these exercises are here for you to use throughout the year—try them and see how you feel!

Top image: "Vision Quest" 5-color silkscreen print by fellow visual self-healer Bec Young. See more of her prints at Justseeds.org.