Bridget's exercises for better sight, without glasses

Anyhow, a few of you wanted to hear about Bridget’s eye exercises.  They reminded me of my mother, actually, as Mum used to try all these natural methods for improving eyesight.  She’d walk around wearing pin-hole glasses (she bought me a pair too but they just gave me headaches) and she spent hours staring at a Tibetan eye chart (she bought me one of those too but I admit I got bored and stopped staring.)

And then I got to thinking about how my brother used to stare at the sun every day, at sunrise, because he said it would improve his eyesight.  My family, eh? 

Meanwhile, back to Bridget.  ‘It’s a real pity that we wear glasses or contact lenses,’ she said.  ‘Putting glass in front of your eyes disturbs the light rays coming into your eyes.  We are all depleting ourselves of sunlight and yet the whole body is affected by the amount of you light you get into the body – both through the skin and through the eyes.  We need to use our eyes more intelligently.’

She went on to talk about how, when we develop our sight, we open ourselves to another level of creation.  ‘We talk about God being light, so by bathing in sunlight we are sitting in God. We can create consciousness through light.’ 

She also talked about how, in Russia, they are experimenting with getting certain sensitive people to develop the ability to see with their eyes shut.  Intriguing, huh? 

But that’s probably beyond what will interest most of you?  So let’s cut to the chase.  These are the things she reckons will help you see without glasses.

Eyes deteriorate because our bloodstream is toxic so you probably need to cleanse your body.  Dump the coffee and alcohol and meat and heavy dairy. 

Sunrise and sunset are healers to the eyes:  look at the sunrise for a few seconds to begin with, and add a few seconds each day (yup, just like my brother).  Obviously you don’t do this with the full sun.  

Splash your eyes with water during the day.

Don't wear sunglasses. 

Shift your perspective.  Look at your thumb – focus on the thumb print.  Then switch your gaze to somewhere in the middle distance and then the far distance.  Move between the two (this was one of my Mum’s exercises too).   If you’re outside, you can do this by looking at the veins on a leaf, the petal on a flower – and then switch to a distant vista.

Next up, eye rotations (another one of Mum’s) –  imagine you are following a clock so start at…well, wherever you like really – for some reason I always start at quarter to…and then go round.  Then after a few cycles turn back time by going the other way.

Palming.  Anyone who’s done a yoga class will be familiar with this.  You rub the palms of your hands together really fast until you build up warmth through friction.  Then place them over your eyes and open your eyes.

Last up…one my mother didn’t do.  Get a bowl of cold water that’s deep enough to dunk your whole face.  Breathe in and down you go, with eyes open.  Now, staying under the water, use the yoga lock, uddiyana bandha, contracting and releasing your abdominal muscles for as long as you can.  Bridget does it 100 times.  You might manage three!   If you don’t know how to do uddiyana bandha this link gives pretty good instructions.  I wrote about it somewhere else on the blog but can’t for the life of me find it. 

Why does this work?  Does it work?  I have absolutely no idea.  But I guess it’s worth a try.  If nothing else, uddiyana bandha is a great exercise (and supposedly trims the abdominal area, so even if you don’t get to chuck out your glasses, you could get a flatter tum).