The eye exercises for students working online by Dr. Rukaiya Mithaiwala Physiotherapist
Due to the current scenario, children are spending more time in front ofscreens. Studies, leisure activities, entertainment, all of it are through the screen. It’s therefore no surprise that the children are getting more tired, lethargic and moody. All this screen time can take a toll on their eye health. Staring at the screen for long periods of time can lead to dry eyes, fatigue of eye muscles and blurry vision, back and neck pain, headaches.
Here are a few exercises we can do to prevent
these adverse effects:
1.
Palming exercise
Cup your eyes
with the palm of your hands and make sure no light gets in. Take deep breaths
and visualise relaxing scenes like walking in the park, etc. Continue for 1-2
minutes and feel your eyes relaxing.
2.
Eye stretches
This helps to
increase the circulation to your eyes by helping to stretch our extra-ocular
muscles.
Look straight
and with your eyes look all the way up. Count to 2 and then look all the way
down and count to 2.
Then look to
the extreme left. Repeat the counts and then look to the extreme right and
count again.
3.
Blinking
One of the
adverse side effects of looking at screens all day is that we don't blink very
often. Look straight at a blank wall. Then, slowly close your eyes. Keep your
eyes closed for half a second. Then slowly open them again. Repeat this blink
20 times in a row. You will feel your eyes getting refreshed with each blink.
Your eyes will also feel more lubricated.
4.
Switching from near to far
focus
Focus on the
thumb at arm’s length from your face for 15 seconds. Find another object 10-20
feet away and focus on it for 15 seconds. Then shift your focus back to the
thumb. Repeat 5 times.
5.
Clock on the wall
Imagine a
clock on a blank wall. Give different timings and move the eyes according to
where the hands of the clock would be at that time.
6.
Eye mazes
You can draw
easy mazes like the one shown below and instead of using a pen, use the eyes to
follow the path of the maze. Race through the maze as many times as you can in
one minute.
7.
Peripheral vision
Shown below
is a fun activity to expand the peripheral vision.
Begin by
starting at the central dot. While keep the gaze fixed on the dot in the
centre, read the words in the circle.
Letter
scanning in a newspaper or magazine. Look for a particular alphabet and circle
it.
Magazine
maze: take a page from a magazine or newspaper and go from the bottom to the
top of the page with a pencil without touching any word or picture
Picture
puzzles, spot the difference, drawing
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