Heatwise Explores: Alleviating Eye Strain

With the increase of screen usage, it’s common to feel an increased strain in various parts of the body like your neck, head, and of course, your eyes. Our friends at Yinova have gathered together helpful tips for alleviating eye strain.

PLACE YOUR HANDS OVER YOUR EYES

Jessa Zinn, Yinova’s Structural Integrationist, recommends rubbing your (clean) hands together until they’re warm and then gently placing them over your eyes as if you were trying to cup them. The warmth from your palms will radiate and bring an instantaneous calming sensation to your eyes. I’ve found it helpful to add this to my meditation practice as well.

HERE’S THE TEA

Yinova practitioner, Dr. Daryl Thuroff, gave some advice on how to use certain tea bags to help take some irritation away.

Chrysanthemum and Chamomile are both known to cool the liver, which is the organ associated with the eyes from a Chinese medicine perspective. In order to use them to relieve strained eyes, place the tea bags in a cup of hot water (steep for 5-7 minutes so that you can have a strong enough tea to enjoy afterward) and then let the bags cool. Once they’re cool enough, get in a comfortable position and place the tea bags on your eyes. (If you would rather not have tea bags resting on your face, you could also wet a washcloth with the tea.)

If your eyes are feeling particularly dry, it would be best to keep either the tea bags or the washcloth on the warmer side. If your eyes are feeling itchy, getting the items cold before applying to the eyes would be ideal.

In addition to this, they’ve shared a tea recipe that uses rose petals to help relieve your eyes after a long day of staring at a screen.

What you’ll need:

• 2 whole cloves (preferably toasted)
• 1 tsp of chopped fresh mint leaves
• 1 tsp dried rose petals
• a dash of salt

Combine all ingredients in a tea strainer of your choice, and let steep in boiling water for 5-7 minutes, and drink up!

GIVE YOURSELF AN EYE MASSAGE

Here are steps for an eye massage that can be helpful for when you start to experience puffiness or dark circles around the eyes:

• Use your ring finger, as well as having specific Chinese medicine properties, the ring finger is the weakest finger and is the most appropriate to use on the delicate skin of the eyes.
• Start on the inner edge of your eyebrow bone, then move to the center of the eyebrow, and then to the outer edge (applying light pressure in a circular motion).
• Then move to under the eye and press gently on the inner corner of the eyes, then move to the middle of the eye on the cheekbone, and then the outer edge of the eye- applying the same light pressure in a circular motion.
• Do this 3 times in a row and then sit with your eyes closed- you should feel a slight tingle around your eyes. This means the circulation is increased and will help to eliminate the puffiness and dark circles.

THE 20/20/20 RULE

A simple exercise you can do is called the 20/20/20 rule. This is helpful to do in order to prevent strained eyes. It goes: Every 20 minutes, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

When your eyes focus on the same thing at the same distance for too long, they start to feel tight and strained.

They also recommend giving your neck attention. If you’ve noticed an increase in neck stiffness with the increase of screen time, it’s because your eye muscles and your neck muscles are connected. When one gets too strained, the other feels it too. The best exercise for this is to close your eyes and roll your head in a circle.

This article was originally posted on the Yinova Center’s Blog. You can learn more about Yinova and their approach to healing by heading to their website.

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