5 Exercises To Prevent Eye Strain

From improved vision to increased attention and spiritual understanding, regular yoga will keep your vision fresh and protect you from strain, says yogini and wellness entrepreneur Ira Trivedi.

In the last two years, the number of employees working from home has skyrocketed around the world.

This new way of working has led to more of us spending long periods of time staring at screens with minimal breaks.

We are also less likely to have the proper working from home setup to protect our vision from digital devices, making us more susceptible to common eye problems like eye strain and fatigue.

Eye yoga is a great way to overcome this strain resulting from too much screen time.

Practicing eye yoga daily will help you in a variety of ways -- from improved vision to increased attention and spiritual understanding.

Regular exercises will keep your vision fresh and brilliant by protecting it from the strains of light, tension, and other environmental circumstances.

Here are five eye exercises you may do at home to lessen eye strain and fatigue.

1. Bhramari Pranayama

How to do it

• Sit up straight in a comfortable, relaxed posture.
• Sealing the ears with your index fingers, raise the elbows slightly out on either side.
• Inhale and exhale deeply while humming loudly as if emulating a bee.

2. Blinking and Cupping

How to do it

• Rub the palms together until you feel them warm up.
• Cup the eyes by placing the base of the palms over the eyes for ten seconds.
• Remove the palms.
• Blink as you look up, down, left, right and forward. Blink 10 times in each direction. This is one round.
• Repeat twice.

3. Eye movements

How to do it

• Sit up straight in a comfortable, relaxed posture.
• Keeping the spine straight, look up towards the ceiling and blink. Look at your nose, blink. Look to the left, blink. Look to the right, blink. This is one round.
• Roll the eyes clockwise, blink. Roll the eyes anti-clockwise, blink.
• Cup the eyes gently with the hands.

4. Eye movements with hand movements

How to do it

• Sit up straight in a comfortable, relaxed posture.
• Extend both the arms out straight in front of you with your hands in a thumbs-up position.
• Direct the gaze toward the thumb as you move the arm to the right till it is in line with the shoulder.
• Bring the arm back to centre.
• Repeat with the left arm.

5. Trataka

How to do it

• Sit up straight in a comfortable, relaxed posture.
• Place an object, preferably a candle, two feet away from you.
• Continue breathing and focus the gaze on the object without blinking for as long as possible until the eyes begin to water.

These eye exercises can be done anywhere as part of your eye care routine to help relax your eye muscles after a long period of time staring at a screen.

They can be especially beneficial for soothing fatigued eyes during the workday.